Indeed, and a person with a medical license is able to do much, much more damage than the people who need to ask IRB for permission to do research.
If your point is that we could replace IRBs with some sort of a researcher license, that you need to obtain before being able to do studies that today require IRB approval, then I support it, because while not ideal, it improves over the status quo.
I do think that there’s a debate to be had on how reactive or proactive we should be in ensuring the ethical practice of… well, anything involving significant investment. As a wage case, reactive systems like malpractice suits or board actions against physicians aren’t easy to navigate if you don’t have many resources.
When HN was an entrepreneurship oriented community, the overwhelming attitude had been that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. That’s because even if you’re doing something clearly good and morally unimpeachable, having to ask for permission slows you down and invited bikeshedding. Now that HN is a general industry forum, the attitude is more favorable towards preventing risk at a cost of reducing amount of value produced.
If your point is that we could replace IRBs with some sort of a researcher license, that you need to obtain before being able to do studies that today require IRB approval, then I support it, because while not ideal, it improves over the status quo.