Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations • Hacker News Board

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations

#91

Post by epo » Fri, Dec 03, 2010, 2:36 PM UTC

dmlorenzetti wrote: post #21

The author calls out med students for approaching physics through rote memorization. It reminds me of an experience my older brother and I had with a doctor friend. Our friend, an OB/GYN, mentioned how hard her work is, because "the average baby is born at 3am." We laughed, but then my brother asked, "What does 'average' mean when you have a 24-hour clock? It must mean the modal time or something like that." I contri…

How did this get voted for?

The doctor is far more knowledgeable about a VERY complex engineering system (the female reproductive system) than you or your brother are ever likely to be in any sphere of knowledge. She probably hadn't, as you put it, checked out, she was just being polite and waiting for you to stop babbling pedantic trivia. Perhaps amusing herself by wondering if you might have Aspergers.

Your final 'impression' of her thought processes is banal and insulting. And people wonder why geeks don't have girlfriends.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations

#92

Post by dmlorenzetti » Fri, Dec 03, 2010, 2:45 PM UTC

jfager wrote: post #46

dmlorenzetti wrote: post #21

The author calls out med students for approaching physics through rote memorization. It reminds me of an experience my older brother and I had with a doctor friend. Our friend, an OB/GYN, mentioned how hard her work is, because "the average baby is born at 3am." We laughed, but then my brother asked, "What does 'average' mean when you have a 24-hour clock? It must mean the modal time or something like that." I contri…

Or she knew that the term "average" can just as validly refer to the mode as the mean, and was bored by the whole exercise.

Correct. I could have written "bored by the whole exercise" rather than saying she had "checked out of the conversation".

To recap-- my brother said, literally, one sentence. I added one more sentence, relating the question to another field of study. Our friend was instantly, irremediably, and unabashedly bored.

From which I concluded that she took little pleasure in exploring any aspect of the statement she herself had introduced.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations

#93

Post by Retric » Fri, Dec 03, 2010, 2:48 PM UTC

whatwhat wrote: post #56

enneff wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything I remember about maths I remember because I understood the "why" of it. The stuff I learned rote - just to pass the exams - I have long since forgotten. I'm now frustrated that I was expected to learn anything by rote, as it's all lost to the sands of time now. Rote memorization might help you with exams and book problems, but it won't help you develop long-term mathematical problem-solving skills. If you…

I'm not saying that problem solving and understanding aren't important (see Bloom's taxonomy). I'm saying that you still need memory to justify whatever domain your knowledge is in, and that memory seems to be the bedrock of further knowledge (understanding, creativity, problem solving etc.). Am I missing something here? Do you not need some element of memory to explain things from first principles, and to have an un…

You can easily manipulate symbols without understanding what's happening. The problem is it's hard to progress significantly past your understanding using this approach. Not that Math really has levels as such, but if you don't get Calculus at a fairly deep level DiffEQ ends up being fairly meaningless.

PS: It's a common thing for most calculus classes to redirive old formulas. Not because they stoped working, but rather because you really should understand why it's 4/3 pi * r^3.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations

#94

Post by Shorel » Fri, Dec 03, 2010, 2:49 PM UTC

Given that this is Obesity research, I'm just a little more inclined to believe all the claims of the NIH syndrome and biased analysis as described in Good Calories, Bad Calories.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations

#95

Post by tjr » Fri, Dec 03, 2010, 3:17 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #79

roel_v wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Doctors are usually trying to explain things to people who aren't going to know what modal means." I talk to doctors quite often lately, with a daughter on the way and all, and the first few times I felt a bit miffed at what I took for her talking down to us. When it got to an absurd level with some nurses (who explained things like how to add several numbers by lining them up, putting a line underneath with a plus…

My wife just had the same experience and I likened it to me phoning a tech support line. Although it's frustrating they're not insulting your intelligence, they're probably just as sad as you are that they have to break it down to that level for most people. And, as someone with minor experience on the other side of tech support, you can't really afford to believe someone when they say they know what they're doing, t…

And sometimes we aren't as intelligent as we think we are.

On the phone with my home DSL service provider tech support, I was sure that the modem had been fried in an electrical storm (and, in fact, it had been). But they made me go through the standard script of stuff to check first, starting with unplugging the modem from the phone-line jack and plugging it back in. I did so, killing the conversation with tech support, as the phone was plugged into the modem...

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations

#96

Post by pge » Fri, Dec 03, 2010, 3:17 PM UTC

The lack of interdisciplinary collaboration is one of the major flaws of the US university system (I can't speak to other countries). The grad students I knew each had a specific toolkit that they had learned in their field but there was little or no sharing of those toolkits from domain to domain. That is unfortunate. Of particular importance in today's world are a toolkit of mathematical techniques (calculus, statistics, differential equations are probably the top three categories) and a category of basic programming skills (the ability to automate routine number crunching in particular, maybe "scripting" is a more appropriate word than "programming" - even recording and writing macros in Excel VB would go a long way).

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations

#97

Post by realitygrill » Fri, Dec 03, 2010, 3:48 PM UTC

carbocation wrote: post #45

mbreese wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calculus, per se, isn't a requirement, but physics is covered pretty heavily on the MCAT. And last I checked, you needed calculus for college level physics.

Calculus-based physics is not tested on the MCAT. Or, at least, no calculus is required for the physics portion of the exam.

To my utter shock - I thought it'd be one of the last bulwarks against premed memorization. When I learned otherwise, it was sad to think that those students who flocked to non-calc physics (and floundered; the classes are of course curved) really would have a good shot at medical school.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations

#98

Post by d0mine » Fri, Dec 03, 2010, 3:57 PM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #73

bluesnowmonkey wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you can average times of day, as well as wind directions. Express them as vectors on a 2-D plane, then separately average the components in each dimension. Although this is somewhat obvious in the case of wind measurements, it works for times of day as well if you think of them as points on a 24-hour clock face. Your medical friend was not checked out. She was busy stifling impolite laughter at your unfamil…

For time, what would then be the average of let's say 3 and 9 o'clock? Center of the clock I presume, but what does that mean in terms of time? Or would you then need to define the average of several points in time as a non-point in time?

For 24-hours clock you should have said 6 and 18 hours.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations

#99

Post by dpritchett » Fri, Dec 03, 2010, 4:01 PM UTC

nandemo wrote: post #78

jfager wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or she knew that the term "average" can just as validly refer to the mode as the mean, and was bored by the whole exercise.

I believe a sizeable proportion of HN users would benefit from reading these two articles by Philip Guo. I know I did. Geek behaviors present during conversations http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/geek-behaviors.htm Social tips for geeks http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/social-tips-for-geeks.htm

I like the intention of the second one but it felt too prescriptive for my purposes. I've had decent success trying to learn to better empathize genuinely.

Practice with public speaking and corporate politics and influencing are doing a lot to help me better understand how to befriend and relate to people that don't share my interests. It was initially surprising for me to be one of the geekier people in a building that is ostensibly full of IT workers.

Things that work for me: Toastmasters, Dale Carnegie books, Rands in Repose (blog and/or books), regional sports blogs.

Re: Medical researcher discovers integration, gets 75 citations

#100

Post by Vivtek » Fri, Dec 03, 2010, 4:11 PM UTC

andolanra wrote: post #65

mbreese wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We found the same link... and you're correct, she isn't a physician. In the Topics in Clinical Nutrition 1992 paper, she is listed as having an MS and an EdD. So, it's safe to say that she probably didn't realize that she was describing integration. The entire post had a "I'm smarter than you" chip on your shoulder type of vibe. It should also be noted that this paper had a number of letters to the editor about it, s…

I agree that it seemed to have this "I'm smarter than you" vibe, but the only reason I half-agreed is that I feel like it takes some nerve to try to name your discovery after yourself. It wouldn't be so bad if she called it the "curve-approximation method" or something like that; but coming up with something and deciding to name it after yourself feels kind of presumptuous and not exceptionally helpful to boot. (As f…

Everything in medicine is named with arbitrary names of discoverers and so on. That's why you have to be good at rote memorization to get through med school - you can't even communicate with your colleagues otherwise.

This is a fundamental cultural difference between medicine and engineering.