Seth rants about institutional review boards (IRBs). I have no problem with that; I rant about IRBs all the time. (And when IRBs should be doing something, they don't seem to be around.) But I don't know that Seth is being fair to blame "literature professors" for the problem. I've been on some NIH panels where some pretty ridiculous human subjects concerns were raised. And these were scientists on the panels, not literature professors.
Don't blame the literature professors
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"Rants"? I was being factual, I thought. "Literature professor" was shorthand for "non-experts in the area that they are telling experts what to do".
Seth,
I didn't mean "rant" as a negative thing. Rants can be factual. I've ranted. Regarding "literature professor," I just think that's an easy laugh line, but I fear, based on my experience, that the involvement of non-experts is not the key problem with IRBs.