tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post5910345756782644525..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: MCAT changes: More NAMS or fewer Tiger Cubs?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-32614882434053172652012-04-19T05:53:54.482-07:002012-04-19T05:53:54.482-07:00Right, we need this because most doctors aren'...Right, we need this because most doctors aren't crappy enough already...<br /><br />I am 100% in agreement with you about Dr. House...JayManhttp://jayman.blog.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-61355422808913097582012-04-18T04:04:03.509-07:002012-04-18T04:04:03.509-07:00Too much increase in the past 40 yrs. This is v. w...<i>Too much increase in the past 40 yrs. This is v. well documented. Sodas are a main reason--most people don't think of liquids as having many calories.</i><br /><br />It's not just excess calories. It's also the KIND of calories. There's also the fact that once your metabolism is "broken", it doesn't respond properly to most conventional weight-loss diets. In any case, the point is that most doctors haven't got a clue when it comes to diet, nutrition, obesity, etc., yet feel no compunction about dispensing bad advice. Then, when the patient follows the doctor's advice but fails to improve, the doctor blames the patient for being "weak willed". Same thing happens with diabetes: doc tells patient to follow the American Diabetes Association's recommended diet, which includes lots of carbohydrates, and when diabetic patient naturally gets worse, doctor prescribes meds, advises surgery, etc.<br /><br />But yes, you're right that high-fructose corn syrup is a major contributor to the "diabesity" epidemic.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-82135975434899237312012-04-17T21:19:07.739-07:002012-04-17T21:19:07.739-07:00Actually, one thing they *should* test, but don...Actually, one thing they *should* test, but don't, is psychomotor skills. Aside from the obvious surgical specialties, many others also require dexterity and good hand-eye coordination: OB, anesthesiology, radiology (sticking needles and catheters), gastroenterology (tubes both ends, and snipping and banding stuff), hematology (bone-marrow biopsies).<br /><br />There is not a great correlation between high IQ and good hands, so you may be manhandled (often while semi-conscious)by a brilliant klutz.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-31289486243950676712012-04-17T18:46:16.660-07:002012-04-17T18:46:16.660-07:00Any doctor who doesn't know that obesity is la...Any doctor who doesn't know that obesity is largely the result of a fucked-up endocrine system and simply assumes obesity is always caused by weak will & gluttony is a pretty bad doctor. And let's face it, the dietary advice dispensed by doctors is usually outdated & wrong ("stay away from arterycloggingsaturatedfat and be sure to eat lots of healthy whole grains"), yet they continue to dispense it anyway, which kinda makes them quacks, doesn't it? Very well-paid quacks.<br /><br /><br /><br />Got to be more to it than that. Too much increase in the past 40 yrs. This is v. well documented. Sodas are a main reason--most people don't think of liquids as having many calories. General increase in snack/junk even as healthy options become more and more ubiquitous.<br />Anyway, the massive increase among the young. Also, few Europeans (except maybe English) are like the U.S. When I was in a train statino in Switzerland I saw a very obese, young woman from the back. Hips like something alien was attached. I had been in Europea for a while and wasn't used to seeing bodies like that, esp on the young. Sure enough, heard her talking and she was American.el doradonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12504423038865269322012-04-17T18:33:13.222-07:002012-04-17T18:33:13.222-07:00I asked Steve to write about affirmative action in...I asked Steve to write about affirmative action in med school during my 2nd year of med school at a very large public school in a very corrupt state. A large number of students were aa admits with shockingly low intelligence. Nearly as large a number were politically connected students who were also very dim.<br /><br /> My undergrad and grad education was in engineering and I did not study for the mcat but took it after growing disillusioned with my phd work. I scored a 31 and was granted interviews at less than half of the schools applied to (male wasp, no connections). I had much better luck wih residencies after scoring well on the usmles. I matched at a top cancer program and am now in private practice doing work I love. People would be shocked to know how dumb you can be and still make it. Changes in the mcat and the cost of med student education will no doubt make things worse.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-7610952746580635032012-04-17T15:04:47.933-07:002012-04-17T15:04:47.933-07:00Could you please provide as many relevant links to...<i>Could you please provide as many relevant links to [these facts] as possible. Thanks a lot! Keeping track of sources is not my strong point. I've seen many of these data over the years but digging them all anew is turning to be difficult.</i><br /><br />What, about AA? Probably not the way to go. What you need is an IQ test for your doctor. A proxy, anyway. Like seeing his SAT scores. Or put him through a wordsum test. That kind of thing.<br /><br />Then, if he doesn't measure up, you just say you want a doctor who does.Svigorhttp://svigor.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-60349751125250105592012-04-17T15:00:19.755-07:002012-04-17T15:00:19.755-07:00Cops can save your life, but they can also hassle ...<i>Cops can save your life, but they can also hassle you and write tickets.</i><br /><br />I wonder what the ratio of time spent saving lives to writing tickets is for cops, on average? 1:10,000?Svigorhttp://svigor.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-72737332825129092162012-04-17T14:22:19.560-07:002012-04-17T14:22:19.560-07:00One day, it'll be robot doctors.One day, it'll be robot doctors.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-70765925891352386282012-04-17T12:40:59.854-07:002012-04-17T12:40:59.854-07:00"Doctors can save your life, but they can als..."Doctors can save your life, but they can also tell you to stop [...] eating till you're morbidly obese."<br /><br />Any doctor who doesn't know that obesity is largely the result of a fucked-up endocrine system and simply assumes obesity is always caused by weak will & gluttony is a pretty bad doctor. And let's face it, the dietary advice dispensed by doctors is usually outdated & wrong ("stay away from arterycloggingsaturatedfat and be sure to eat lots of healthy whole grains"), yet they continue to dispense it anyway, which kinda makes them quacks, doesn't it? Very well-paid quacks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-78813153697297980362012-04-17T12:29:07.557-07:002012-04-17T12:29:07.557-07:00I go to Kaiser Oakland for my medical care. That&#...I go to Kaiser Oakland for my medical care. That's good. Consumer Reports just published ratings of all the medical insurance providers in the nation. Kaiser Oakland did very well coming in at number 14 among 300 or so in the US.<br /><br />My doctor is Korean. That's not too unusual. Every single doctor at Medical Station #3 is either Chinese or Korean. That's about a dozen doctors.<br /><br />Oddly enough in all of the lobby photographs of the medical staff there are no oriental faces. But there are a lot of black faces. There are almost no actual black doctors. But there are plenty of black nurses and technicians. They get their pictures on the wall.Pat Boylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13477950851915567863noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-34447030122887862532012-04-17T07:42:42.781-07:002012-04-17T07:42:42.781-07:00"We knew that hot women don't try to land..."We knew that hot women don't try to land themselves doctors any more, they try to land themselves a banker."<br /><br />In New York County (Manhattan), yes; in the other 3142 counties in America, not so much.beowulfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14987548132065830204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-75702472232430621842012-04-17T07:11:11.873-07:002012-04-17T07:11:11.873-07:00http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/science/rise-in-...http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/science/rise-in-scientific-journal-retractions-prompts-calls-for-reform.html?pagewanted=1&src=dayp<br /><br />Perhaps this is the future of a medical science under the new dispensation.<br /><br />Looks like its already with us. Yup, like I said, now that the West has declined its stagnation for the world for the foreseeable future.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-49935586038767385652012-04-17T06:48:00.533-07:002012-04-17T06:48:00.533-07:00@Anon
Asians do a lot better than Whites on pure ...@Anon<br /><br /><i>Asians do a lot better than Whites on pure tests of spatial reasoning and abstract reasoning (although the prime evidence for this is Raven's and there is confusion about how much here is due to reasoning and how much due to perceptual enhancement),</i><br /><br />Thank you for being honest about this. Most Asians will seek to hide the fact that the evidence for greater Asian g is based primarily on the unreliable Ravens, and that it is unclear how much the Asian edge on this test depends on that portion of the test that is more spatial-loaded than g-loaded. <br /><br />BTW, you probably know that the Flynn Effect shows up primarily on the Ravens - almost entirely on the Ravens, in fact - further suggesting that it is highly unreliable as a measure of g, lol.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69165390564915683852012-04-17T00:54:28.292-07:002012-04-17T00:54:28.292-07:00Well, if docs real terms salaries stay static whil...Well, if docs real terms salaries stay static while other real terms salaries fall, let alone their real terms salaries rise, who cares if they're in for it for the six figure salaries, if no one can really afford it?<br /><br />Medicine has been a useless pseudoscience practiced by rentseekers for most of its history - scepticism is always in order to it.<br /><br /><i>Smart people avoid low-pay, low-prestige fields</i><br /><br />Unless they have challenging problems to solve there and less so elsewhere. I wonder if the US has a doctor pay inflation because it makes other academic options more open, compared to Western Europe (for example)?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-89471503554355105702012-04-16T23:20:00.845-07:002012-04-16T23:20:00.845-07:00"Why the hell wouldn't you want more Asia..."Why the hell wouldn't you want more Asian doctors? They are damned good and it is not like doctors are looking at a bright future given that a growing proportion of folks will not be able to pay."<br /><br />Flooding the health care market with Asian doctors will do for medicine what flooding the STEM market with Asian PhDs did for engineering: salaries will get driven down severely and nobody can get hired outside of an incredibly narrow specialty. Soon, the best and brightest citizens will eschew medical careers as they have careers in information science and engineering.<br /><br />It's bad enough that medical students need to go through over a decade of training and residency programs before they can begin paying off their $200K in loans. Now, they will have a $60K income to look forward to after years servitude in various hospitals and HMOs.<br /><br />Like in the NHS in England, soon all doctors in the US will be quacks imported from the Middle East, China, and South Asian.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-71409070897730545512012-04-16T21:52:17.814-07:002012-04-16T21:52:17.814-07:00"This means a white or NAM who doesn't ma...<b>"This means a white or NAM who doesn't major in a hard science can achieve a high GPA in any major, take the lower level science requirements at the local com college..."</b><br /><br />Stop right there. Most medical schools look down their noses at science courses taken at a community college. The instructors are often as good as those at universities, but the grading curve is skewed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-41684391091227557812012-04-16T21:48:53.668-07:002012-04-16T21:48:53.668-07:00"As for Indians, I don't think they'r...<i>"As for Indians, I don't think they're that smart."</i><br /><br />The ones who make it to med school are pretty damn smart, you better believe it. They are the ones the system is stacked against, not whites.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-31064478490370766402012-04-16T21:46:40.583-07:002012-04-16T21:46:40.583-07:00Just worry about the best....this is the link you ...Just worry about the best....this is the link you need to see, 90% white -- the most desired specialty in the most desired place<br /><br />http://dermatology.yale.edu/education/program/residents.aspxAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-5247033079180039762012-04-16T20:39:13.507-07:002012-04-16T20:39:13.507-07:00Can doctors be arrogant? Sure. I know a lot of the...Can doctors be arrogant? Sure. I know a lot of them. But so what? I think part of the problem here is similar to what Steve points out about cops and fireman. Cops can save your life, but they can also hassle you and write tickets. Fireman are more universally beloved because they carry you out of burning buildings. <br /><br />Doctors can save your life, but they can also tell you to stop drinking and smoking and that you're fat and you should stop eating till you're morbidly obese. Thus people got lots of enjoyment knocking them down a notch. Perhaps fireman would not be so loved if they told you they threw their backs out trying to carry your fat ass out of the house and now they will retire at 40 and collect a disability pension for the rest of their lives.<br /><br />The public is stupid. They've demanded knocking doctors down a notch and they've got it. Congrats!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-48021048249526471662012-04-16T20:15:07.416-07:002012-04-16T20:15:07.416-07:00I think the most telling thing I ever read about d...I think the most telling thing I ever read about doctors was how they responded to the idea that they were transmitting germs, because they weren't washing their hands before and after treating people; they were offended at the idea that they were "unclean" or that their hands were dirty.<br /><br />They were arrogant #@!$s long <i>before</i> they actually started to have a clue what they were doing.Svigorhttp://svigor.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-73606951237399594312012-04-16T20:09:01.532-07:002012-04-16T20:09:01.532-07:00OK, folks, I need some help:
Having experienced ...OK, folks, I need some help: <br /><br />Having experienced incompetent black physician, next time I want to explicitly ask for a white one. Naturally, it will create a furor and endless indignation at how racist I am. I want to be able to counter with pure statistics and facts: <br /><br />I am not a racist, I am merely maximizing my chances. Affirmative action inequality made me do it. Ceteris paribus, based on [these facts] a random white/East Asian is more likely to be competent/better prepared than a random black. <br /><br />Could you please provide as many relevant links to [these facts] as possible. Thanks a lot! Keeping track of sources is not my strong point. I've seen many of these data over the years but digging them all anew is turning to be difficult.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-65869776478700151142012-04-16T16:31:35.073-07:002012-04-16T16:31:35.073-07:00It's funny how so many Isteve readers seem to ...It's funny how so many Isteve readers seem to want to smash the medical profession into the ground. I'm not sure why any sane, soundly-reasoning person would want to deter competent individuals from pursuing medicine as a career. Unless you're planning to suffer instant death at a young age, chances are you WILL need medical care at some point in your life. Furthermore, the efficacy of that care is a huge determining factor for the quality-and extent-of your life subsequent the onset of your health issue. <br /><br />So I guess what I'm saying is, if you want some 110 IQ ape to be put in a position to make life and death decisions for you, keep hoping doctor salaries go down and the "cognitive elite" begin to look at the medical profession with distaste. Almost nobody practices medicine for the sake of spending more than a decade in school and dealing with the disgusting fluids leaking out of sick bodies. Those secure, mid six-figures salaries are what motivate smart people to enter medicine.Felixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11136908200424850553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-18738335390731157142012-04-16T15:56:43.830-07:002012-04-16T15:56:43.830-07:00Assistant Village Idiot: Doctors had to have bett...Assistant Village Idiot: <i>Doctors had to have better bedside manner in the old days because they essentially couldn't do much beyond set a bone, tell you whether your condition was fatal or not, and tell you if your heart was good enough to go into the army. Doctors killed more than they saved until about 1950, the result of a gradual 100+-year transition to actual science.</i><br /><br />I dunno, AVI. My mother was a sickly child back in the Dark Ages (pre-antibiotic) of medicine, and formed a bad opinion of doctors thereby. When in old age she got sick enough to consent to consulting a doctor, she was pleasantly surprised: "When I was young, doctors usually couldn't do a damned thing for you beyond telling you you were going to die, and they were arrogant jerks. Now, when they can sometimes actually cure you, they're much, much nicer".Rohan Sweenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-13043826173210234252012-04-16T15:47:38.648-07:002012-04-16T15:47:38.648-07:00Clemster: There will be a lot more doctors and th...Clemster: <i>There will be a lot more doctors and the power and prestige of doctors will be attenuated.</i><br /><br />Why do people think that making medicine a low(er)-paying, low-prestige occupation will improve things?<br /><br />1) How much has doctor pay really contributed to cost inflation in health care?<br /><br />2) Smart people avoid low-pay, low-prestige fields. (But hey, what a cost savings if we can only fill the field with the not-so-bright!)<br /><br />I've never understood the objection to doctors' making good money. I <i>want</i> my doctor to make good money. I can think of a whole hell of a lot of people who make way more money than they're worth to society, and doctors don't make the top 100.Rohan Sweenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-72047769266862715912012-04-16T13:24:50.873-07:002012-04-16T13:24:50.873-07:00"a white male MD who went to a US medical sch..."a white male MD who went to a US medical school for my doctors. The system is stacked against them so I know they are smart to make it through."<br /><br />What kind of doctor you prefer is very personal. After all, it's your body & body functions, and you may feel you need someone who has actually experience all that him or herself. It is one area where I really can see the point of having doctors who "look" like the patients. However, females are no longer the beneficiaries of AA in med school, to my knowledge, unless they are black or "hispanic." They must meet the same criteria. The one category I'd stay away from, because of experience, and awareness of their med school status, are black and most hispanic doctors. Though even among those there must be some good ones.el doradonoreply@blogger.com