Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler? • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#291

Post by dmix » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 2:50 PM UTC

dumbneurologist wrote: post #159

ransom1538 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OR: Dr. Harch is published and well respected. He also has many documented cases of saving divers lives - including working with the US Navy. Could this be just a case of the medical community not accepting a new technique? In March 2000, the American Board of Medical Specialties approved undersea and hyperbaric medicine [1]. He has a legit cv: http://www.hbot.com/about . Some of this publications: 1. Harch PG, et al…

> Could this be just a case of the medical community not accepting a new technique That the medical community wants evidence to substantiate an extreme claim is not a valid criticism of the medical community: it's literally the scientific process. There are just too many extreme claims based on "unconventional" medical ideas to possibly draw conclusions that any one of them deserves closer attention. It's great that…

Paul Harch wrote a book claiming HBOT can help treat:

• Stroke

• Autism and other learning disabilities

• Cerebral palsy and other birth injuries

• Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, and other degenerative neurological diseases

https://www.amazon.com/Oxygen-Revolution-Hyperbaric-Groundbr...

Wikipedia is saying there is zero scientific evidence to back up any of this. I'd say Dr Harch crossed the line into quackery by making these grand claims, despite his otherwise reputable background.

Which is sad because his books all have plenty of 5/5 star ratings by people who are desperate for answers and are being oversold an unproven science.

I highly doubt there has been a conspiracy in the "medical community" to not take oxygen therapy seriously. It's not exactly a new treatment, as the OP's comment points out, it's been tested since at least 2000 (17 years ago) by mainstream medical groups.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#292

Post by jdietrich » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 3:37 PM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #212

tptacek wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an Internet myth that the credibility of an argument's source is out of bounds in a debate. If and only if the arguer's credibility has no logical connection to their argument, then attacking the arguer is fallacious. Otherwise, as is very much the case here, it is not.

> If and only if the arguer's credibility has no logical connection to their argument, then attacking the arguer is fallacious. The arguer's credibility does not affect the truth value of any statements, so it's always more useful to argue over why someone is wrong. You cannot guarantee that any segment of the population agrees with your credibility assessments. And these assessments should be established via appeals…

Reality is stochastic. Scientific debates are grounded in probability, not formal logic. If someone has published 38 papers which were complete junk, that gives us a very strong prior about their 39th paper.

Poor researchers are very common. Conspiracies to smear people are very rare. If an academic has a bad reputation, the odds are good that their reputation is deserved.

None of this is conclusive - mavericks do occasionally produce brilliant-but-unconventional research - but it's hugely relevant. There aren't enough hours in the day to give every paper the benefit of the doubt. We have to use Bayesian shortcuts and crude heuristics to filter things for credibility, otherwise we'd be drowning in a sea of junk. The occasional false-positive is a price worth paying.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#293

Post by Natsu » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 3:46 PM UTC

Natanael_L wrote: post #281

Natsu wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that a person's credibility decides the truth value of the statement requires a causal relationship. To say otherwise is to posit a mechanism via which one's opinions somehow shape reality itself. So it seems to me that our notions of 'fact' might not be aligned? I understand evaluating someone's credibility as a proxy when I have no means of investigating something. I do not understand it when we are talking…

If you aren't the one attempting falsifying it, then you still have to trust somebody based on their credentials.

If you aren't the one attempting to falsify it, then you have no reason to argue over it to begin with, in which case you won't be making any ad hominem arguments to start with.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#294

Post by Natsu » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 3:48 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #292

Natsu wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If and only if the arguer's credibility has no logical connection to their argument, then attacking the arguer is fallacious. The arguer's credibility does not affect the truth value of any statements, so it's always more useful to argue over why someone is wrong. You cannot guarantee that any segment of the population agrees with your credibility assessments. And these assessments should be established via appeals…

Reality is stochastic. Scientific debates are grounded in probability, not formal logic. If someone has published 38 papers which were complete junk, that gives us a very strong prior about their 39th paper. Poor researchers are very common. Conspiracies to smear people are very rare. If an academic has a bad reputation, the odds are good that their reputation is deserved. None of this is conclusive - mavericks do oc…

It's fine to use that to say what is and isn't worth attention. It's not fine to use that as an argument to convince others. You have much better arguments: poor methods, insufficient evidence, lack of controls, etc. and none of those rely on personality.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#295

Post by blahdblah » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 4:07 PM UTC

sctb wrote: post #242

blahdblah wrote: post #219

These two comments prove you're an asshole. Therefore you are wrong.

Please don't create accounts just to violate the guidelines with—we ban them, and then the main account if it continues. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14814687 and marked it off-topic.

Sorry as this has been a long time coming for me. The air of arrogance of many of the most popular contributors such as tptacek (though sometimes (s)he, like others, is completely on point and adds to the discussion) has been causing a great amount of angst for quite a while. I don't like being increasingly disappointed in so many on a site I regard highly. Hopefully now that I've released a pressure valve, I can return to not interacting and just learning from those willing to share facts and rational arguments rather than assuming it matters how far they, in particular, give on a certain subject. Thanks for the warning.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#296

Post by dvt » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #278

dvt wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confused. The original argument is not a deductive one, it's abductive. Material implication, e.g., P -> Q, is a deductive move. In non-deductive arguments, like we have here, any claim (be it conditional or otherwise) certainly does not happen independently of the speaker or of what logicians call the knowledge base (KB).

> You're confused. Please don't make personal comments even when someone else has been uncivil. Your reply would be just fine without this.

Erm, what? How is calling someone confused a personal comment (I assume you mean attack?). If someone mixes up two things that are commonly mixed up, it's perfectly civil to point out that they are confused. Please elaborate.

Feel free to tell me I'm confused. Because I am.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#297

Post by Karunamon » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 8:11 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #277

Karunamon wrote: post #190

It is also completely irrelevant to the correctness or incorrectness of the argument, which is often what gets missed. Authority is a heuristic, nothing more. The evaluation of P -> Q happens independently of the speaker. If you're trying to refute P -> Q by mentioning an attribute of the speaker, you're necessarily answering some other question entirely, while making an excuse to ignore the original question. You ca…

> You're coming up with reasons to avoid doing logic. This crosses into incivility. Please don't do that here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14814687 and marked it off-topic.

?! That was in no way incivil or a personal attack. There is a hard line in the sand between making a logical argument and making another kind of an argument, and I just explained where that line is in a very objective way, and in a hypothetical no less.

If you are making arguments to authority, you are not doing a logical argument, period. You are making excuses to avoid doing logic. Is also not a personal attack, it is a statement of objective truth when you ignore correctness in favor of anything else.

That was a general statement and was not directed at tpatacek, and now this thread makes no sense.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#298

Post by Karunamon » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 8:23 PM UTC

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #226

Karunamon wrote: post #190

It is also completely irrelevant to the correctness or incorrectness of the argument, which is often what gets missed. Authority is a heuristic, nothing more. The evaluation of P -> Q happens independently of the speaker. If you're trying to refute P -> Q by mentioning an attribute of the speaker, you're necessarily answering some other question entirely, while making an excuse to ignore the original question. You ca…

It's not clear what you mean by "logic", but weighing the evidence of a statement conditional on the person that made it is not inherently illogical. Yes, of course untrustworthy people can make truthful claims! But you would still be wise to discount their claims (sometimes, under some conditions). Evaluating arguments is, like everything else, subject to opportunity costs, so discussing the credibility of people ma…

>Evaluating arguments is, like everything else, subject to opportunity costs

But when you're on an internet board spending more time shouting down an argument for its source when it would take equal or less time to just figure it out - that is an excuse. It's also terribly non-conducive to a discussion.

"This guy says P -> Q, but he's not an expert on the matter of P, so I'll ignore anything he has to say on the matter" is not a logical argument. Correctness or incorrectness of the statement is being willfully ignored in this case.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#299

Post by Karunamon » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 8:36 PM UTC

dvt wrote: post #296

dang wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're confused. Please don't make personal comments even when someone else has been uncivil. Your reply would be just fine without this.

Erm, what? How is calling someone confused a personal comment (I assume you mean attack?). If someone mixes up two things that are commonly mixed up, it's perfectly civil to point out that they are confused. Please elaborate. Feel free to tell me I'm confused. Because I am.

As the person that was supposedly attacked, so am I. "You're confused" is so far off that standard I don't even know how to respond to this.

Re: Scientists Reverse Brain Damage in Drowned Toddler?

#300

Post by BrandoElFollito » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 9:47 PM UTC

stephen_g wrote: post #290

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this is the basis for religion. I am an atheist, scientist (physics) and I used to actively discourage people from religion (which is pure quackery). This until I realized that religion helps people who do not want to otherwise think about the world around them. One of the people I managed to move away from religion and change his beliefs ended up deeply depressive. Another one was deeply unhappy with the chang…

I profoundly belive that people who do science must be atheists That is simply false. Just look at the history of science - just a few examples being Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Newton, Kepler, Leibniz, Euler, Faraday, Maxwell, etc. who were all Christian. A far greater proportion of scientists are religious than one might think (see http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/ ).

A contemporary scientist (hard science, say physics) who belives in god is a fraud. One cannot from 9 to 5 think scientifically and then in the afternoon just push this aside and state that god is behind everything anyway. This is pure hypocrisy, fraud and betrayal of science.

What was "god" yesterday is science today.

Science and religion have exactly zero common points, they function in fundamentally different ways. One way is to invent our of the blue some kind of superior entity (because why not), the other is to take the risk to say "this is how it works, and this is how you can prove it does not".

I have a PhD in physics and attended a fair share of "discussions between physicists and priests" - complete loss of time. Our world works on science, if someone does not agree I purpose to move back to middle age comfort, propelled by religion and not science. This until winter comes, when suddenly electricity is no longer the effect of the wrath of Zeus but something explained by science.