Merged Steve Jobs has died.

Dean Ornish is a widely respected physician whose focus, at least publicly, has been on the impact of diet on heart disease. He's a big promoter of a vegetarian diet, but he's not some loon. Are people sure that Jobs was eating a special diet instead of normal medical care, or was he trying to eat right in addition to following doctors' orders? The fact that he had a liver transplant (possibly jumping a priority line), that he went to Switzerland for experimental treatment, and that he had radiation and chemotherapy pretty strongly indicates that he wasn't trusting his life to spinach and arugula.
 
His doctors recommended immediate action and he resisted. This is the accepted narrative. If anyone has evidence to the contrary they should go ahead and edit wikipedia which states

Jobs resisted his doctors' recommendations for evidence-based medical intervention for nine months
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Orac can say it probably didn't make a huge difference, but we can never know what would have happened if he had of done the intelligent thing.

tyr_13 said:
It might not be so. I've read many claims by people saying to be in the know that he never stopped conventional treatment as the first option
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This isn't very helpful...
 
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Joey McGee said:
His doctors recommended immediate action and he resisted. This is the accepted narrative. If anyone has evidence to the contrary they should go ahead and edit wikipedia which states



Orac can say it probably didn't make a huge difference, but we can never know what would have happened if he had of done the intelligent thing.

This isn't very helpful...
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And what was wikipedia's source? A CNN/Fortune article. Their source? Unnamed sources. So you have some people claiming to be in the know saying one thing, and some others claiming to be in the know saying another.

Yes, according to our best information right now, Jobs made a poor choice. But our best information right now isn't very reliable and it's possible that new better evidence will come to light that shows he didn't forsake modern medicine at any point.

None of this makes ignoring modern medical advice bad, it's already bad regardless. Or justify alt-medicine making people believe it can help when it can't (or hasn't been shown to). There is no good justification for that.
 
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I heard about his use of this before, but I also remember that Jobs used the power of moneopothy to get a faster liver transplant. He definitely wasn't opposed to modern medicine.
 
Ethan Thane Athen said:
I listed the products he designed earlier and they encompass the ones that really made Apple the media darlings they became.

And I'm perfectly clued up on hardware and software engineering, having worked in the industry for over 20 years thank you, so no need of a 'hint'. As I also made clear in my earlier posts, I am talking about design in its common usage ie the style of the things, as that is what they are often lauded for (hence the view of non-fanboys that Apple products are often style rather than substance - see my earlier comments on the iphone).

I have also made clear that I agree Jobs deserves significant credit - just not the ridiculously over the top deification and not for the design (as defined earlier).

Don't disagree with the substance of the rest of your post though.
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I am certain there are many people who have inappropriately attributed all of Apple's success to Steve Jobs, just as many today believe that Thomas Edison "invented the lightbulb." But I find it pretty amazing how many of the smartest people in Silicon Valley, in technology world-wide, and in the entertainment industry have such a uniquely high opinion of who Jobs was and what he did. This is not an argument by authority- these are legitimate experts in the same fields as Jobs. Either Steve Jobs was able to fool among the smartest people in the world (which takes some intelligence, right?), or he was indeed incredibly talented.
 
tyr_13 said:
And what was wikipedia's source? A CNN/Fortune article. Their source? Unnamed sources.
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So what? Orac certainly had no problem accepting trusting the professional journalists who worked on that article when he blogged about the story in 2008, and neither do I. It's a serious news organization with a reputation to protect. Can you find me a CNN/Forture article where total liars were taken seriously by the reporters? Then you'd have a point.
So you have some people claiming to be in the know saying one thing, and some others claiming to be in the know saying another.
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Really? Where? You didn't bother to share, so I imagine it's not a major news organization with a serious reputation to protect etc. It's not impossible for it to be poor reporting but there is no reason to doubt it since no one has ever publicly challenged this series of events three years later.

Yes, according to our best information right now, Jobs made a poor choice. But our best information right now isn't very reliable and it's possible that new better evidence will come to light that shows he didn't forsake modern medicine at any point.
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It's possible the stock market will gain 1000 points tomorrow but it doesn't look good and to think it might would be wish thinking for real. That article is 3 years old and it has been blogged and written about by thousands of people. I can't find any dissenting views and you haven't offered anything.

It happened, it was absolutely brutal, and it needs to be part of the record so people know not to try stupid stuff like that themselves.
 
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This was already discussed on page 1 and page 2 of the Steve Jobs thread.

gerdbonk said:
Jobs was a Buddhist vegetarian. He was secretive about his health:

In 2003 Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and, rejecting the idea of surgery, set about finding alternative therapy, including a special diet.

He finally underwent surgery in 2004 having kept his illness secret from all but a small handful of Apple insiders.
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Obituary: Steve Jobs

A year between diagnosis and surgery, trying to cure cancer with alt therapy and diet. He lasted another 7 years, getting a liver transplant in 2009. Could timely surgery and aggressive treatment have extended his life? I don't know much about pancreatic cancer.
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tyr_13 said:
And what was wikipedia's source? A CNN/Fortune article. Their source? Unnamed sources. So you have some people claiming to be in the know saying one thing, and some others claiming to be in the know saying another.

Yes, according to our best information right now, Jobs made a poor choice. But our best information right now isn't very reliable and it's possible that new better evidence will come to light that shows he didn't forsake modern medicine at any point.

None of this makes ignoring modern medical advice bad, it's already bad regardless. Or justify alt-medicine making people believe it can help when it can't (or hasn't been shown to). There is no good justification for that.
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Thank you for that balanced, common sense viewpoint.
 
Giordano said:
...Either Steve Jobs was able to fool among the smartest people in the world (which takes some intelligence, right?), or he was indeed incredibly talented.
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I think a good analogy is a movie director-- one who usually doesn't do the actual work but who makes the choices and has final say on what the product is. One who's opinionated and exacting (and this difficult to work for) often produces a better product. Do you think that particular talent is a matter of just fooling people?
 
This is annoying me. Alternative medicine didn't kill Jobs, cancer killed Jobs. He may well have lived a little longer with regular treatment, sure, but to say he 'succumbed to alternative medicine' is, at best, inaccurate.
 
Pulvinar said:
I think a good analogy is a movie director-- one who usually doesn't do the actual work but who makes the choices and has final say on what the product is. One who's opinionated and exacting (and this difficult to work for) often produces a better product. Do you think that particular talent is a matter of just fooling people?
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I presume you are addressing some other poster. My point, noted elsewhere in this thread, is exactly the same as yours. I think Jobs was a genius. I find it amusing when people state that they are unimpressed, that he was only the CEO. I've supervised groups of 5 to 10 very talented people, and it was not easy to arrange the projects, budgets, space, and atmosphere so everyone could live up to their full potential. I assure you, I would drive Apple into the ground in 5 minutes of being their CEO. Most people would take a day to do the same. Jobs built it from nothing, saved it from failure, and had success after success.
 
arthwollipot said:
This is annoying me. Alternative medicine didn't kill Jobs, cancer killed Jobs. He may well have lived a little longer with regular treatment, sure, but to say he 'succumbed to alternative medicine' is, at best, inaccurate.
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I disagree.
If a diabetic refuses to take insulin and dies, it would be fair to say s/he succumbed to a refusal to take insulin.
If I slice an artery and bleed to death because I refused to remedy the situation, I would blame the death on the failure to stop the bleeding, not the slicing of the artery
 
arthwollipot said:
This is annoying me. Alternative medicine didn't kill Jobs, cancer killed Jobs. He may well have lived a little longer with regular treatment, sure, but to say he 'succumbed to alternative medicine' is, at best, inaccurate.
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The assertion that he engaged in alternative medicine to the exclusion of evidence-based medicine is equally annoying. Those who make such assertions need to show their evidence.

The evidence for surgeries, consultations, and flight plans to centers involving evidence-based medicine are public knowledge. The evidence for consultation with laetrile-pushers and the like, not so much.
 
kerikiwi said:
I disagree.
If a diabetic refuses to take insulin and dies, it would be fair to say s/he succumbed to a refusal to take insulin.
If I slice an artery and bleed to death because I refused to remedy the situation, I would blame the death on the failure to stop the bleeding, not the slicing of the artery
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I disagree. The diabetic died of diabetes, or complications from diabetes such as renal failure. He probably wouldn't have if he'd taken his insulin. You died of blood loss caused by a knife wound. You probably wouldn't have if you'd applied direct pressure.

You can't blame the death on the lack of an action. The action could have prevented the death, but lack of action was not the direct cause of death. Jobs died from cancer. He did not die from alternative medicine.
 
I have a friend who works for Apple. He just sent me a link with a quote from Jobs:

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.”

Does anyone else see the irony there?
 
Malfie Henpox said:
Because the guy who sent it to me worked for Steve Jobs...
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Accepting employment does not mean living one's life for another, it means you decided that the best way you could get what you want is to exchange some labor for the money needed to pay for it. You could go subsistence farm somewhere if you don't want to make that choice.
 
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