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Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

prospect.org

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Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#31

Post by matheusmoreira »

ud_0 wrote: post #10
blfr wrote: post #4

Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. At least they made it open access. At first I thought they bought out the entire issue so that people couldn't read it.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

Not all science is good. You can publish papers which literally do not allow any valid conclusions to be drawn due to methodological errors. I suspect that's most of them since academics are judged by the number of papers they've published in impactful journals.

Just because science says something doesn't mean it's true. Truth must be verifiable. It's possible to easily and cheaply verify basic physical concepts like gravity. This inspires trust. Professors routinely reproduce physics in classrooms:

https://youtu.be/hezfZ91ayiA

Reproducing some medical experiment is hard, expensive and time consuming. Once a study is published, a huge number of people will simply assume it is true. Very few will actually check the methodology of the study. Virtually none will attempt to reproduce it.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#32

Post by leoedin »

Tenoke wrote: post #9
KingOfCoders wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And everyone who doesn't want funny smells in their face. While since some decades cigarette smokers go outside, many ecigarette users spread funny smells without any empathy.

The smell from vaping is not comparable and it goes away quick, at least if you are not using some fancy liquid. Even if it doesn't, it's no worse than the smell of kebab which people are allowed to eat indoors.

Vaping indoors for any length of time leaves a sticky residue over everything - perhaps either nicotine or propylene glycol residue. Even ignoring the air quality issues for people who didn't sign up for it, it's not completely impact free.

Maybe kebab also creates poor air quality and sticky residues, but in my experience people don't tend to eat kebabs continuously every 5 minutes through the day.

I'm all for e-cigarettes as an almost-certainly-better alternative to real cigarettes (banning vaping but not smoking is ludicrous to me) - but allowing using them indoors does have a real impact on everyone else. Perhaps some are discreet, but the cloud chasing guys ruin it.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#33

Post by uniqueuid »

mclightning wrote: post #22
toxik wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science is myopic by construction. Science does not consider what questions to answer, but rather tries to answer what can be answered. Science cannot tell you how to run a country or city. It can, at best, tell you how NOT to. Over reliance on science as guidance has also lead to some of the darkest chapters of human history, like phrenology and its use to justify racial supremacy.

Exactly this. Science has too much emphasis on the "now", on present knowledge. Take 17th century science... most of it would be ludicrous by any standard today. Now imagine applying that science onto humans/society... Science as a tool to deal with present knowledge, should not be used solely to manage societies or human situations with irreversible consequences.

Then propose another way of getting reliable, robust and explainable guidelines for managing societies?

But of course, evidence-based decision making should not be turned into decision-based evidence making; science alone is not a basis for politics.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#34

Post by lemonberry »

My father has COPD from over 50 years of smoking. I convinced him to switch to vaping and he's been using a Juul for a few years now. Awhile after the switch his primary care physician listened to his lungs and said they sounded a lot better. She said she because the science isn't in "I can't tell you to vape but I can tell you to keep doing what you're doing".

Should non-smokers pick up vaping? Probably not. But in this one instance it was a good move for a smoker.

I'd like to see more studies in this area and some more regulations on the "juice" for vapes. The quality, and I assume health effects, vary widely between different juices. For example: I bought him a non-refillable vape by another company and he started coughing and complaining of soreness in his throat.

I also think the arguments against the flavored juices are hysterical/hypocritical given the variety of flavors of liquor one can find.

Disclaimer: I think all drugs should be legal.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#35

Post by ChrisLomont »

wccrawford wrote: post #13
ud_0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

I'm not who you replied to, but I've experienced this with some of my friends. Some people believe in science. They don't take the facts and understand them, they just say "Science says this is true. Anyone who disagrees needs to be shouted down." They will shame people for expressing any doubt against a "scientific consensus". This is actually the opposite of science. For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know peop…

>For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know people who take it to be a law,

You mean Newton's Law of gravity [1]?

I'm not sure where you get the idea there are "theories" and "laws" in science and science moves things from one category to the other.

The closest I can find is this distinction: "Scientific theories explain why something happens, whereas scientific law describes what happens." [2]

By this description, laws generally happen first, then theory, because observation makes it clear what happens before we understand why it happens.

In which case law and theory go hand in hand in pretty much every single law and theory I can think of (and the page lists zillions)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gr...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_law

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#36

Post by Tenoke »

uniqueuid wrote: post #30
Tenoke wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they bought it for $50k. It's like complaining about paying for an issue of some 3rd rate magazine.

Okay, but the studies will still end up in meta-analyses and potentially skew results.

It depends. I haven't looked at them but good meta-analyses have rules for what to include that might preclude those studies. Were there even experiments or just general reviews?

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#37

Post by uniqueuid »

lemonberry wrote: post #34

My father has COPD from over 50 years of smoking. I convinced him to switch to vaping and he's been using a Juul for a few years now. Awhile after the switch his primary care physician listened to his lungs and said they sounded a lot better. She said she because the science isn't in "I can't tell you to vape but I can tell you to keep doing what you're doing". Should non-smokers pick up vaping? Probably not. But in…

Congratulations on your father's change of habit, I hope he continues to recover and has a long life!

That aside, the collective balance is: - how many cigarette smokers will switch (benefit)

- how many people will start vaping instead of smoking (benefit)

- how many people will switch from vaping to smoking (harm)

- how many people will start vaping but wouldn't have started smoking (harm)

Perhaps someone with expertise can explain the current state of research. IIRC I saw a study arguing that the beneficial effects were less frequent and vaping as an entry to smoking was shockingly prevalent.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#38

Post by possiblelion »

dna_polymerase wrote: post #2

> Pretty much all the articles take the Juul party line that e-cigarettes help convert smokers away from combustible tobacco products, and thus aid public health. Pretty much none of the articles mention that Juul and other vaping companies make their money by attracting countless new people to nicotine addiction. Well maybe it's because Juul bought the journal or maybe the researchers found no correlation between Ju…

Well, nicotine addiction is a debatable topic as nicotine itself is actually not addictive as a compound.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#39

Post by chalst »

ud_0 wrote: post #10
blfr wrote: post #4

Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. At least they made it open access. At first I thought they bought out the entire issue so that people couldn't read it.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

Scientism is a term popularised by Hayek that means the fetishisation of the institutions of science and a failure to recognise the role of uncertainty in scientific judgement.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#40

Post by Tenoke »

leoedin wrote: post #32
Tenoke wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The smell from vaping is not comparable and it goes away quick, at least if you are not using some fancy liquid. Even if it doesn't, it's no worse than the smell of kebab which people are allowed to eat indoors.

Vaping indoors for any length of time leaves a sticky residue over everything - perhaps either nicotine or propylene glycol residue. Even ignoring the air quality issues for people who didn't sign up for it, it's not completely impact free. Maybe kebab also creates poor air quality and sticky residues, but in my experience people don't tend to eat kebabs continuously every 5 minutes through the day. I'm all for e-cig…

I believe residue is just from big cloud VG. I certainly don't see any around my flat, if there's any it must be slower to build up than dust.

If the impact is big enough sure, but it makes little sense to me to treat them harsher than anything else.

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