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Nobel Prize Awarded for Stomach Ulcer Discovery
gollum123 writes to tell us the BBC is reporting that the Nobel prize for medicine has been awarded to two Australian scientists for their work with ulcers. Their research has shown that the majority of ulcers are caused by bacteria and can be cured with a short-term course of drugs and antibiotics. From the article: "Dr Marshall proved that H. pylori caused gastic inflammation by deliberately infecting himself with the bacterium. The Nobel citation praises the doctors for their tenacity, and willingness to challenge prevailing dogmas."
Don't be silly. The Nobel prize is pretty much the highest award you can receive in the fields where it is awarded - so it's certainly understandable that the committee wants to make sure that those who receive the prize really *have* made a ground-breaking discovery that deserves the prize. And waiting for some time to see what influence a discovery will have is pretty much the only way to find out.
That being said, yes, the discovery was made in 1982, but it wasn't even *confirmed* until 1987, so it's not just the Nobel prize committee, either.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Faith is an essential means to remain optimistic in an uncertain world. Faith is belief in the face of doubt / the absurd. Faith is arguably very important to scientific discovery, lest one doubt their hypotheses.
Faith however, is not essential and I would argue it's not particularly desirable. I prefer to practice realism (to the best of my ability) than delude myself with a reality distortion field built on expectations that are by definition unrealistic and founded on false premises.
You can still be a kind, generous, altruistic and forgiving person and not have faith, but because you believe it's an appropriate way to behave and has net benefits (in that it can be beneficial to you, and to society as a whole because it encourages reciprocal behaviour, as indeed it does).
Those pushing religion tend not to be keen on that idea though, they prefer to push the notion that you need to latch on to a specific 'faith' system to support you lest you fall of the wagon. I believe that approach is misguided and potentially dangerous.
'Faith' as a solution is at best a kludge and at worst a red herring, that can lead down a dark path with disastrous repercussions on a global scale. Addressing root causes such as inequality, injustice, and persecution are more effective approaches at dealing with the things that drive people to 'faith' based groups in the first place.
I do not believe the world can ever be 'a perfect place' - history and logical deduction seem to suggests otherwise, as any social environment that relies on co-operation also leaves open the opportunity for another to profit by shafting others in the group, meaning there will always be an incentive not to co-operate (The Scorpion and the Frog) - and that's to say nothing of human nature, chemical imbalances and behaviour in exception circumstances.
There is clearly room for significant improvement in the way we interact with each other, particularly on a global scale however I do not believe faith based systems are an effective means of progression to that point. The acceptance of an unfavourable circumstance and a logical extrapolation of the most effective way to resolve an issue are more helpful than any system based on sheer optimism.
With specific regard to:
Faith is arguably very important to scientific discovery, lest one doubt their hypotheses
I think if you don't have any doubt about your hypotheses there is something seriously wrong with your approach. Even if your right you ought to have doubts about it and set out to prove yourself wrong until you are certain you are right, that's how hypotheses progress to being regarded as 'proven'.