Doctor Martin Luther

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Monday, May 26, 2008

On This Day In History

Martin Luther, oil on wood by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

The Granger Collection, New York

1521: Martin Luther declared a heretic by the Edict of Worms

Passed this day in 1521, the Edict of Worms banned the writings of Martin Luther-a German cleric whose efforts to change the church led to the Reformation-and declared him an outlaw and a heretic who was to be captured.

One would say that this is the kind of information which is totally without any importance; After all it happened such a long time ago and who really cares If John Smith declares that he will no longer speak to his old friend James Brown?

Does this not occur everyday in our town and in our families? Which family has not got someone who does not speak to someone?

So why make a big fuss about it and pretend that this is not something that is happening under our eyes and that we are both spectators and actors, yet we do not realize the part we are playing and how our world will be changed?

You do not really believe that our World is being changed the same way it was changed by Martin Luther? If you are reading this, it means that “YOU” are changing the world the way Martin Luther did.

Incidentally why was Luther banned from the church?

We have all been taught a lot of stories at school. Some say that it was because he was fighting against the corruption of the prelates. If that was true, we would be living in a constant revolution. Power has always been corrupt and will always be corrupt.

This was a superficial reason, while there was a much dangerous reason for banning Luther.

He was one of the many who declared that each one of us had access to the rules of the game and that each one of us was to use the rules as best as he understood them.

A bit as if each one of us was to receive the book of rules of cricket and each village to play cricket according to its understanding of the rules.

During medieval time, the rules of the game could only be understood by those who were trained to read and understand; As a result there were rules about how to understand the rules; there were rules about how to apply the rules.

Those issuing the rules and their interpretation where also empowered with the power to apply the rules judge the users and discipline the sinners; incidentally to be paid for that activity.

Until Gutenberg discovered how to reproduce the book of rules at a low cost and in characters that could be understood by anyone.

After this long preamble, let us jump into the middle of the pig pen.

We have been brought up in a tradition whereby a medical doctor had to undergo long studies, let us say a minimum of seven years, supplemented by many years of experience.

As a result, the medical doctor was the only one empowered to declare that this greenish rash on your arm was the Chonosky-Burnlett disease that could only be cured by the holy oils that only he could prescribe.

As a result the medical doctor was the only person empowered to the access to the holy oils that would cure the green rash on your forearm;

He would make you pay for the diagnostic of the Chonosky-Burnlett disease and pay for the holy oils that would cure it. The Medical Doctors would be bitter about your lack of gratitude.

And comes Internet, which is the Gutenberg press of today.

Whereby you discover that the Chonosky-Burnlett disease is simply due to the fact that your bed post in made of copper and your arm is hitting it during the night when you are dreaming, that the green rash will vanish with a bit of soap and a change of the bedpost.

It is a horrible disaster for the medical doctor, you have spent two days on the net and the forum, you have not paid him any fees and you have not purchased the holy oils, you are not in a gratitude debt to him for having cured you.

What was the use of his ten years of studies and experience?

This explains why you read all these deprecating comments about persons using the net to find a possible diagnosis for their illnesses.

Having ridiculed the medical doctors, in all fairness I have to recognize that they are not that stupid; But I will not back on the affirmation that they do take advantage of our ignorance and carefully avoid telling us the source where we can read about our illness. They also treat us the way the Priests treated the sinners.

The Church was right that reading the Holy Book can be and is dangerous. You can make the holy book say anything. You are not supposed to open the holy book at random and find your wisdom in one paragraph. You are not supposed to read the Holy book and in a painful situation use a paragraph to find the solution to your problem.

In the same way, while you may have been able to diagnose the Chonosky-Burnlett sickness yourself, what about the ten or hundred sicknesses which differ from the Chonosky-Burnlett by the width of a hair?

Medical Doctors feel quite confident that their knowledge in interpreting data will always be essential and that they have nothing to fear from Computer Assisted Medicine.

Great Masters at Chess were confident that never would a computer be able to beat them, that they would be so unpredictable that they would be able to drive the computer to madness.

Yet Big Blue defeated the Greatest master.

Yet on a recent test, Artificial Intelligence tools did better than specialists at diagnosing lung cancers.

Have you noticed that today you can visit a doctor, anywhere in the World and you will never see the doctor consulting the computer when you have agreed with him on your list of symptoms? Have you noticed that you never leave with a booklet giving you the Internet links to your sickness?

How many decade will it take before artificial intelligence will the automatic diagnostic tool, the same way as the Automatic landing Systems are used in airplanes preferably to manual landing, the same way Automatic Connecting Systems are used in Space Modules rather than manual guidance?

The Automatic Guidance of Airplanes did not make the two pilots obsolete even if their biggest problem is how not to fall asleep during long flights.

It is possible that the Computer Assisted Medical Diagnosis will push the medical doctors into what they hate most, the human contact.

In the meantime the Medical Doctors are the dying priest cast of the Medical Religion. They will not die easily. They will crucify anybody doubting their almighty power and infallibility.