> I think making medical claims is quite punishable if one doesn't have a license.
Well, it's tricky. If you say "I don't believe covid-19 is a serious problem", that can't be punishable as there is a large spectrum of legitimate thinking as to its severity and what trade-offs we should want to make. Such a statement is not remotely like practicing medicine without a license, but some will argue that it is if it could help them shut up the speaker. While saying that "chloroquine phosphate is a good prophylactic for covid-19" to someone who would believe it certainly should be punishable (as attempted murder perhaps! and regardless of whether the speaker is a licensed physician!).
> This could easily be extended to include journalists and politicians as well as other areas of science (if the stakes are high enough)
Journalists? Eh, maybe, but government officers generally have privileges and immunities -- good luck getting them to let those go.
Anyways, the rest of your comment reads like 1984. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes and all that. Regulatory capture and all that. There's no Objectivity. There's no way to set up a mechanism that yields objectively-correct results. All systems will be susceptible to collective delusions and other failures. There's no silver bullet here, and free speech should be part of the mix. Reactionary thinking is fun for the angry, but not good for society.
I didn't put much thought into the post, its a pretty raw idea that could be refined (and of course abused) but it doesn't have to be very Orwellian.
We have professional communities who get things wrong regularly but the rest of the time they do a very good job. Professionals have a tendency to get things right sometimes.
In the media we see journalists interview experts and twist their words into click bait. Journalists loves to attribute the work to professional sources. There is an abundance of professionals who could operate a thumbs up/down interface. Doing this comes with a certain risk to their career. When hiring someone you can pull the articles endorsed from the database. The choice to voice their opinion depends on how much they care about a topic.
The article can be published regardless. The banner will just say something like: "Zero security experts endorsed this article."
Then we will see how many dieticians are willing to put their name under the "Eating chocolate every day can help you lose weight" publication. The endorsement doesn't have to be permanent but the log will be.
> While saying that "chloroquine phosphate is a good prophylactic for covid-19" to someone who would believe it certainly should be punishable (as attempted murder perhaps! and regardless of whether the speaker is a licensed physician!).
I would disagree. As an example in the history, saying "The Earth is a sphere" was once punishable by death. Fake news and pseudo science has always existed, but censorship is not a solution. Only research, education and communication can help, and even then, each generation will always have his own set of questions without answers.
I don't agree with the parent' solution either, for the same reasons.
Lets take a different perspective. The drawback of paper days where one would publish a final version are over. On paper one could only enhance by publishing a retraction or a follow up.
Assuming the author has better things to do others could provide value by endorsement. We have star ratings and thumbs all over the web, it works but the rocket scientist gets as many votes as the 12 year old under an article about rocket science.
I've often had the discussion on wikipedia. The funniest one was 4 so called established editors repeatedly overruling the Nobel prize winner in his area of expertise on an issue that according to the guidelines is left up to editors. Initially he argued the text he added was common sense. When trying to add sources there was only cursory mention in top journals (they assumed it was common sense for their reader) everything else was considered not RS. It struck me how easy it would be to use [for example] university profile pages to host a public key. It doesn't even have to be visible. The WP editors argued it impossible but its easy.
Then them professors can go around and rate peoples publications the way they always do. As a reader I would much enjoy the endorsements.
It's much better than just my own opinion crudely put together without expertise. The journalist probably doesn't know anything either. I wonder, what are we even doing? (me and the journalist) If neither of us can see the false-positives or -negatives nor can do the probability calculations... what is the point of the exchange? I see much greater potential with little extra effort.
Chloroquine phosphate is fishtank cleaner, and -to humans- poison.
Granted, if you're just dumb and ignorant and choose to take it yourself, that's no crime. But telling others to take poison, without telling them it's poison, should be a crime. Of course, in the case of chloroquine phosphate, if you look at the packaging, you'll see it's poison.
Well, it's tricky. If you say "I don't believe covid-19 is a serious problem", that can't be punishable as there is a large spectrum of legitimate thinking as to its severity and what trade-offs we should want to make. Such a statement is not remotely like practicing medicine without a license, but some will argue that it is if it could help them shut up the speaker. While saying that "chloroquine phosphate is a good prophylactic for covid-19" to someone who would believe it certainly should be punishable (as attempted murder perhaps! and regardless of whether the speaker is a licensed physician!).
> This could easily be extended to include journalists and politicians as well as other areas of science (if the stakes are high enough)
Journalists? Eh, maybe, but government officers generally have privileges and immunities -- good luck getting them to let those go.
Anyways, the rest of your comment reads like 1984. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes and all that. Regulatory capture and all that. There's no Objectivity. There's no way to set up a mechanism that yields objectively-correct results. All systems will be susceptible to collective delusions and other failures. There's no silver bullet here, and free speech should be part of the mix. Reactionary thinking is fun for the angry, but not good for society.