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Originally posted by THGRRI:
Science is about hypothesis and theory. When one scientist makes a claim that something has been discovered or they have figured something out, other scientists check the research.

si shen

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Originally posted by THGRRI:
Science is about hypothesis and theory. When one scientist makes a claim that something has been discovered or they have figured something out, other scientists check the research.

si shen

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What if the science in question is quite complicated, and not easy to test? What if you don't have the necessary equipment, or time? Or what if you're just an ordinary person who doesn't know how to conduct a rigorous scientific experiment anyway? The point is it's not always possible for people to test science for themselves. In fact it rarely is.

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The question is not whether we citizens should check all their findings ourselves (that's not practical)

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the question is whether we should trust or doubt/ignore the conclusions of a community of scientists.

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Originally posted by kpo:
Trust the scientists, and have their kids vaccinated? Or not trust the scientists, and keep their kids out of nursery, school for the duration of their childhood?

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Trust the scientists, and have their kids vaccinated? Or not trust the scientists, and keep their kids out of nursery, school for the duration of their childhood?

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

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Trust the scientists, and have their kids vaccinated? Or not trust the scientists, and keep their kids out of nursery, school for the duration of their childhood?

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That's kind of a false dilemma.

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I don't see how. You either get them vaccinated, in which case you're trusting the scientists, or you don't trust the scientists, and don't get your kids vaccinated. This is the reality for most people.

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A false dilemma (also called black-and/or-white thinking, bifurcation, denying a conjunct, the either-or fallacy, false dichotomy, fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses, the fallacy of false choice, the fallacy of the false alternative, or the fallacy of the excluded middle) is a type of informal fallacy that involves a situation in which limited alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option. The opposite of this fallacy is argument to moderation.

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Many people would not have a clue what you are talking about, and would not know how to go about checking scientific research for themselves. They either have to trust scientists, or not.

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There is in fact middle ground between GET ALL THE VACCINES TRUST THE SCIENTISTS and NO VACCINES SCIENCE IS EVIL STAY HOME FOREVER.

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But they won't have the time/ability to conduct their own clinical trials, pore over scientific papers etc. etc. The reality is, if they're not an expert in that scientific field they have to, to a very large extent, rely on and TRUST the expertise of other people.

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Originally posted by kpo:
The reality is, if they're not an expert in that scientific field they have to, to a very large extent, rely on and TRUST the expertise of other people.

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Oh yes, Byte, figuring out bad science isn't all that difficult, just look to who makes money & stories on detrimental effects. But efficacy is more difficult without REAL knowledge. That's where other people's opinions will have to weigh in without YOU being an expert yourself...

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

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But they won't have the time/ability to conduct their own clinical trials, pore over scientific papers etc. etc. The reality is, if they're not an expert in that scientific field they have to, to a very large extent, rely on and TRUST the expertise of other people.

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If that had happened with my parents, I'd still be on schizophrenia medicine - when I don't have schizophrenia - that split open my skin due to water retention. And then my mom had to fight back against the psycho bitch psychiatrist who nearly reported her to CPS when she tried to take me off that medicine.

And they aren't very scientifically inclined and weren't even that attentive towards me.

Expertise means nothing unless you combine it with common sense.

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Originally posted by kpo:
Doctors do the best they can, but we're not all robots that came off the same production line.

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Originally posted by chrisisall:

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Originally posted by kpo:
The reality is, if they're not an expert in that scientific field they have to, to a very large extent, rely on and TRUST the expertise of other people.

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I think I see what you're saying here.
Figuring out margarine is probably bogus is an easy one; determining the risk factors of a particular vaccine depends on OTHER peoples actual clinical works & opinions.
That it>?

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Interesting discussion, KPO. I pretty much agree with you. I am always amused when people say they do research on the Internet, because on the Internet you are likely to get access to a whole host of rubbish views, as well as factual information. In fact academic articles, and peer reviewed research isn't that easy to come by on the Net unless you are a student or have subscribed to have access. So in a way, the unresearched, unpeer reviewed gobbledegook of pseudoscientists is possibly easier to access that the more kosher stuff.

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Yes exactly. That research needs to be done PROFESSIONALLY. If we relied on a system of citizens trialling medicines and vaccines for themselves, it would be a disaster.

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For years I've had weird allergy-like symptoms (itchy eyes/skin, nasal congestion etc.) and for years the doctors were not really able to fix or diagnose the problem, but just gave me medicines to manage the symptoms. Eventually, with help from the internet, I figured it out for myself: I'm intolerant to grains: wheat, barley, oats - to a lesser extent corn and rice.

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

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Yes exactly. That research needs to be done PROFESSIONALLY. If we relied on a system of citizens trialling medicines and vaccines for themselves, it would be a disaster.

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waaaaaait. Sorry. This is actually where you lose me.

While I agree this is more convenient - although any research performed by a business is always going to have just a little bit of bias - there are actually citizen's research groups out there and they do some pretty impressive things.

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And as for the citizens' research groups, do they employ well qualified scientists?

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

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For years I've had weird allergy-like symptoms (itchy eyes/skin, nasal congestion etc.) and for years the doctors were not really able to fix or diagnose the problem, but just gave me medicines to manage the symptoms. Eventually, with help from the internet, I figured it out for myself: I'm intolerant to grains: wheat, barley, oats - to a lesser extent corn and rice.

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Oh no...

I think I'm going to sound like a hypocrite here, but it sounds like you think you have a gluten allergy.

I'm all for people learning as much as they can, and I've self-diagnosed a number of things including a recurring chest pain I get, but this is the downside of self-diagnosis.

Gluten allergies are very serious, and they have major ramifications for the life of the people who have them. Gluten allergies is stuff like Crohn's, where you are constantly exhausted and you have anemia and feel weak in addition to the itchiness. They get ulcers in their mouths and they get bleeding and they have to go to the bathroom a lot, they feel bloated but they lose weight to a ridiculous degree, their abdomen is enlarged but the rest of them is very skinny. I've seen someone with Crohn's and they look dead on their feet most of the time, and they also had a bit of jaundice due to associated complications with their liver.

I'm glad that you think you have resolved your allergy related problem, but are you SURE it's the gluten? It's become kinda popular on the internet for people to talk about gluten like it is the devil, and there's a bit of exaggeration out there.

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I'm a little confused by your response, but I've been tested twice for gluten intolerance (coeliac) and the results were negative. I had already ruled out gluten as the offending protein because gluten free products set off my symptoms, as do GF grains such as corn. No, it's something else in these grains that aggravates my symptoms.

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