this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
93 points (100.0% liked)

Science

13034 readers
11 users here now

Studies, research findings, and interesting tidbits from the ever-expanding scientific world.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


Be sure to also check out these other Fediverse science communities:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Virologist Beata Halassy says self-treatment worked and was a positive experience โ€” but researchers warn that it is not something others should try

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] tormeh@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 weeks ago

Maybe the same as with drugs in sports: Self-experimentation can be an expedient shortcut, and scientists are often very competitive people. If results obtained through self-experimentation are rewarded, many scientists would be tempted to do it. Contrary to doping in sport, however, in science you need to at least do something different each time for it to be publication-worthy. That institutes a big skill floor and considerable risk, so I think a self-experimentation epidemic is unlikely. Generally I still think self-experimentation is good, precisely because it's such a shortcut.