Same experience here with nurses. All of whom are licensed, experienced professionals as well

Oh let's not get into engineer v. Engineer battles!

The comedy of a doctor (with a tag!) on the TA R/P forum denigrating non-doctor opinions as unworthy of respect, is great, relative to Fauci-Flu in 2022. Thx very much all, this has been entertaining.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Howdy Dammit said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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AGC said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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diehard03 said:

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It's cool man. Thanks for the correction. It's not like I have been doing this for over a decade before covid hit or anything.

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Im with you overall, but i think bears mentioning that the powers that be have put on a masterclass on how not to communicate in this situation. When you present yourself as an expert and use condescension as a tool, you lose the ability backtrack when the science leads you in another direction.

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We are experts. Even when we end up being wrong, our wrong is based on tons of similar experience combined with all the most current information. When the most current information changes, then we update our opinions making them less wrong. That's how this works. We only know when we're wrong when new information proves it.

Compare that to a layperson. They can pretty much say anything with no evidence or experience and end up being right eventually. Even broken clocks are right twice a day. But it's not like we're going to take Joe Blow's unfounded opinion seriously even if he eventually ends up being correct.

I'm not always right, and no doctor or part of our medical system is. But my wrong opinion is better informed and judged than any layperson's accidentally correct opinion

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Wow. That's a whole new level of arrogance. Does this mean lay people with different opinions don't have friends that are doctors that they rely on? Are their doctor friends not as smart as you and yours? Is statistical analysis, data collection, and experimentation something exclusive to the medical field that no one else can grasp and analyze? Is a lay person not smart enough to read literature and historical studies to derive an informed opinion? Are you ok with doctors of a different opinion talking this condescendingly to your lay friends?

Edit: if your wrong opinion hurts a lot of people with policy implications does any of that matter? This torbush level wow.

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Correct. I have absolutely zero stock in the opinion of any layperson, no matter how educated or researched. I regularly make decisions and direct teams were the outcome is life and death. If you don't, then I don't care what you think.

The closest equivalent is an military officer in the middle of a conflict. Not a single one is going to start letting a civilian plan their operations, strategy and tactics, no matter how much independent research they've done. Any soldier would trust that officer over any civilian at every single point, and rightly so.

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As an engineer, I need to start referring to the non engineer peasants in my life as laypersons or civilians. I know far more about everything there is to know about structures regardless of anyone else's education and experience.

Did I do it right?

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Dear goodness I hope you're not deferring to laypeople or searching the internet when engineering structures.

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Obviously my post was in jest. But the larger point remains that

1) I have taken many recommendations from people without P.E. behind their name
2) I do not believe that my degree gives me superior speaking power on engineering topics. I skipped tons of class and self taught myself via the internet for more classes than I'd care to admit. Who's to say others can't do that if interested.
3) there are tons of disciplines within engineering, and I am not qualified to speak on what some chemical engineer is working on. Feel like it is the same within the medical field. Just because you are in the overall field doesn't make you qualified to speak on all aspects of the field.

Howdy Dammit said:

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BlackGoldAg2011 said:

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Howdy Dammit said:

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As an engineer, I need to start referring to the non engineer peasants in my life as laypersons or civilians. I know far more about everything there is to know about structures regardless of anyone else's education and experience.

Did I do it right?

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if you weren't already believing this, I don't believe you are actually an engineer.




*I say as a Licensed PE

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As a licensed PE, I have dealt with numerous contractors that have made me feel dumb. Not afraid to admit that. Calculations and experience are two very different things. Each year I bring the two closer together. Cheers

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Sure, there is value to be gained from listening to experience, but here we aren't talking about the non licensed but experience medical professional. this would be more akin to you posting your designs on the internet, and a couple of random people chiming in on how they read a few structural articles and your design is terribly wrong. Sure maybe it makes you double check your work, but if you check it (and maybe even get it reviewed by a peer) and it still seems right, you should ignore the internet for being either crazy or stupid (or maybe both)

because yes, I too have been taught a great deal by the experience of guys who have been doing it in the field for a long time, but I have also had to have a number of heated arguments trying to convince the guys that what they are saying entirely violate the laws of physics and fluid dynamics. principles that no number of years building facilities in the field would teach you.


as a half joke, believing you are the smartest in the room doesn't mean believing you can't learn from anyone in the room.

BlackGoldAg2011 said:

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Howdy Dammit said:

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BlackGoldAg2011 said:

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Howdy Dammit said:

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As an engineer, I need to start referring to the non engineer peasants in my life as laypersons or civilians. I know far more about everything there is to know about structures regardless of anyone else's education and experience.

Did I do it right?

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if you weren't already believing this, I don't believe you are actually an engineer.




*I say as a Licensed PE

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As a licensed PE, I have dealt with numerous contractors that have made me feel dumb. Not afraid to admit that. Calculations and experience are two very different things. Each year I bring the two closer together. Cheers

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as a half joke, believing you are the smartest in the room doesn't mean believing you can't learn from anyone in the room.

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I'd have to be in a pretty small room to believe I was the smartest. Haha.

Howdy Dammit said:

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BlackGoldAg2011 said:

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Howdy Dammit said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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AGC said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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diehard03 said:

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Quote:

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It's cool man. Thanks for the correction. It's not like I have been doing this for over a decade before covid hit or anything.

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Im with you overall, but i think bears mentioning that the powers that be have put on a masterclass on how not to communicate in this situation. When you present yourself as an expert and use condescension as a tool, you lose the ability backtrack when the science leads you in another direction.

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We are experts. Even when we end up being wrong, our wrong is based on tons of similar experience combined with all the most current information. When the most current information changes, then we update our opinions making them less wrong. That's how this works. We only know when we're wrong when new information proves it.

Compare that to a layperson. They can pretty much say anything with no evidence or experience and end up being right eventually. Even broken clocks are right twice a day. But it's not like we're going to take Joe Blow's unfounded opinion seriously even if he eventually ends up being correct.

I'm not always right, and no doctor or part of our medical system is. But my wrong opinion is better informed and judged than any layperson's accidentally correct opinion

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Wow. That's a whole new level of arrogance. Does this mean lay people with different opinions don't have friends that are doctors that they rely on? Are their doctor friends not as smart as you and yours? Is statistical analysis, data collection, and experimentation something exclusive to the medical field that no one else can grasp and analyze? Is a lay person not smart enough to read literature and historical studies to derive an informed opinion? Are you ok with doctors of a different opinion talking this condescendingly to your lay friends?

Edit: if your wrong opinion hurts a lot of people with policy implications does any of that matter? This torbush level wow.

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Correct. I have absolutely zero stock in the opinion of any layperson, no matter how educated or researched. I regularly make decisions and direct teams were the outcome is life and death. If you don't, then I don't care what you think.

The closest equivalent is an military officer in the middle of a conflict. Not a single one is going to start letting a civilian plan their operations, strategy and tactics, no matter how much independent research they've done. Any soldier would trust that officer over any civilian at every single point, and rightly so.

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As an engineer, I need to start referring to the non engineer peasants in my life as laypersons or civilians. I know far more about everything there is to know about structures regardless of anyone else's education and experience.

Did I do it right?

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if you weren't already believing this, I don't believe you are actually an engineer.




*I say as a Licensed PE

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As a licensed PE, I have dealt with numerous contractors that have made me feel dumb. Not afraid to admit that. Calculations and experience are two very different things. Each year I bring the two closer together. Cheers

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As a licensed PE myself, I would like to say . . . . that I'm sorta surprised we have 3 PEs on this board.

*4

Re: engineering vs doctor discussion.

Engineering evidence is so freaking different than medical evidence. You can get a much higher degree of certainty in engineering than medicine. I think most of the angst people have about the pandemic is because people have an inappropriately high faith in medicine - they expect it to be like engineering. So when the collective world of medicine reaches the limits of it's ability, rather than saying "man we're doing the best we can" they assume that someone is holding out on them.

Quick and poor / low quality evidence yielding to new research or higher quality evidence becomes flip flopping.

Unjustified certainty that we should have found a cure already rapidly becomes we found a cure and they're hiding it.

Unjustified certainty that we should be able to manufacture unlimited supplies of monoclonal antibodies becomes a political scandal that supplies are being withheld.

kurt vonnegut said:

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Howdy Dammit said:

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As a licensed PE, I have dealt with numerous contractors that have made me feel dumb. Not afraid to admit that. Calculations and experience are two very different things. Each year I bring the two closer together. Cheers

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As a licensed PE myself, I would like to say . . . . that I'm sorta surprised we have 3 PEs on this board.

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Make it 4 5, also surprised

Facts I now know about PE's
1) they are very smart and well-researched
2) they like to argue on the internet
3) they study religion/philosophy
4) they have a lot of free time at work
5) they don't get special tags

We also have a ridiculous advantage in testing. We get to simply go break whatever we can afford to break and see why and when that happens.

You don't get to mad scientist experiment on people. We also have a huge headstart. Euler was developing theories we use today when the medicine at the time suggested bloodletting would be a good idea.

It's fine, we can just say it. Engineers are doing real, valuable work because our work has highly predictable outcomes. Doctors are just glorified guesswork mechanics hiding behind statistics they don't understand.

now you've gone and made them sad

Zobel said:

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It's fine, we can just say it. Engineers are doing real, valuable work because our work has highly predictable outcomes. Doctors are just glorified guesswork mechanics hiding behind statistics they don't understand.

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No argument except that statistics in medicine are more hated than misunderstood

My ol lady is a doctor and it sounds horribly depressing. He also takes a kind of grim satisfaction in continually disabusing any trust I have in medicine ... misery loves company I guess.

Last night he told me that there's no statistical evidence that antibiotics for strep throat actually reduce time to clear symptoms, but there is for steroids. So, whatever, medicine sucks.

Aggrad08 said:

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We also have a ridiculous advantage in testing. We get to simply go break whatever we can afford to break and see why and when that happens.

You don't get to mad scientist experiment on people. We also have a huge headstart. Euler was developing theories we use today when the medicine at the time suggested bloodletting would be a good idea.

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True, but arguably medicine is catching up, thanks to gain of function testing/mengele's of the world. Covid-19 is a prime example.

Aggrad08 said:

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Make it 4 5, also surprised

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Isn't 747Ag an engineer too?

Zobel said:

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It's fine, we can just say it. Engineers are doing real, valuable work because our work has highly predictable outcomes. Doctors are just glorified guesswork mechanics hiding behind statistics they don't understand.

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Kinda like weathermen. The amount of highly educated science and math that goes into something so unpredictable would kill me.

I've lost track of the discussion, but here's some data on the effect I was describing other re: spiking infections after the first dose, which would not have been covered y published 2 dose + 14 day efficacy calculations. I've seen reference to the same effect in Israel and Britain, but don't have data, just talking heads interpreting it.

A confounder could be the timing of big vax rollouts and regional surges, but this is highly concentrated at the front end.

COVID-19 Alberta statistics | alberta.ca

nortex97 said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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We also have a ridiculous advantage in testing. We get to simply go break whatever we can afford to break and see why and when that happens.

You don't get to mad scientist experiment on people. We also have a huge headstart. Euler was developing theories we use today when the medicine at the time suggested bloodletting would be a good idea.

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True, but arguably medicine is catching up, thanks to gain of function testing/mengele's of the world. Covid-19 is a prime example.

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Good freaking grief.

Oh, and Mengele, beyond his absolute evil, was an absolutely TERRIBLE researcher. Exactly none of his "work" has any value.

Sapper Redux said:

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nortex97 said:

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Aggrad08 said:

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We also have a ridiculous advantage in testing. We get to simply go break whatever we can afford to break and see why and when that happens.

You don't get to mad scientist experiment on people. We also have a huge headstart. Euler was developing theories we use today when the medicine at the time suggested bloodletting would be a good idea.

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True, but arguably medicine is catching up, thanks to gain of function testing/mengele's of the world. Covid-19 is a prime example.

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Good freaking grief.

Oh, and Mengele, beyond his absolute evil, was an absolutely TERRIBLE researcher. Exactly none of his "work" has any value.

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The work he did absolutely broke things/people, unfortunately, as have the latter day mengele's. It's interesting to note in the context of this thread that while of course no thinking person would defend Mengele (who was an evil, stupid person, who would nonetheless qualify for a 'doctor' tag today on TA; interestingly enough he studied philosophy in school), about a third of all Nobel's in science and medicine through 1939 were Germans.

Quote:

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...most Nazi medical research was intensely professional; proportionately, more German physicians (48 percent) joined the Nazi party than any other occupation. And Germany was a science powerhouse; through 1939, Germans accounted for more than a third of all Nobel prizes in medicine, chemistry, and physics.

So yes, there's plenty of Nazi-era research that doctors have used and built on ever since. But the data gathered in the concentration camps tended towards the gruesome, unscientific, and fairly useless. Two cases where these experiments did have some clear public-health application, though, involved phosgene gas and hypothermia.

The latter was part of German efforts to save Luftwaffe pilots downed in the North Sea: working at Dachau, SS doctor Sigmund Rascher had prisoners strapped down naked in freezing weather or submerged in ice water for hours at a time; blood, urine, and mucus samples were taken regularly while their body temperature dropped. On one hand, Rascher obtained data that no responsible researcher ever could, and he developed the life-saving hypothermia treatment technique called rapid active rewarming. On the other hand, he killed as many as 90 people to do it.

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I'd respectfully encourage folks who get so emotional at the mere suggestion I provided above to expand their news sources. I don't think the comparisons as between Fauci and Nazi's in the medical research field (human and animals) are entirely off base. Certainly, the popular propaganda both received/procured, and their hatred of any criticism/massive ego's are analogous.

Quote:

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We are experts. Even when we end up being wrong, our wrong is based on tons of similar experience combined with all the most current information. When the most current information changes, then we update our opinions making them less wrong. That's how this works. We only know when we're wrong when new information proves it.

Compare that to a layperson. They can pretty much say anything with no evidence or experience and end up being right eventually. Even broken clocks are right twice a day. But it's not like we're going to take Joe Blow's unfounded opinion seriously even if he eventually ends up being correct.

I'm not always right, and no doctor or part of our medical system is. But my wrong opinion is better informed and judged than any layperson's accidentally correct opinion

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From a communication/change management standpoint, you're part of the problem then.

I fully side with you about not wanting to hear from people who aren't in the arena with you. That's logical to anyone. But the challenge is to present the information in a way that gets people to act safely.

It's pretty silly use "your opinion doesn't matter to me because you don't do my job" when trying to convince people to side with you.

it's not a medical thing. it's a person to person thing.

...isn't this just a sampling artifact? You'd need to combine that with a base rate to see what the total cases is in the population leading up to vaccination. In other words if you converted it to a rate, you'd expect a flat rate up to the point of vaccination, then the rate would decrease sharply after ~14 days from vaccination.

By starting with the vaccinated group you've eliminated the previous plateau. It's not a spike in infections, it's the end of a cliff.

Your definition of "news source" troubles me.

Sapper Redux said:

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Your definition of "news source" troubles me.

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I'm fine with that. Actually, it makes me smile.

Zobel said:

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...isn't this just a sampling artifact? You'd need to combine that with a base rate to see what the total cases is in the population leading up to vaccination. In other words if you converted it to a rate, you'd expect a flat rate up to the point of vaccination, then the rate would decrease sharply after ~14 days from vaccination.

By starting with the vaccinated group you've eliminated the previous plateau. It's not a spike in infections, it's the end of a cliff.

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It is not the end of a cliff. You can change the scale on the Alberta website (neat graphical tool). When you do, you see it ramp up from next to nothing at day 1 post vax to a maximum at day 10-11,

Maybe so. But the CDC at least has been very upfront that they are giving us the best recommendations and guidelines they can based on what we know right now. Everyone is medicine expected these to change frequently as new information became available. We all expected certain things to look like good ideas in one moment and then look like bad ideas later on. That's just how medicine works.

For some reason (*cough*politics*cough), a lot of non-medical people (and a handful of medical people) became emotionally attached to some treatments that looked promising for a minute before they didn't anymore. When the rest of us moved on like a good medical system, they got mad and don't trust us anymore. As far as I'm concerned it's not a problem with the medical field or it's messaging. It's all culture wars and politics spilling over into healthcare thanks to the pandemic