If I cut my legs off or bind my feet or something, can I have one? Having a mermaid suit results in something like what you'd get if you bred a selkie with a mermaid.
It's true that you can't use it. But it isn't because they are hiding it. It's that someone thought that they should be able to exclusively use or sell something they created, and we as a society think that's true. It isn't an unreasonable idea. It just gets a little bizarre when you start doing things like patenting DNA sequences. I'm not intimately familiar with the Taxol thing in specific, but I would guess that the majority of the rights BMS owns have to do with the sequences of plasmids used to produce the drug and the techniques used to develop and insert them.
The government gives you money to buy stuff and pay people in order to answer a question. No one does anything but that. If you use that money well you might answer the question you were given money to answer by inventing a new technique or compound that you can patent. It's not that I don't see your point. It's just that I'm not sure that taking away the ability to patent your work from the individuals who did the work is a great alternative.
You are funding all science research, really, no matter who pays for it. Your health insurance premiums, which in many cases you are required by your employer to pay, make their way to the companies that might individually invest in research as well. But you don't claim that things they fund should somehow be yours.
I see why it's frustrating to watch a private company make money off of an idea that could only happen with your tax dollars, but by that theory, every patent held by a company or individual who generates income by working for the federal government should belong to the government. No company would ever agree to that, and I wouldn't blame them.
The people who did the original research for Taxol sold a commodity that we as a society have decided was theirs. BMS had the resources to make something of it, and so they make a lot of money with the commodity they purchased. I'm not saying it's awesome, just asking what the alternative would be.
If you do research with federal money, you are required to make your findings available. And not just by publishing in some arcane paper journal. You have to have a full text article available online. If you publish in a journal that doesn't offer this service, the government will give you server space to host it.
Now, it's possible that some component of your research is or becomes patented. Then you either had to have permission to use it in the first place, or you made it and patented it and sold the rights. And then no matter how much I want to duplicate or expand on your results I can't because I don't have the money or permission to use this patented item. I know what you used. I'm just not allowed to use it.
Even if I were capable of replicating this patented component, no one will allow me to spend the funds to do it.
Patenting DNA sequences made this sort of thing very complex.
Of course not every animal react the same way to everything. But over time certain patterns can be established, such as the fact that in terms of skin surface reactions, almost all mammals react in extremely similar fashion. So you can try it on a few mice and save some people's lives from the few things that don't work out the way you expect. And just because it seems fine in mice doesn't mean you don't need to have those first cautiously applied human trials either. It's all about doing the least amount of harm without completely sacrificing discovery.
Animal models are not perfect. But they are significantly better than an alternative of "give it to people and see".
And as much as it sucks, I'd rather have the wrong people make money off of a new cancer drug than not have the cancer drug.
Are you suggesting that the government should stop funding science in order to stop them from making a profit off of it? That seems like a crappy trade off.
Besides, the point stands: no one but the government funds research that they don't believe will make them rich. Sometimes the government also funds that research.
I was implying that in a communist system, science would display the same amount of dependence on government as everything else, rather than MORE dependence, as in capitalism.
I didn't mean to imply that I wouldn't be fighting to escape. But I wouldn't think that the chimps were inherently evil for trying to save their kids from death via shampoo. It was more the motivations behind it that I wouldn't complain about, rather than the actual application of acid to cratch.
Nor would I begrudge them an escape attempt or a monkey bite in their current situation, when I apply the acid to THEIR crotch.
Bottom line: if you can defy a stereotype, you can gain from it.
This is an excellent point. I have this weird feminine tendency to be overly selfless, which clearly needs to be crushed into oblivion.:)
And I do have to say that I have probably benefited much more from the surprise generated by defiance of a stereotype than I have been negatively impacted by its incorrect application.
I have to point out that in capitalist systems, science is VERY dependent on government for funding. Unless a business stands to make a lot of money off your research (which is almost never the case for basic science) who is going to give you money to do it?
I've read the pages of this book that Amazon has made available, and it strikes me as a way for a bright woman with an open mind to become a competent user, but not a geek goddess in any sense of the term of which I am familiar. I think true geek goddesshood is something you're born with. (See above.) However, although the title may be hyperbole, the book appears useful.
Fair enough about the book. In terms of gender roles regarding technology, I'm happy to see that we're on the same page, and I wish the rest of the world would catch up.
I still have a bone to pick with the assumption that to be a geek you have to be able to work well with technology. Alton Brown is a beautiful case in point, particularly in the gender role arena.
But that's a big enough can of worms for a FEW other threads, and not needed here.:)
No of course it isn't required. That part is just my personal horror that someone can make it through a PhD program and no know how to turn on a computer.
The real point was the surprise that surrounds the fact that I'm a GIRL who knows how to plug in a computer without breaking anything, not even a nail (although to be fair I had already broken off any nails I would have had carrying moving boxes full of lab supplies so I can't really take credit for that part). They are allowed to be impressed that I can do it. They shouldn't be more impressed that I can do it with a uterus.
I just disagree that experimentation requires suffering and torture- Can you not find a more elegant experiment?
No. Sometimes you can't. If you can, you will be REQUIRED to do so. That is one of the first hurdles you have to pass on the road to actually experimenting on an animal: proving that there is no alternative.
Is there NO other way of testing the formula in a lab setting? Or are they simply unwilling to spend large monies on such technologies when they can simply jab a $10 bunny rabbit?
This is a problem already addressed by the current system. We put science into the capitalist realm, where in order to survive, like everyone else science must make economics a priority. Then we ask them to do what is "right" instead of what is cheap. For example, if you have the option between two protocols which will net the same exact amount of data, one of which is very expensive, the other of which costs much less but uses three times as many animals to achieve the same goal, which do you do? This decision is made by the committee, not by the researchers. It prevents the researchers from being able to choose cheap over "right". So your argument does not hold up to reality. Researchers, who stand to gain by doing things cheaply instead of easily, aren't the ones who decide if that is allowed.
It's the economics of rationalizing unnecessary torture via experimentation- THAT is what I was referring to, not the "greater good" theory that you seem to subscribe to.
Remember, how you have treated the least of my brothers, you have treated myself also. Sentience understands pain. When the apes decide to breed us for experimentation, I will be the first to jab a swab with some 'new forumlation' in your eye.
Only then will you understand.
My point is that you can only argue that there is a considerable amount of economic rationalization of "torture" because you do not understand how the process works. The process is in fact designed to eliminate as much of that as possible.
I want to do an animal study. In order to do it, I need permission from this committee. They ask me to provide justification for what I want to do and why. One of the things I have to do is prove that no alternatives exist. If there are alternatives, and I claim that they are too expensive, no committee that I've ever even heard of would consider that adequate. They would reject your proposal out of hand.
I am not claiming that animal research is not sometimes torturous. I am simply explaining that it is not done even though there are lots of easy alternatives. The entire purpose of the federally mandated system of approval is so that it can be done only when absolutely necessary, and only when justified.
In my opinion, I use up good karma every time I have to euthanize an animal. I feel grief for every single living thing that I have harmed in my work. But I also hope that the the good it does makes up for it, at least in part. I think I actually have a pretty damn good understanding of what a lab animal goes though, and what that sacrifice is worth. Then again, I work mostly with rats. Maybe I would change my evil ways if I had to work with chimps.
Honestly, if you want to talk cruelty, let's discuss the fact that it's illegal for an animal shelter to even donate the corpse of a euthanized animal to be used for scientific research. So we kill millions of stray cats every year, then breed different cats and kill them for biology students to dissect. Where is the sense in that?
...related to my most favorite quote from some teammates on a high school robotics team "you're not a girl; you're useful".
I think this quote sort of sums me up as a person. I'm not sure if my interpretation is how the speaker intended it. Did they mean that the person in question was not female and therefore useful, or useful and therefore not female (which is the option I tend toward)?
I feel strongly that if acting like a moron when you aren't, being unreasonable, being stupid, or any of the other wonderful traits so many women either have or are accused of having are what defines you as a woman, then I am not one.
That being said, I'm still a good cook, and I feel it is an important life skill to be able to do at least minor sewing tasks. I prefer to keep only the useful parts of my traditional gender role. Can we all stop acting helpless now?
From the review it seems as though the author disagrees. Or at least feels that being stupid and or helpless is indeed a defining gender characteristic.
Fair enough, I suppose. But why should it be more surprising that a woman gets it? I'm working in a research lab. We're all supposedly educated professionals. It really shouldn't be that rare. And there is no good reason why it should be more rare for women.
I see it as negative attention. It makes me sad. I cry at night.
By your argument, both straight women and gay men should excel at video games that make use of joysticks, and straight men and lesbians should be very adept with those stupid little nubbin keyboard mice things.
Or vice versa for the straight people, depending on how much of the time they spend doing it themselves.
I thought the IT guy was going to cry for joy when he saw that not only had I brought my own computer for the new lab, but I had managed to set it up by myself and was reading Slashdot when he came to turn on my phone jack.
It makes me sad. I am not a computer geek. Not even a little. Why is it that having a uterus somehow means you can't do VERY BASIC THINGS?
I think it is maybe a little oversimplified to say that the ethical issues surrounding harvesting stem cells from an embryo aren't SLIGHTLY less cut and dry than the holocaust.
The issue is that in your analogy, the much more difficult technique is the car. If it were easier to use adult cells than the embryonic ones, then TRUST ME, that's what would have happened.
We're not evil, we don't hate babies (at least not as a defining characteristic). We just want to be able to do the most without making it ten times more difficult if at all possible. So unless there is some ethical objection (which there is, but only for SOME people) there is no earthly reason to make it so much harder.
Honestly, while I can appreciate the argument against embryonic stem cells, I can also just flatly disagree with it. I don't think that it makes me an "ideologist who wants discovery at any cost".
I just personally think that this particular cost is perfectly reasonable. Where is the failure in that?
Although I see what you're getting at, it's not really as applicable here as you'd think.
Previously, the technology did not exist to do with adult induced cells what was done with embryonic cells. We have developed better tools, so now we can do with the adult cells what was once only possible with embryonic cells.
However it does not follow that we could never have learned how to do this without doing it to embryonic cells first. I would venture to guess that we never would have attempted it if we hadn't seen it happen in the embryonic cells first. We might never have figured it out. But we might have. It's really an impossible point to argue either way.
It's sort of liking saying that it's easier to make muffins than a souffle, so it isn't possible to make a souffle if you can't make muffins. While the ability to make muffins might make learning how to make a souffle a whole lots easier, and you might never even TRY to make a souffle if you can't handle the muffins, it is still possible to master a souffle without that previous knowledge.
I get really tired of the "animals still matter" argument.
It IS a valid argument. But you have to understand the scope of what you're talking about. In the United States of America, animal research projects are not just started when the researcher wants. The rabbits you talk about: they weren't tested on until the people doing the tested justified both the need to find out if the "soap" hurt bunny's eyes, and why they had to use the bunny to a committee consisting of people who like animals, like science, or who have no opinion on either science or animals, but might represent the general community.
It is not true that they test the same formulation of dish soap in some poor animal's eyes over and over again. That would be pointless. But when they put in a new active ingredient, one that hes never been tested, they need to make sure that it won't kill your stupid kid when he drinks a gallon of it.
Case in point: I was reading an article in a laboratory animal trade magazine where they discussed these sorts of tests. The one they were talking about involved a product that had already been tested (a lotion I think) and found safe, which was getting an additional ingredient which had been tested in other products and worked out fine. The funny thing is, in this case, it turned out that the new formula caused all sorts of problems. The animals developed rashes and skin problems and had to be euthanized. The ethics issue they were considering wasn't whether or not they should have done the test, but whether or not they had looked adequately at the risk to the animals before they had agreed to let the research proceed.
A lot of lay people have a misconception about how this works.
And no matter how good the technology gets, some things simply cannot be researched in vitro. An animal model is sometimes necessary. When the chimps get smart and start breeding us for scientific research for the good of chimpanzees everywhere, I'll be the last to complain.
And sometimes they're getting the original band to record the cover. They couldn't find a master for the Sex Pistols song in RB2 so they recorded a new master with the original band.
Granted I'm not a school kid. But I have disposable income, and I didn't buy Rock Band or Guitar Hero for a big market band.
In fact, I got my mom (who will be 60 this year) into Buckethead by getting her to play Jorden on Guitar Hero II.
The majority of these games are not purchased by school age kids, even if they are FOR school age kids. You know you'd steal the Wii from your kid to play Rock Band. And after you're hooked, you'll buy the next one even if your kid doesn't ask you for it.
Oh, I'm not claiming it would HURT. Just that it wouldn't solve the problem.
Like politics, it's an old boys club, and if that's not who you want treating you, the system needs to reflect that. Currently it does not.
I'm vaguely horrified at the idea that the educational requirements be lessened. But on the other hand, making them stricter won't give you more intelligent doctors. It will just slightly decrease the size of the qualified pool, which is already ignored in some cases.
As someone aspiring to continue the path to be an MD, I don't really see how they need more stringent oversight, exactly.
I know quite a few people who have gotten into medical schools. They generally fit into one of two categories: mildly retarded people who could barely get through their undergraduate program but they or their parents are well off and knew the right people, OR very intelligent hard working people whose parents are well off and knew the right people.
You will continue to have the richest people as doctors so long as huge quantities of money stand to be made by making only the richest people doctors. If you want the smartest or most able people to be doctors, then we need huge quantities of money in order to encourage it.
Slashdot Mirror
If I cut my legs off or bind my feet or something, can I have one? Having a mermaid suit results in something like what you'd get if you bred a selkie with a mermaid.
It's true that you can't use it. But it isn't because they are hiding it. It's that someone thought that they should be able to exclusively use or sell something they created, and we as a society think that's true. It isn't an unreasonable idea. It just gets a little bizarre when you start doing things like patenting DNA sequences. I'm not intimately familiar with the Taxol thing in specific, but I would guess that the majority of the rights BMS owns have to do with the sequences of plasmids used to produce the drug and the techniques used to develop and insert them.
The government gives you money to buy stuff and pay people in order to answer a question. No one does anything but that. If you use that money well you might answer the question you were given money to answer by inventing a new technique or compound that you can patent. It's not that I don't see your point. It's just that I'm not sure that taking away the ability to patent your work from the individuals who did the work is a great alternative.
You are funding all science research, really, no matter who pays for it. Your health insurance premiums, which in many cases you are required by your employer to pay, make their way to the companies that might individually invest in research as well. But you don't claim that things they fund should somehow be yours.
I see why it's frustrating to watch a private company make money off of an idea that could only happen with your tax dollars, but by that theory, every patent held by a company or individual who generates income by working for the federal government should belong to the government. No company would ever agree to that, and I wouldn't blame them.
The people who did the original research for Taxol sold a commodity that we as a society have decided was theirs. BMS had the resources to make something of it, and so they make a lot of money with the commodity they purchased. I'm not saying it's awesome, just asking what the alternative would be.
I would say that it is open source. Technically.
If you do research with federal money, you are required to make your findings available. And not just by publishing in some arcane paper journal. You have to have a full text article available online. If you publish in a journal that doesn't offer this service, the government will give you server space to host it.
Now, it's possible that some component of your research is or becomes patented. Then you either had to have permission to use it in the first place, or you made it and patented it and sold the rights. And then no matter how much I want to duplicate or expand on your results I can't because I don't have the money or permission to use this patented item. I know what you used. I'm just not allowed to use it.
Even if I were capable of replicating this patented component, no one will allow me to spend the funds to do it.
Patenting DNA sequences made this sort of thing very complex.
Of course not every animal react the same way to everything. But over time certain patterns can be established, such as the fact that in terms of skin surface reactions, almost all mammals react in extremely similar fashion. So you can try it on a few mice and save some people's lives from the few things that don't work out the way you expect. And just because it seems fine in mice doesn't mean you don't need to have those first cautiously applied human trials either. It's all about doing the least amount of harm without completely sacrificing discovery.
Animal models are not perfect. But they are significantly better than an alternative of "give it to people and see".
And as much as it sucks, I'd rather have the wrong people make money off of a new cancer drug than not have the cancer drug.
Are you suggesting that the government should stop funding science in order to stop them from making a profit off of it? That seems like a crappy trade off.
Besides, the point stands: no one but the government funds research that they don't believe will make them rich. Sometimes the government also funds that research.
I was implying that in a communist system, science would display the same amount of dependence on government as everything else, rather than MORE dependence, as in capitalism.
LOL.
I didn't mean to imply that I wouldn't be fighting to escape. But I wouldn't think that the chimps were inherently evil for trying to save their kids from death via shampoo. It was more the motivations behind it that I wouldn't complain about, rather than the actual application of acid to cratch.
Nor would I begrudge them an escape attempt or a monkey bite in their current situation, when I apply the acid to THEIR crotch.
Bottom line: if you can defy a stereotype, you can gain from it.
This is an excellent point. I have this weird feminine tendency to be overly selfless, which clearly needs to be crushed into oblivion. :)
And I do have to say that I have probably benefited much more from the surprise generated by defiance of a stereotype than I have been negatively impacted by its incorrect application.
I have to point out that in capitalist systems, science is VERY dependent on government for funding. Unless a business stands to make a lot of money off your research (which is almost never the case for basic science) who is going to give you money to do it?
I've read the pages of this book that Amazon has made available, and it strikes me as a way for a bright woman with an open mind to become a competent user, but not a geek goddess in any sense of the term of which I am familiar. I think true geek goddesshood is something you're born with. (See above.) However, although the title may be hyperbole, the book appears useful.
Fair enough about the book. In terms of gender roles regarding technology, I'm happy to see that we're on the same page, and I wish the rest of the world would catch up.
I still have a bone to pick with the assumption that to be a geek you have to be able to work well with technology. Alton Brown is a beautiful case in point, particularly in the gender role arena.
But that's a big enough can of worms for a FEW other threads, and not needed here. :)
No of course it isn't required. That part is just my personal horror that someone can make it through a PhD program and no know how to turn on a computer.
The real point was the surprise that surrounds the fact that I'm a GIRL who knows how to plug in a computer without breaking anything, not even a nail (although to be fair I had already broken off any nails I would have had carrying moving boxes full of lab supplies so I can't really take credit for that part). They are allowed to be impressed that I can do it. They shouldn't be more impressed that I can do it with a uterus.
I just disagree that experimentation requires suffering and torture-
Can you not find a more elegant experiment?
No. Sometimes you can't. If you can, you will be REQUIRED to do so. That is one of the first hurdles you have to pass on the road to actually experimenting on an animal: proving that there is no alternative.
Is there NO other way of testing the formula in a lab setting?
Or are they simply unwilling to spend large monies on such technologies
when they can simply jab a $10 bunny rabbit?
This is a problem already addressed by the current system. We put science into the capitalist realm, where in order to survive, like everyone else science must make economics a priority. Then we ask them to do what is "right" instead of what is cheap. For example, if you have the option between two protocols which will net the same exact amount of data, one of which is very expensive, the other of which costs much less but uses three times as many animals to achieve the same goal, which do you do? This decision is made by the committee, not by the researchers. It prevents the researchers from being able to choose cheap over "right". So your argument does not hold up to reality. Researchers, who stand to gain by doing things cheaply instead of easily, aren't the ones who decide if that is allowed.
It's the economics of rationalizing unnecessary torture via experimentation-
THAT is what I was referring to, not the "greater good" theory that you seem to subscribe to.
Remember, how you have treated the least of my brothers, you have treated myself also.
Sentience understands pain. When the apes decide to breed us for experimentation,
I will be the first to jab a swab with some 'new forumlation' in your eye.
Only then will you understand.
My point is that you can only argue that there is a considerable amount of economic rationalization of "torture" because you do not understand how the process works. The process is in fact designed to eliminate as much of that as possible.
I want to do an animal study. In order to do it, I need permission from this committee. They ask me to provide justification for what I want to do and why. One of the things I have to do is prove that no alternatives exist. If there are alternatives, and I claim that they are too expensive, no committee that I've ever even heard of would consider that adequate. They would reject your proposal out of hand.
I am not claiming that animal research is not sometimes torturous. I am simply explaining that it is not done even though there are lots of easy alternatives. The entire purpose of the federally mandated system of approval is so that it can be done only when absolutely necessary, and only when justified.
In my opinion, I use up good karma every time I have to euthanize an animal. I feel grief for every single living thing that I have harmed in my work. But I also hope that the the good it does makes up for it, at least in part. I think I actually have a pretty damn good understanding of what a lab animal goes though, and what that sacrifice is worth. Then again, I work mostly with rats. Maybe I would change my evil ways if I had to work with chimps.
Honestly, if you want to talk cruelty, let's discuss the fact that it's illegal for an animal shelter to even donate the corpse of a euthanized animal to be used for scientific research. So we kill millions of stray cats every year, then breed different cats and kill them for biology students to dissect. Where is the sense in that?
...related to my most favorite quote from some teammates on a high school robotics team "you're not a girl; you're useful".
I think this quote sort of sums me up as a person. I'm not sure if my interpretation is how the speaker intended it. Did they mean that the person in question was not female and therefore useful, or useful and therefore not female (which is the option I tend toward)?
I feel strongly that if acting like a moron when you aren't, being unreasonable, being stupid, or any of the other wonderful traits so many women either have or are accused of having are what defines you as a woman, then I am not one.
That being said, I'm still a good cook, and I feel it is an important life skill to be able to do at least minor sewing tasks. I prefer to keep only the useful parts of my traditional gender role. Can we all stop acting helpless now?
From the review it seems as though the author disagrees. Or at least feels that being stupid and or helpless is indeed a defining gender characteristic.
Fair enough, I suppose. But why should it be more surprising that a woman gets it? I'm working in a research lab. We're all supposedly educated professionals. It really shouldn't be that rare. And there is no good reason why it should be more rare for women.
I see it as negative attention. It makes me sad. I cry at night.
By your argument, both straight women and gay men should excel at video games that make use of joysticks, and straight men and lesbians should be very adept with those stupid little nubbin keyboard mice things.
Or vice versa for the straight people, depending on how much of the time they spend doing it themselves.
I thought the IT guy was going to cry for joy when he saw that not only had I brought my own computer for the new lab, but I had managed to set it up by myself and was reading Slashdot when he came to turn on my phone jack.
It makes me sad. I am not a computer geek. Not even a little. Why is it that having a uterus somehow means you can't do VERY BASIC THINGS?
I think it is maybe a little oversimplified to say that the ethical issues surrounding harvesting stem cells from an embryo aren't SLIGHTLY less cut and dry than the holocaust.
The issue is that in your analogy, the much more difficult technique is the car. If it were easier to use adult cells than the embryonic ones, then TRUST ME, that's what would have happened.
We're not evil, we don't hate babies (at least not as a defining characteristic). We just want to be able to do the most without making it ten times more difficult if at all possible. So unless there is some ethical objection (which there is, but only for SOME people) there is no earthly reason to make it so much harder.
Honestly, while I can appreciate the argument against embryonic stem cells, I can also just flatly disagree with it. I don't think that it makes me an "ideologist who wants discovery at any cost".
I just personally think that this particular cost is perfectly reasonable. Where is the failure in that?
Although I see what you're getting at, it's not really as applicable here as you'd think.
Previously, the technology did not exist to do with adult induced cells what was done with embryonic cells. We have developed better tools, so now we can do with the adult cells what was once only possible with embryonic cells.
However it does not follow that we could never have learned how to do this without doing it to embryonic cells first. I would venture to guess that we never would have attempted it if we hadn't seen it happen in the embryonic cells first. We might never have figured it out. But we might have. It's really an impossible point to argue either way.
It's sort of liking saying that it's easier to make muffins than a souffle, so it isn't possible to make a souffle if you can't make muffins. While the ability to make muffins might make learning how to make a souffle a whole lots easier, and you might never even TRY to make a souffle if you can't handle the muffins, it is still possible to master a souffle without that previous knowledge.
I work in research with an animal model.
I get really tired of the "animals still matter" argument.
It IS a valid argument. But you have to understand the scope of what you're talking about. In the United States of America, animal research projects are not just started when the researcher wants. The rabbits you talk about: they weren't tested on until the people doing the tested justified both the need to find out if the "soap" hurt bunny's eyes, and why they had to use the bunny to a committee consisting of people who like animals, like science, or who have no opinion on either science or animals, but might represent the general community.
It is not true that they test the same formulation of dish soap in some poor animal's eyes over and over again. That would be pointless. But when they put in a new active ingredient, one that hes never been tested, they need to make sure that it won't kill your stupid kid when he drinks a gallon of it.
Case in point: I was reading an article in a laboratory animal trade magazine where they discussed these sorts of tests. The one they were talking about involved a product that had already been tested (a lotion I think) and found safe, which was getting an additional ingredient which had been tested in other products and worked out fine. The funny thing is, in this case, it turned out that the new formula caused all sorts of problems. The animals developed rashes and skin problems and had to be euthanized. The ethics issue they were considering wasn't whether or not they should have done the test, but whether or not they had looked adequately at the risk to the animals before they had agreed to let the research proceed.
A lot of lay people have a misconception about how this works.
And no matter how good the technology gets, some things simply cannot be researched in vitro. An animal model is sometimes necessary. When the chimps get smart and start breeding us for scientific research for the good of chimpanzees everywhere, I'll be the last to complain.
And sometimes they're getting the original band to record the cover. They couldn't find a master for the Sex Pistols song in RB2 so they recorded a new master with the original band.
Granted I'm not a school kid. But I have disposable income, and I didn't buy Rock Band or Guitar Hero for a big market band.
In fact, I got my mom (who will be 60 this year) into Buckethead by getting her to play Jorden on Guitar Hero II.
The majority of these games are not purchased by school age kids, even if they are FOR school age kids. You know you'd steal the Wii from your kid to play Rock Band. And after you're hooked, you'll buy the next one even if your kid doesn't ask you for it.
Oh, I'm not claiming it would HURT. Just that it wouldn't solve the problem.
Like politics, it's an old boys club, and if that's not who you want treating you, the system needs to reflect that. Currently it does not.
I'm vaguely horrified at the idea that the educational requirements be lessened. But on the other hand, making them stricter won't give you more intelligent doctors. It will just slightly decrease the size of the qualified pool, which is already ignored in some cases.
As someone aspiring to continue the path to be an MD, I don't really see how they need more stringent oversight, exactly.
I know quite a few people who have gotten into medical schools. They generally fit into one of two categories: mildly retarded people who could barely get through their undergraduate program but they or their parents are well off and knew the right people, OR very intelligent hard working people whose parents are well off and knew the right people.
You will continue to have the richest people as doctors so long as huge quantities of money stand to be made by making only the richest people doctors. If you want the smartest or most able people to be doctors, then we need huge quantities of money in order to encourage it.