Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
It's less relevant to me than the measurable results of medical practice
I'm not glorifying any establishment. I'm not trying to say all doctors are good or that any one doctor is always right.

I am untrained in medical knowledge. I have the First Aid skills of any good Boy Scout, but I have to defer to people who are experts in the field on any medical matter. That doesn't mean that I trust everything they say without critical thought. It just means I recognize that I'm a layman and that there are experts.

We're all a bunch of monkeys throwing shit at a wall to see what sticks... how is choosing a profession supposed to change that?
For me, what changes it is the institution of scientific doubt that permeates the community and encourages everyone to look for and call a turd a turd when they find it.
It's not a perfect system.
It's a system that encourages participants to say, "That's some good shit. I did what you said you did, and I found what you said I'd find. A+ work," or, "That's fucked up! I did what you said you did, but I did not find what you said I'd find. You're full of shit."

Barely out of the stone age? Maybe in some places, but I'd say using anti-matter to scan your body is fairly to moderately non-stone-agey.
A PET scan is a Positron Emission Tomography scan.
Meaning they (muhahaha) inject you with a substance that will release positrons. Positrons are anti-matter versions of an electron.
Man, it's so much more complicated than that. Stone Age? I don't see it.

***
Back to a more direct line on topic.

When I wonder at what is my self? / What is not myself? / What defines my self?
I am faced with a lot of angles.
When it comes to the measurable, tangible, physical angle... there are loads of professionals with a long history of results to observe.

I trust the body of medicine that saved my life when my appendix ruptured during my appendectomy operation.
I'm grateful to have my father alive, no matter how many bypass surgeries it takes to keep his heart working.

I'm not "blindly" trusting any establishment, man.
I'm admitting that whatever else I am, I am a chemical machine. There are chemical mechanics in this world.