et tu...status quo?

so by now you've prolly seen or heard about the nobel prize in medicine being awarded to two dudes who found a way to really cure ulcers.

and there's a bit of controversy about it. you know...the normal and typical stupid professional jealousy and industry cya stuff like:

does stress play a bigger part than they claim?
will their method cause even worse side-effects?

but mainly

is this really a "nobel worthy" achievement?

i'll leave the two former questions for folks more expert than i, but as to the latter, i say...sweet mother of moses yes!

here's why:

the simplicity of someone's beginning idea doesn't matter when awarding a nobel prize...and quite rightfully so.

here's a idea you might have heard before:

apples fall down...not up.

and from that simple little observation...look what sir isaac newton was able to bestow upon the rest of us.

you think the nobel committee wouldn't fall all over themselves to show ol' isaac the money if he still had happened to be the first to come up with the laws of motion now... in 2005, instead of umpteen years ago?

you bet your sweet bippy they would.
and quite rightfully so.

you see kiddos, many great achievements start as rebellion against prevailing thought...aka the status quo.

who would have ever thought that ulcers were caused by anything but stress? who would have thought to look at a bacterial cause?

well...seems like no one...except these two guys.
but it wasn't just that they thought of it.

they proved it.
which meant doing the research, and the studies, and all the other stuff required to actually prove anything to experts these day. and when proving it on paper and in theory wasn't enough to shake folks out of the dreaded status quo concerning ulcer treatment, one of them took it to a whole other level.

he proved it in reality...by first giving himself an ulcer using the exact stuff their theory claimed caused ulcers, and then cured himself, using the exact method their theory described.

now that's the ultimate dogfooding!
or as i call it...drinking a 55 gallon drum of the kool-aid!

so today...your friendly neighborhood happyscienceboy would like to salute the idea of...well...new ideas.

so put your thinking caps on, folks...and take a moment to rethink a few things you tend to take for granted as accepted fact.