(May 13, 2023 at 6:49 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:(May 13, 2023 at 6:38 am)FlatAssembler Wrote: Oh really? Keep in mind that, to the vast majority of doctors at the time, the Semmelweis'es work seemed like a terrible study. It seemed to use bad methodology and to arrive at pseudoscientific-sounding conclusions. Levy commented both that the methodology is bad (he said: "Why wasn't a simpler and more convincing experiment performed, to simply stop all the anatomical work?") and that the conclusions are implausible (that "implausibly small" particles from a corpse can turn you into a corpse if they touch your blood, and that washing your hands with some substances solves that). So, was it the right conclusion that Semmelweis was incompetent? Of course not.
This is just ‘they laughed at Galileo’. Simply because Semmelweis was right doesn’t justify concluding that Kleck is.
Boru
Semmelweis'es study was the only study available back then about the causes of puerperal fever. Thus, the right thing to do was to accept its conclusions, rather than to complain about its shortcomings. Similarly, since the only study we have about how many lives are saved by defensive gun use is the Gary Kleck's study, the right thing to do is to accept its conclusions, rather than to complain about its shortcomings.
