# Things which are obvious within your field but controversial to the public
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 18, 2005, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204 "2005-03-18T20:53:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2005, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/61 "2005-03-19T19:58:52Z")
> [@Martin Wolf](#):
>
> I suspect that most laypeople – at least, the kind of reasonably intelligent laypeople who read Jared Diamond – have at least some grasp of this. When an astrophysicist states that the Sun will blow up and destroy the Earth X billion years from now, or when a biochemist mentions the fact that substance Y is carciogenic, everybody understands that they are talking about things as they are, not as they should be.
>
> What’s more likely is that many people, rightly or wrongly, do not consider psychology and sociobiology (the examples you were referring to) to be as ‘hard’ a science as physics or chemistry. Unlike physicists, a psychologist will often be suspected of going into the field with certain preconceived biases, and then setting up the experiments in such a way that the desired outcome will result. Especially when it comes to race- and gender-based differences in mental functioning, the popular perception is that there is not so much a scientific consensus, as there are different groups trying to find evidence supporting their ideological views. And that scientific consensus, in so far as it exists at all in those fields, is more influenced by the views of society than the other way around.
>
> So when a scientist claims that there exists overwhelming evidence for the claim that men tend to be better at mathematics than women, people are going to assume that he is a member of the camp which _wants_ to believe such differences exist – if they didn’t, they would have ignored the experiments which suggest such evidence, and concentrated on the ones which do not.
I remember reading a study of math performance of elementary school students in Norway done over a five year period, basically from 1st to sixth grade. Unlike the US, the schools in Norway share a common curricula, so differences among schools were fairly easy to correct for. This study was a meta-analysis, drawn from the standard tests given to all students in the system.
What they found was that: their were more male math “geniuses” than female, but then again, there were more male math “idiots” than female. For than average middle, in 12 of 12 subclasses of math proficiency, male and female performed the same. However, between the 3rd and 4th grade, when more advanced fractions were introduced, female did not do as well as males (the other 10 of twelve were on parr) but-the difference was only just significantly different. The authors conclusion was that females could be brought to parity with males with as little as one extra “period of study” was introduced. 🆒
---
### Author:  [@MaddyStrut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaddyStrut)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2005, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/62 "2005-03-19T21:23:24Z")
> [@Sample\_the\_Dog](#):
>
> I recently heard a story on NPR news that claimed it’s common practice for NFL teams to issue antibiotics pre-emptively to the players, on the grounds that an infection could easily spread and sideline the whole team.
>
> Seemed monumentally stupid to me, if true.
And I read somewhere that farm animals are routinely given antibiotics to make them grow bigger faster. It could be an urban legend (rural legend?) though.
---
### Author:  [@Sample\_the\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sample_the_Dog)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2005, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/63 "2005-03-19T21:53:11Z")
> [@MaddyStrut](#):
>
> And I read somewhere that farm animals are routinely given antibiotics to make them grow bigger faster. It could be an urban legend (rural legend?) though.
No urban legend that, but a huge area of controversy. See [Antibiotics Used as Animal Feed Additives : Does This Contribute to Increased Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics?](http://www.public.iastate.edu/~fuchs/abr/)
There is also great concern in some quarters over antibiotics leeching into the water supply.
---
### Author:  [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2005, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/64 "2005-03-19T22:02:02Z")
Whie it isn’t totally without controversy, cases like Terri Schiavo’s are far less controversial among doctors than they are among the public.
As an example in the other direction, I’m sure the public would not consider cancer screening to be controversial, but many aspects of it very much are. For instance, I am firmly against primary screening for prostate cancer.
---
### Author:  [@Sample\_the\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sample_the_Dog)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2005, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/65 "2005-03-19T22:19:20Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#):
>
> Whie it isn’t totally without controversy, cases like Terri Schiavo’s are far less controversial among doctors than they are among the public.
>
> As an example in the other direction, I’m sure the public would not consider cancer screening to be controversial, but many aspects of it very much are. For instance, I am firmly against primary screening for prostate cancer.
Do you recall the name of the doctor who spearheaded the PSA test movement? I read a recent interview w/ him, and he’s now going largely in the other direction. Not because the tests are inaccurate, but because people think the PSA test directly indicates the presence of cancer, which it doesn’t. There could be any number of causes for elevated PSA, and there can be cancer without elevated PSA. Does this jibe with your experience in the field?
---
### Author:  [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harriet_the_Spry)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2005, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/66 "2005-03-19T23:28:41Z")
From Human Resources
The tremendous increase in health costs will affect your premiums for health insurance. Either that or it will put XYZ corp. out of business.
Even if the company is paying none/a small part of your premium, you are still getting a benefit from health insurance as an employee. You are able to purchase at group rates rather than individual, your premium is paid with pre-tax dollars, and your past experience of high claims doesn’t disqualify you from coverage.
When you are applying for a job, you are in sales and the company you are applying to is a potential customer.
---
### Author:  [@Ms\_Macphisto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Macphisto)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2005, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/67 "2005-03-20T03:35:00Z")
> [@Idlewild](#):
>
> It is really really freaking expensive to develop drugs. No, really. Really expensive. Especially when you factor in every drug that gets to a certain point in development but never gets to market.
>
> This isn’t to say that there aren’t problems with pharmaceutical pricing, regulatory oversight, unethical sales practices to doctors, and so on and so forth. But the general public seems to have a hard time grasping that we don’t just wave a magic wand and find cures.
>
> Furthermore, cancer isn’t one disease that we can take out in one fell swoop. So when the General Public finds it amusing to ask me how come “we” can develop Viagra (yes, the entire pharmaceutical industry is interested in your erection!) but we can’t cure cancer, the answer is that lots of people are spending lots and lots of R&D money on trying to find cures for many different types of cancer that behave in different ways.
>
> I’m by no means a cheerleader for big pharma, but I do wish the public could grasp that it’s just not a Hollywood lab scene where the cute girl in the white coat and glasses goes “Eureka! I found the cure for everything! We can all go home!”
Thank you. I currently work for a biotech company that is working on a treatment for a specific type of cancer. Development of the product has already been going on for over a decade, and it will likely be a few more years before it makes it onto the market, assuming it makes it through Phase III all right. Obviously, all of the resources going into this, including the people, lab space, research supplies and, yes, animals, costs millions of dollars. Yet a friend of mine was absolutely shocked to hear that the company would charge (probably a lot of) money for the drug, rather than just giving it away to anyone who needed it.
---
### Author:  [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2005, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/68 "2005-03-20T03:40:13Z")
> [@Ms Macphisto](#):
>
> Thank you. I currently work for a biotech company that is working on a treatment for a specific type of cancer. Development of the product has already been going on for over a decade, and it will likely be a few more years before it makes it onto the market, assuming it makes it through Phase III all right. Obviously, all of the resources going into this, including the people, lab space, research supplies and, yes, animals, costs millions of dollars. Yet a friend of mine was absolutely shocked to hear that the company would charge (probably a lot of) money for the drug, rather than just giving it away to anyone who needed it.
Equally important is the fact, (AIUI from my father who’d been in pharmaceutical development his whole professional life.) that something on the order of 90% of all new medications are based on research done in the US, compared to Europe and Canada, because of the costs involved, and the fact that US is the only major market where profits are high enough to make it really cost-effective.
---
### Author:  [@Red\_Stilettos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Stilettos)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/69 "2005-03-20T04:25:36Z")
> [@Idlewild](#):
>
> Furthermore, cancer isn’t one disease that we can take out in one fell swoop. So when the General Public finds it amusing to ask me how come “we” can develop Viagra (yes, the entire pharmaceutical industry is interested in your erection!) but we can’t cure cancer, the answer is that lots of people are spending lots and lots of R&D money on trying to find cures for many different types of cancer that behave in different ways.
Related to this: sequencing the human (or any other organism’s) genome will not magically result in medical answers. Most biomedical researchers view sequencing as a technical acheivement, not a scientific discovery. It’s a useful tool to have in the arsenal, but sequence alone won’t get you anywhere near an answer.
---
### Author:  [@Skellington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skellington)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2005, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/70 "2005-03-20T06:44:36Z")
Here’s a goodish one:
I’m an animal tech, that’s a kind of lab animal looker afterer/research assistant.
People are always saying things like “you are brave, I couldn’t do stuff like that to an animal” (stuff like what?! We can’t legally do anything that hurts them [of corse nor would we want to]), “how could you?!” (again what?!), “how can they get away with that anymore (with what?!) no one would buy products tested on animals anymore.”
Luckily there is a damn good answer to the last one: the all the stuff on your face was tested by people like me and so was the stuff that makes you hair that odd colour. If the product has not been tested on animals it cannot be sold. If a product says ‘not tested on animals’ on it that just means that another company has done the testing in the past and they have pinched/bought the recipe.
The animals I look after are mostly used for health (rather than cosmetic) research. I’ve worked with farm animals, pets, show animals, production animals and research animals, out of all of these the research animals are the happiest and most well looked after. When the animal techs have finished daily duties and whatever else is ment to happen that day they go and play with the animals, pat them, talk to them and train them, they get more attention than most pets.
Animal techs are noramally people who love animals. And yet they receive so much abuse from people who have never been in an animal house but have seen a bit of film taken in the 50s of people zapping mice. :rolleyes:
Anyway, that’s my bitch for the month. And I admit I do tease these people, when they ask what I do I say “I’m the one who zaps the mouse”.
---
### Author:  [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2005, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/71 "2005-03-20T08:36:54Z")
The practice of using a person’s sex as a rating factor for premium rates or annuity rates. As an actuary, it makes perfect sense to me and it’s statistically justified. Many people think it’s discriminatory though.
---
### Author:  [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2005, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/72 "2005-03-20T13:59:18Z")
as a fire alarm technician, i constantly explain:
1. the smoke detectors connected to your fire alarm system do not “beep” like the ones in your house. in fact, they have no audible capabil;ities at all. the audible appliances are completely seperate, and they do not “beep” either.
2. although your phone is dead, the little yellow light next to the label “phone line failure” on your fire alarm dialer is not causing the problem on your phones. the light is on because your phones do not work.
3. at four am, i am groggy, grouchy and doing the best i can to return your call. do not have me paged, then either call your mom or ignore your phone. i can not help you through your problems unless you ANSWER THE PHONE! i can not instruct your voice mail as to which button it can push to silence the alarm until i get there, and your voice mail can not tell me the address you forgot to give the answering service.
---
### Author:  [@Astroboy14](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astroboy14)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2005, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/73 "2005-03-20T14:25:29Z")
> [@Idlewild](#):
>
> But the general public seems to have a hard time grasping that we don’t just wave a magic wand and find cures.
I don’t see what the problem is: it only took Dustin Hoffman like, what?, 15 minutes to find the cure in the movie **Outbreak** … get on the ball!
(my best friend used to work in AIDS research, and that line would enrage him almost to the point of physical violence 😃 )
---
### Author:  [@Nocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nocturne)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2005, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/74 "2005-03-20T14:57:15Z")
I do not work in hard-or-social science related field as such.
I am a Director of Education at a UU Church. Mostly I work with the children: scheduling nursery workers and Sunday school teachers. purchasing supplies, setting up snacks each Sunday, attending Board and other meetings, etc.
The problem the church is facing right now is this: their numbers have hit a plateau, and there are very few children under 11 in the church, and there are very few college students.
However, they seem to be resistant to this fact: they are not doing what they SHOULD be doing to attract couples with young children, or college students. Their Sunday services are just as boring as regular church, which a lot of the college students I know stopped attending not only because they didn’t agree with most church’s conservative views, but because conservative church services here, by and large, are boring.
You can still be spiritual and jazz up everything. We don’t have to have the liberal humanist equivalent of High Mass every Sunday. For some reason, this is offensive to half the church.
---
### Author:  [@gruver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gruver)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2005, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/75 "2005-03-20T15:09:15Z")
Not all kids are going to learn to add and write in complete sentences. Sometimes they just need to learn how to function in society in a way that will keep them from getting taken advantage of or killed.
Just because a 7th grader (or older) can’t read doesn’t mean he is stupid, lazy, or a drain on society.
---
### Author:  [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2005, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/76 "2005-03-20T20:43:06Z")
If your payroll check is messed up, and your company contracts the payroll (you’ll know, the subcontracted company usually has their name somewhere on the check) they will blame the subcontracter.
It may not be possible to get a copy of JUST ONE check. or JUST ONE W2 form. When we do reprints, we have to reprint the entire payroll, including all the checks and other forms.
For batch processing, a Mainframe or AS400 system is still the best option. A distributed network requires more infrastructure and support than a single box. Therefore, there will always be a need for AS400 or Mainframe folks.
Martial Arts work, and work well… within reason. I don’t care how well trained you are, in a stand up toe to toe fight, a smaller, physically weaker opponent will loose to an equally trained larger stronger opponent.
Also, Pride, UFC and other MMA competitions are not valid ways to judge the effectiveness of an art… however, this viewpoint splits the martial arts world.
---
### Author:  [@Sample\_the\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sample_the_Dog)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2005, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/77 "2005-03-20T20:49:20Z")
What are you, **Tristan** – an IT guy in a dojo’s HR dept?
---
### Author:  [@Mr.Goob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Goob)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2005, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/78 "2005-03-20T21:46:23Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#):
>
> And, my personal favorite answer to the question I get everytime I mention having worked in nuclear power: “Nope. I was never scared of the reactor. The steam plant terrified me, however. After all, I was active duty when the Iwo Jima had that TG steam valve blow open.”
/hijack/
Was that late 1990? I was on the LaSalle the other side of the pier. IIRC.
---
### Author:  [@Sir\_Prize](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Prize)
#### Post date: [March 20, 2005, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/79 "2005-03-20T23:19:44Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#):
>
> Several people have made mention of Lawrence Summers remarks about gender differences and mathematical aptitude. I don’t think any knowledgable person disputes the idea that there are real genetic differences between men and women. But to put Summers’ remarks in context, in the same speech, he compared the lack of women in mathematics to the lack of Catholics in banking or Jews in farming. Once you realize he was theorizing that Catholics and Protestants have different genes or that there are farming and anti-farming genes, you might consider he was talking out his ass.
Or you might consider that he listed multiple reasons why there may be less woman in the sciences, that biology wasn’t the primary reason and that he never implied that there is a genetic reason for disparity between ethnic/religious groups in various occupations.
---
### Author:  [@Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Can_Handle_the_Truth)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2005, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204/80 "2005-03-21T01:26:21Z")
When I was working as a mechanical engineer, I was constantly having to rescue the company’s owner and senior management from con men who tried to sell them “secret processes” that involved violating basic laws of physics. Some people just can’t get it into their head that it’s impossible for any process to produce more energy than it consumes. Some even think the laws of thermodynamics are a government conspiracy.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204.md?page=3)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-which-are-obvious-within-your-field-but-controversial-to-the-public/295204.md?page=5)