> Imagine we had a biology forum that was a bunch of biologists that barely knew what a computer was discussing the latest media hype around AI. Would be pretty bad.
Yea I’m around biotech forums quite a bit and it is just as bad from a technical side. However, people on HN and tech tend to be better at identifying how technology enables things to happens, which is interesting to me.
Right now, with all the COVID type articles being posted, it feels a bit like that. I'm not a trained virologist, and I dont know how many trained virologist there are on HN. But a basic perspective on what is the diagnostic test (I've done plenty of QPCR), what is primer design, what are antibody tests, and basic virology like what does it mean to be an rna virus, how is remdesivir supposed to work, etc tends to be missing, and I think k people with my level of experience can provide that. I've studied enough healthcare management to know the terminology at least and be able to discuss a placebo controlled trial versus not, and there are a lot of people with that level of basic knowledge than can contribute. And I've seen those sorts of explanations that are quite good. I've also noticed some pushback from people with at least a basic level of statistical/epidemiological training to the narrative that the risks of COVID are overblown, with discussions of exponential growth and SIR models. There are a few glimpses buried on what can be a pretty large initial onslaught of nonsense of actual biological knowledge. I dont think you need 50 years experience to provide that, though of course that would make the perspectives that much richer and deeper.