It has been brought to my attention that some people are using this
newsgroup to seek medical advice. I'd like to make two points:
1) This newsgroup is intended for research discussions in the
neurosciences. While members of the general public are welcome to
read this newsgroup, digressions from the newsgroup purpose are *not*
welcome.
2) Research, by definition 8-), focuses on things that we don't know a
lot about. Researchers are aware of the tenuous nature of scientific
fact and are hopefully aware that anything posted on this group is not
gospel truth 8-) but requires educated reflection about its merits.
This is obviously *not* a peer-reviewed forum.
While there are other newsgroups on USENET such as sci.med and its
subsets which might be more "public-friendly," I would hope that
anyone who reads USENET, whether in the bionet domain or elsewhere,
realizes that all postings should be considered expressions of
personal opinion. When readers most likely don't have any clue about
who the person is that is posting the opinion, the obvious course of
action is to treat all opinions as interesting ideas at best which do
not alleviate one from the responsibility of using one's own critical
faculties to research suggestions further, usually with reference to
known reputed authorities.
Having posted this notice, I must conclude by saying to the scientists
reading this group that, if you do not want people to post requests
for medical advice here, a polite private note sent to these people
will usually get the message across. Please contact me again if you
feel that further public warnings are needed or also feel free to post
them yourself (but not too often, please 8-).
Sincerely,
Dave Kristofferson
BIOSCI/bionet Manager
biosci-help at net.bio.net