And furthermore, lots of people are really, really dumb. I got an A in honors high school chem and that was only five years ago, and I had to visit Wikipedia to check every word more obscure than “solution” in that description of saline—the average patient probably did worse or didn’t take the class at all, took it longer ago if they did take it, and remembers less. Heck, there’s probably a scarily high percentage of people who wouldn’t even understand you if you told them it was saline.
Now there is an interesting question: can you be held morally responsible for lying if you just don’t have the time/patience/ability to explain something moderately complex to someone really stupid? What if they don’t even know the word “placebo”—then what do you do? Explain scientific controls and psychosomatic effects while you’re trying to extract a bullet, or what have you, from your patient?
And furthermore, lots of people are really, really dumb. I got an A in honors high school chem and that was only five years ago, and I had to visit Wikipedia to check every word more obscure than “solution” in that description of saline—the average patient probably did worse or didn’t take the class at all, took it longer ago if they did take it, and remembers less. Heck, there’s probably a scarily high percentage of people who wouldn’t even understand you if you told them it was saline.
Now there is an interesting question: can you be held morally responsible for lying if you just don’t have the time/patience/ability to explain something moderately complex to someone really stupid? What if they don’t even know the word “placebo”—then what do you do? Explain scientific controls and psychosomatic effects while you’re trying to extract a bullet, or what have you, from your patient?
Yes, but we’re retarded, too. Never forget that.
We’re not retarded. We’re advanced