The negativity might be warranted if they had encouraged other people to follow, or if they were trying to DIY-vaccinate others.
But that's not what happened here. These are two capable adults experimenting strictly on themselves and being transparent about it. That deserves respect. You might think "that seems like a stupid risk, I would never do that", and that's a fine take. But don't judge.
Where's the "hacker" in hacker news if everyone immediately reaches for admonishment and appeals to authority.
A lot of people in these comments overestimate how clean and linear and officially-sanctioned scientific progress is, especially in biomed.
In the 1980s, an Australian doctor suspected that ulcers are caused by a specific kind of bacterial infection. At the time, the medical consensus was that ulcers came from stress and diet. His ideas and evidence were ignored. So he drank a beaker of H. pylorii culture, got an endoscopy before and two weeks later, and demonstrated convincingly that he'd given himself ulcers this way.
My thoughts exactly. The level of contempt and tribe-bashing ("screw these rationalists who think they're smarter than us!") in this thread is depressing.
But that's not what happened here. These are two capable adults experimenting strictly on themselves and being transparent about it. That deserves respect. You might think "that seems like a stupid risk, I would never do that", and that's a fine take. But don't judge.
Where's the "hacker" in hacker news if everyone immediately reaches for admonishment and appeals to authority.
A lot of people in these comments overestimate how clean and linear and officially-sanctioned scientific progress is, especially in biomed.
In the 1980s, an Australian doctor suspected that ulcers are caused by a specific kind of bacterial infection. At the time, the medical consensus was that ulcers came from stress and diet. His ideas and evidence were ignored. So he drank a beaker of H. pylorii culture, got an endoscopy before and two weeks later, and demonstrated convincingly that he'd given himself ulcers this way.
He ended up winning a Nobel prize.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall