It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#121

Post by ericb » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 2:55 PM UTC

papsosouid wrote: post #99

stiff wrote: post #9

Calling the "naturalistic fallacy" a fallacy is a bit of an overstretch IMO, sure natural=better is not a rule true 100% of the time, but nevertheless until sufficient evidence has not been accumulated that some of the adjustments we make to our lifestyle are not harmful to us health-wise avoiding them is not an unreasonable heuristic to follow. One example is how it became clear in the last years in nutritional scie…

>sure natural=better is not a rule true 100% of the time It isn't even a loose correlation. It is no better than random. >One example is how it became clear in the last years in nutritional science that in general the more processed the food is the more harmful it is for us. That has not become clear at all, that is something people like to repeat, but is simply a misinterpretation of the recommendation that people "…

There's a tremendous amount of baggage in the loaded term "natural". But I think there might be a shred of reason to underlying the naturalistic fallacy if you interpret natural to mean "previously present in our evolutionary environment and therefore has previously exhibited evolutionary selective pressure on the development of our immune system and biochemistry."

In other words, novel, isolated chemicals and processes have more opportunity to present our bodies with circumstances their evolution has not "tuned" them for.

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#122

Post by illuminate » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 2:56 PM UTC

amalag wrote: post #76

Nursie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything in 'high doses' is a poison, even pure, distilled water. Herbs either contain active chemicals or they're a placebo. If they're a placebo they're as good as taking a sugar pill. If they contain active chemicals they contain unstandardised amounts and probably in concert with all sorts of other things that may or may not be helpful or harmful. Ayurveda is bullshit. QED.

Water is a poison therefore a system of health you don't understand is bullshit, great logic. I am not going to bother arguing since you want to lump everything together in your clinical trials. "Well gee, if healthy food is good for you, let's extract the chemical from it, inject it into our body and test it, if it is really healthy we will see good effects, otherwise it must be a placebo"

"is a poison therefore a system of health you don't understand"

I find it amusing that persons who abuse the word "toxins" project their own confusion on others.

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#123

Post by stiff » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 2:57 PM UTC

stiff wrote: post #9

Calling the "naturalistic fallacy" a fallacy is a bit of an overstretch IMO, sure natural=better is not a rule true 100% of the time, but nevertheless until sufficient evidence has not been accumulated that some of the adjustments we make to our lifestyle are not harmful to us health-wise avoiding them is not an unreasonable heuristic to follow. One example is how it became clear in the last years in nutritional scie…

Thanks for all the downvotes, aggressive trolling, comments on "pixie dust", "spirit of the planet", "poultices" etc., very constructive discussion, very scientific...

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#124

Post by Nursie » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 2:57 PM UTC

stiff wrote: post #114

Nursie wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, you found one example where the compounds in plant potentiate each other in a useful way. I gave you an example of where this is absolutely not true, and there are likely many more on both sides. This absolutely does not support the statement " the main advantage of plants over modern medicine in its typical form is that they contain complex compounds of chemical substances which show a synergy in a certain dir…

The "spirit of the plant" wasn't a straw man? What I mean is that _in cases where plants could have advantage over modern medicine_, they often do so because of their complex chemical constitution that can produce those kinds of synergies, where modern medicines are most often based on at most 2-3 active substances because we have trouble analyzing more complex interactions.

No, it was a poke at magical thinking. It may also have been unwarranted snark...

I'll agree that where it can be shown that a plant has an effect that modern medicine can't explain, complex interactions may well be at work. You gave me the impression that you think this is a general rule, where really it seems to be an exception.

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#125

Post by up_and_up » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 2:58 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #82

up_and_up wrote: post #34

The problem with "Evidence Based Medicine" vs CAM are two-fold, according to my friend who is an MD in internal medicine at the local VA. 1. 'Evidenced based' medicine is not really 'Evidenced based' because (again this is according to an MD) 50% of what they practice has not been subjected to scientific study. 2. Also there is not the time nor funding to test every aspect and modality of CAM. So some CAM practice mi…

You're really going to base your entire argument around the purported statements of your doctor friend whose identity, statements, and views cannot be verified? You'ved made multiple comments in this thread that amount to exactly "nuh-uh! my doctor friend said!" In the spirit of yesterday's fallacy thread, this is both a (bad) appeal to authority and using anecdote as data.

Here is some 'evidence': http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...

"The number of reviews indicating that the modern biomedical interventions show either no effect or insufficient evidence is surprisingly high. Intterrater disagreements suggest a surprising degree of subjective interpretation involved in systematic reviews. Where patterns of disagreement emerged between authors and readers, authors tended to be more optimistic in their conclusions than the readers."

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#126

Post by illuminate » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 2:58 PM UTC

darxius wrote: post #31

Udo wrote: post #22

I'm getting kind of an asshole reputation for always arguing with friends who are deeply into C/AM. But I'm also starting to realize it's exactly like arguing with a religious person - there is absolutely nothing you can say to make them realize their faith is based on fallacies. There is absolutely no correlation between the general intelligence of a person and the ridiculousness of their belief claims. You could be…

> I'm at a total loss as to where this gender disparity comes > from, but there has to be a vector somewhere. If anyone has > any ideas, I'm looking forward to hearing them. If there is > anything to be done about this, I'd like to volunteer my > time for it. I'm not sure, but I think a lot of it is marketing. I'm not sure about the numbers but I have a feeling there are more stay at home moms then there are dads. Co…

The stay at home mom thing does make a lot of sense, there's a strong homeschooling mindset among extremely left-wing moms and extremely right-wing moms, and both tend to be very into CAM.

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#127

Post by mattgreenrocks » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 2:58 PM UTC

randomsearch wrote: post #64

I heartily recommend people check out "The Heretics" by Will Storr. The book points out, amongst other insights, the tendency of scientists to react irrationally to alternative medicine and other such phenomena. Whilst the scientific community is usually right on such things, we (I'm a scientist) do have a tendency to be very dismissive and even contemptuous of people who believe in alternative therapies (or religion…

No one is immune to dogma. All our beliefs eventually trace back to some foundation, including the belief that logic is the only fount of truth. The question is whether we can be comfortable with that, or we have to project our own insecurities about it onto others. Can we tolerate the unbelief of other people, and treat them well?

Or do we need everyone to be exactly like us? A lot of the screeds on the Internet reek of this tribalism. It's utterly tiring to read.

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#128

Post by papsosouid » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 2:59 PM UTC

ericb wrote: post #121

papsosouid wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>sure natural=better is not a rule true 100% of the time It isn't even a loose correlation. It is no better than random. >One example is how it became clear in the last years in nutritional science that in general the more processed the food is the more harmful it is for us. That has not become clear at all, that is something people like to repeat, but is simply a misinterpretation of the recommendation that people "…

There's a tremendous amount of baggage in the loaded term "natural". But I think there might be a shred of reason to underlying the naturalistic fallacy if you interpret natural to mean "previously present in our evolutionary environment and therefore has previously exhibited evolutionary selective pressure on the development of our immune system and biochemistry." In other words, novel, isolated chemicals and proces…

That is a lovely hypothesis, but it has failed to stand up to testing. You go ahead and eat all natural poison ivy salads.

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#129

Post by illuminate » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 3:00 PM UTC

randomsearch wrote: post #64

I heartily recommend people check out "The Heretics" by Will Storr. The book points out, amongst other insights, the tendency of scientists to react irrationally to alternative medicine and other such phenomena. Whilst the scientific community is usually right on such things, we (I'm a scientist) do have a tendency to be very dismissive and even contemptuous of people who believe in alternative therapies (or religion…

False equivalencies aren't particularly convincing, though. Discussing flaws in thinking is much preferable to saying "some scientists can be dogmatic!" yes, of course?

That doesn't make non-evidence based medicine useful.

Re: It’s a part of my paleo fantasy, it’s a part of my paleo dream

#130

Post by api » Mon, Mar 18, 2013, 3:03 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #26

api wrote: post #12

I have a friend who's into homeopathy and such, and I normally keep my mouth shut. But I have done some thinking about why. This friend is very smart, very intellectual, very curious, and not overly credulous. She's really a bit of a nerd. From my few conversations on the matter, the thing that's jumped out at me is this: She's drawn to alternative medicine because it's open source. Like many nerds, she hates closed…

"By contrast alt-med is open. Anyone can learn about it. Anyone can become a practitioner. Anyone can experiment. It's also unmitigated bullshit. It's tolerant of different views and opinions because none of them are based on evidence. Alt-med is actually more free-enterprise. There is more patient choice. It's less expensive. The 'choice' is an illusion. None of it works so sure, choose what you like. It's less expe…

I don't disagree much on fact, but the attitude on display here is not helpful. It turns people off.

There was a time when people were willing to trust authority figures and accept the advice of credentialed experts without question. That time is over. If you talk this way to people, they tune you out.

Part of the reason for this is the Internet itself, and the general displacing of one-to-many communications with many-to-many communications. The medium is the message, and the message of this medium is "information is liquid, and there are no privileged points of view."

But more significantly, I think people have grown fatigued with the errors and lies of experts. Experts with all the right credentials once told women to smoke. It's a great way to lose weight. Margarine was once good for you. In 2006, the worst time to buy a house in 100 years, the President of the United States stood up on stage and encouraged more people to buy homes. People are sick of it, and they're not listening anymore.

It doesn't matter if you're right or wrong. The only way to get peoples' attention now is to speak to them like equals and explain yourself. Opaque statements that appeal to authority tend to be tossed in the waste basket by most educated, thinking people. The only people who are willing to "just believe" anymore are fanatics, and they tend to be followers of the most idiotic bullshit imaginable.