The issue keeps coming up. Perhaps I'm just sensitive to it, since my S.O. is (finally!) getting her B.S. in nursing at a Catholic university ... because she works for a Catholic hospital. And I can't think of a better example of "applied complexity". Here's a recent interview on the Cancer Network:
ONS: Understanding Spirituality and How It Can Be Used to Help Patients http://www.cancernetwork.com/conference-reports/ons2013/content/article/10165/2139629 And here's a recent interview by Sam Harris of Ronald A. Howard: The Straight Path http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-path-of-honesty The irritating question is whether the Truth(TM) is _always_ in the best interests of the organism (not the species, necessarily, but the individual)? Even if I set aside my objections to the existence of a Grand Unified Truth and allow it for the sake of argument, the question retains its meaning and power. What are my responsibilities as I escort my mom into death? Or, were I a nurse, especially at something like a Catholic hospital, what would be my responsibilities as I escorted a Catholic into death? How about a Jew? Or an atheist? The same could be said of children, I suppose. When/how do you explain to your child that there is no Santa Claus? When/how do you explain to your child that there is no God and those who say there is are simply wrong, but perhaps not always wrong in a terrible way? And, most importantly, how do you explain to people that you reject treatments like homeopathy, chiropracty?, and acupuncture because there's no evidence to support their efficacy? A related issue surrounds DNR orders (Do not Resuscitate). I've _heard_ that most doctors sign them because they're aware of the relative ineffectiveness and physical trauma associated with techniques like CPR and defibrillation. Yet, most nurses, EMTs, firemen, life guards, local CERT traine[r|e]s insist on them. I don't have trustworthy data sources for the efficacy or side effects of resuscitation methods. So, I can't say which position is more sound. And I suspect doctors, like cops, are biased because of their occupation. But the question is, do the data even matter? Is a particular life _always_ so sacred to some particular other that the efficacy and side effects simply do not matter? That's related to things like accupuncture by the argument I often hear that "it can't hurt, so if it's even a little bit possible it'll help, then why not do it?" Arlo Barnes wrote at 04/05/2013 08:42 PM: > The first is in response to 'would I like people to burst my > placebo/nocebo bubble?': the latest issue of Science magazine has an > article on recommendations by the American College of Medicine of > whether people should be told without being asked that they have alleles > that indicate an elevated risk of disease when looking at genes related > to common diseases (mostly cancers and tissue defects) as a course of a > full-genome analysis for another disease/syndrome/disorder (pointing out > that people may already be in an emotionally fragile state from said > disease). Link here > <http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6127/1507.full?sid=7561e634-f578-431a-8299-e86ef03891f4>. -- =><= glen e. p. ropella I learned how to live true and somebody blew up ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
