[dekhn]

In this area, having credentials makes a difference. Experts matter.

Few if any non-medical people can read medical papers and make sense of what they say. There is simply far too much context to evaluate such papers, especially in the cases of complex medical conditions.

[hintklb]

Sorry but strong disagree here.

I have had a lot of Spinal and sleep issues. I have read almost all new literature on this niche subject and I have brought to my spine doctor some new therapy and treatments they had literally no idea about. Those treatments have changed my life.

As an engineer I read a lot of deep technical paper as my day job. Medical papers are comparatively relatively simple. The most complex part being usually the statistical data analysis.

We have pushed to a whole generation of people that only the "experts" can have opinion on some fields. I encourage everyone to read papers and have opinions on some of those subjects.

We are in 2025. That type of gatekeeping needs to go away. AI if anything, is going to really help with this as well.

[tjohns]

I think it's good to read papers and be curious.

It's also good to work with your doctors (as you seem to have done), have a discussion, and mutually agree on a plan of treatment.

Experts don't know everything. But they probably know some things you don't, and can think of questions you might not to have even thought to ask. As the saying goes, "you don't know what you don't know". Experience matters.

There's also a lot of people out there without an academic background that don't know how to properly read journal papers. It's common to see folks do a quick search on PubMed, cherry-pick a single paper they agree with, and treat it as gospel - even if there's no evidence of repeatability. These skills are not something that many people outside STEM are exposed to.

[dekhn]

Cherrypicking is bad, but worse is reading a paper and thinking you understand what it says, when you don't actually understand what it says. Or thinking that a paper and its data can be observed neutrally as a factual and accurate statement for what work was actually done.

My experience in journal club- basically, a group of grad students who all read a paper and then discuss it in person- taught me that most papers are just outright wrong for technical reasons. I'd say about 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 papers passes all the basic tests, and even the ones that do pass can have significant problems. For example, there is an increasing recognition that many papers in biology and medicine have fake data, or manipulated data, or corrupted data, or incorrectly labelled data. I know folks who've read papers and convinced themselvs the paper is good, when later the paper was retracted because the authors copied a few gels into the wrong columns...

[hintklb]

By extending your statement you are essentially saying that the credentialed experts have a monopoly on knowledge in their fields? As anyone else reading a paper probably think he understands but actually doesn't? What a weird take.

The knowledge is out there. Yes there are a ton of bogus papers and a ton of bad research. Not everyone got the critical knowledge to figure this out but I also don't think this is only reserved to the "experts". They are also subject to groupthink and other political pressure to think a specific way.

At the end of the day, do your best own research and work with your "expert" to agree on a solution.

Pushing back on people reading paper is an anti-intellectual take (to use the same wording as another poster below).

[plufz]

But is that really what you are seeing in this HN comment thread? People who seem very well researched in the biochemicals and meta studies of Prozac? I don’t. :)

[ryandrake]

> We have pushed to a whole generation of people that only the "experts" can have opinion on some fields. I encourage everyone to read papers and have opinions on some of those subjects.

There's nothing wrong with having an opinion on something as a non-expert, as long as those opinions are not acted upon or relied upon as a source of reliable information. Read papers, watch YouTube, browse WebMD, satisfy your curiosity--knock yourself out. But don't undergo treatment without working with an actual expert! I'm not an expert on orbital mechanics, but I have played KSP and have formed various opinions about it. But nobody should be listening to me for advice on how to launch a rocket.

We need gatekeeping for a reason, especially in the medical field which is rife with miracle cures, snake oil, herbal remedies, detoxes, homeopathy, and other forms of quackery.

Believing my "research" is better than my specialist's education is a path back to the dark ages.

[hintklb]

> Believing my "research" is better than my specialist's education is a path back to the dark ages.

Doing your research should not be in competition with your specialist's education. It should be complementary as yet another source of information.

I'm not saying experts are wrong but I also don't think they are particularly always right. They are human and they have strong groupthink. They will agree and disagree with some takes based on their personal or political beliefs.

[Dylan16807]

> Believing my "research" is better than my specialist's education

If you get rid of the scare quotes, you can spend 10x or 100x as long as your doctor when researching something specific enough. That has many advantages, even without the training.

> is a path back to the dark ages.

This is quippy but doesn't actually make sense.

[tombert]

This just reads as Dunning Kruger-esque to me. You think that because you know how to read a technical paper in engineering, you're as or more competent than a doctor.

Yes, experts are wrong all the time, they have the disability of being human, but this seems like an extremely anti-intellectual take.

[hintklb]

sorry but your take seems to be the anti-intellectual here.

You seem to think that the educated class got a monopoly on knowledge on that field, yet after that claim to know that experts are wrong all the time. The anti-intellectual take is to give up on trying to understand as much as you can in a field because you don't have the right credentials to do so. Yes, medical papers are not that complicated to read.

That doesn't make you more competent than your doctor. But it probably makes you a better advocate for yourself than your doctor is.

My point is: Don't discount yourself reading papers and doing your own research. Then work with your "credentialed experts" to come to an agreement. Don't ever think that the "experts" got your best interest at heart.

[rfrey]

Nobody who seriously read and understood the literature in a given field would issue a blanket dismissal of all the experts in that field. My experience is that reading papers and research leads one to understand WHY the professionals get it wrong - because you start to understand the nuances.

I'm not saying you issued such a dismissal, but the comment that started this thread did so.

[tombert]

I don't have a problem with reading papers and doing research, and I never once claimed that the "educated class" has or should have a monopoly on a field. You wouldn't know this, but for the first ten years of my career as a software person I was as a college dropout; I certainly am not someone who is going to get all hot and bothered about people having letters after their names.

That said, I have a tough time believing that spending an hour on Sci-Hub makes you better at diagnosis, yourself or otherwise, than someone who spent a decade being educated with decades of practicing. Thinking that you know better than trained experts because you have an understanding of the very beginning of a field is overwhelmingly tempting but is generally not based in reality. Usually the people who have actually been trained in the field know more about the field than a random person who read a few papers that they thought were "comparatively relatively simple".

I read papers all the time, usually formal methods, but sometimes other fields like medicine, and I will sometimes leave the medical paper thinking that it's "easier" than what I study, but I think that's just Dunning Kruger. I know more about formal methods, so I know a lot more about what I don't know, and thus I feel like it's harder. I don't know a ton about medicine, and since I don't know what I don't know it can feel like I know everything, and I have to fight this urge.

By all means, read about research in whatever ailment you have, I'm not really trying to discourage that, but I feel like dismissing experts in the field is almost the definition of "anti-intellectualism". If you find a study that you think is promising, bring it to your doctor. Hell, bring it to a dozen doctors, multiple opinions isn't a bad thing.

I just don't like the general "don't trust experts" thing that seems to be flying around certain circles now.

[throaway19852]

Ya, well i was diagnosed with a serious genetic condition by my doctor. I found out i was misdiagnosed based on information from the support group for the condition. If I hadn't, I would have had unnecessary surgery.

The excuse from my doctor? "I didn't know!"