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Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

reuters.com

311–320 of 421 posts

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, if put in practice, what is the reference group for the placebo group?

I don't think it exists outside of scientific trials. I can't imagine getting a prescription from your doctor only to find out it was a sugar pill to be accepted by society in any way.

Two words. Essential oils.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#312
post #159

I have chronic fatigue syndrome since a bad viral infection in 2001. I find this article quite unfortunate. There is plenty of good research being done into CFS that does not generate the outrage that the PACE trial has. There are many reasons that particular study has been the focus of campaigners while other researchers are encouraged or left in peace, but I would encourage those who are coming to this issue here f…

Hi, fellow here who also meets the ME/CFS criteria. These articles in which Sharpe and Weasley pop up are always very disturbing because they cry “ow, poor me, the big mean activists are attacking science!!” And it’s surprisingly effective as seen in this thread. People assume they’re doing real science, and the activists are of the bad type. But in this case it’s Sharpe and is colleagues that aren’t doing real scien…

As someone who is new to this subject as of this thread, let me share some honest feedback. The way you describe and defend your position leaves me deeply skeptical about your claims.

"Real science", "abortion of a study", "real scientists", "entirely them who are refusing the science"

Even if your claims and descriptions happen to be right, the certainty, starkness and immature/sweeping language have led me to assume I would disagree with you if I dug in.

Just sharing a piece of outsider anecdata.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#313
post #305

> The insufferable arrogance of Prof Michael Sharpe once again on show for all the world to see - Paul Watton > You need to be as arrogant as men are to believe we changed the climate - Nicolas Sarkozy I find this criticism - that you would have to be arrogant to believe scientific results - both fascinating and deeply disturbing. I'm not sure if it's an ingenious thought-terminating troll hack - raising a social com…

It could be people reaching for extreme and hyperbolic language to express their emotions (maybe moreso than their ideas)

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, if put in practice, what is the reference group for the placebo group?

I don't think it exists outside of scientific trials. I can't imagine getting a prescription from your doctor only to find out it was a sugar pill to be accepted by society in any way.

Definitely happens:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/placebos-widely-prescribed-by...

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#315
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have time to research your contrarion claims right now. My priors suggest it isn't a good use of my time. But I have to ask: Why haven't the climate change researchers figured out what you have? Do they have rebuttals to these claims? If so, can you please link those rebuttals in the name of transparency? P.S. You are being downvoted for being wildly off topic as well as a bit inflammatory.

How is this wildly off-topic if the subject of the article is online harassment of scientists, and climate change is specifically mentioned? The implied direction of the harassment might not be what the OP was talking about, but it's certainly related to the topic. As for the inflammatory bit, you might have a point there, but the kind of climate change that enabled humans to evolve might garner that fabled 97% of ba…

> How is this wildly off-topic if the subject of the article is online harassment of scientists, and climate change is specifically mentioned?

I read the article and didn't notice it. Looking back, it was an offhand mention in a fragment of a single sentence. Clearly not the focus.

> As for the inflammatory bit, you might have a point there, but the kind of climate change that enabled humans to evolve might garner that fabled 97% of backing not only from scientists, but humanity in general. So in the proper context, climate change is good.

This is a strawman. No one is talking about that kind of climate change.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#316
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Sarno's theory is that such pain is indeed caused by physical mechanisms ... which are triggered by psychological mechanisms. Such things are common, like a blush to the cheeks, hair on your arm raised by fright, erections and other sexual responses, etc. He was also clear that this is not always the case, and that direct physical causes should be looked for by a specialist before pursuing psychological remedies…

You mean that stress can play a factor in RSI? I don't think that's in any way controversial, but that doesn't make it in any way less real, or less physical. Although in the case of RSI, there are a lot more factors than that: bad posture, lack of exercise, and most importantly of course repetitive motions that very slowly build up strain on surrounding tissue, wrists, shoulders, back, etc.

The theory is that stress and psychological factors cause physical factors that we don't entirely understand, that cause the RSI. One example of this would be the reduction blood flow to the extremities.

This is different from the general effects of stress, and different from purely physical factors.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#317
I just love how SCIENTISTS are presented with abnormal behavior closely associated with the group they are studying and completely dismiss it as a variable worthy of research. Maybe anger issues are related to the problem. I kinda side with the guy calling their research crap and them all dummies because they can't remove themselves from the equation.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#318
post #31

Another field where science is on a collision course with online (and offline) activists is genetics. As we decode and understand more of the genome, it is possible that our genes affect more of our behavior than what the partisans of tabula rasa hold for truth. And unless the political climate evolves, in a power struggle between activists and science, I wouldn't bet on the scientists.

I don't think our society is ready for it, much like we aren't ready for human gene editing. It's gonna result in some unfortunate outcomes.

As someone in molecular biology, genetic engineering is grossly overblown by the public, no thanks to the recent news story out of china. No one wants to edit the germline in humans (aside from the discredited researcher). People want to edit the germline in mice, work out the mechanism of action of a given genetic variant, and develop a drug.

It’s a far safer proposition for someone with a known genetic illness to just be put on medication for their entire life than something so permanent and not guarenteed as attempting to edit their parents germ cells. If your medication is bad for the patient you can just get them off of it. You can’t do too much if your CRISPR system goes off target (which is known to happen).

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#319
post #215

Randoms leaving mean messages on your public social media isn't silencing you. The truth always comes out. You have real science or you don't.

The determination of what's real science or not should be largely left to domain experts. Randos online should have little to no say. This is how anti-vaxxers and creationists have such a huge presence.

Randos have no say. How are scientists even being influenced by them? Domain experts? Real science predicts the future, it either works or doesn't. Anti vaxxers are a different issue, I don't even think they deny the science and just want the personal choice to choose.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See anyone who has touched "differences of iq between races".

Natural selection acts to increase the fitness of a species relative to its environment. In the human case 'race' is a misnomer. It simply refers to certain features of humans' external appearance, namely melanin. But this does not track any distinct genetic community, which primarily changes as a function of the total sum of environmental pressures, and not just in proportion to UV radiation (i.e. as is true of mela…

Race is a meaningful medical category since it appears that certain diseases that have a genetic background are more common on some races than others. So it's not a biological race in the sense that you have different genes but the different variations that appear are important( an example is that esophagus cancer is many times more common on Chinese people compared to Western people, a trend that is maintained on immigrants).
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