Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal • Hacker News Board

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#101

Post by lupire » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 12:22 PM UTC

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…

"theory" and "law" are synonyms in science. the difference is that a law is a simple one line general statement (F=gMm/r^2) and a theory is fleshed out model with details.

"Theory" does NOT mean "unproven". That's "conjecture".

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#102

Post by hnzix » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 12:23 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #65

symlinkk wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t know that vaping is harmful. It’s addictive, yes, but not necessarily harmful.

If something is addictive (as in actually creating a physical and mental dependence on continued use in significant number of people) - why would you not classify that as harmful?

Gwern (an active user on HN) wrote a compelling paper presenting nicotine as a potential nootropic.

https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#103

Post by lilgreenland » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 12:23 PM UTC

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…

A law in science isn't used the same as how you are using the word. A law isn't a really good theory. Laws are mathematical predictions based on data collected.

Often it's just an equation that fits some data for a range of values.

Almost all laws are found in the physical sciences. Some examples are: Ohm's Law, Universal Gravitation, Coulomb's law, and Kirchhoff's laws. None of these are perfect descriptions of reality.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#104

Post by elliekelly » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 12:24 PM UTC

krisoft wrote: post #64

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.

> 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. Could you clarify this? I understand that humans committed terrible atrocities in the name of "racial supremacy". I also understand that the same people used science as a fig leaf to justify their actions. But you seem to be saying that over reliance on scienc…

I’m not the person you’re replying to (and I agree with your) but thinking about your question the closest thing I could come up with is maybe lobotomies? Even then I’m not really sure about the chicken and the egg. Was it ever about treating the patient or was it meant to make caring for an “embarrassing” patient easier for the family by turning the patient into a shell of a human?

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#105

Post by samizdis » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 12:26 PM UTC

esseeayen wrote: post #78

Wait, as someone overseas who hasn’t seen any of the Juul advertising what are some of the examples of them “blatantly advertising to children”? Is it just the fact that they are making flavoured nicotine products or has it been more nefarious than that. As an adult I kind of like some of the flavoured tobacco products from smoking shisha (argile, hookah etc) and they have had flavours forever and not been in the spo…

This article seems to give a fair discussion of the issue, with some examples:

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-24/hiltzik-ju...

Edit to add this article, too:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2018/11/16/t...

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#106

Post by TchoBeer » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 12:26 PM UTC

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, even though science itself hasn't moved it into that category. If you dare to suggest that there might be some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism for gravity, they will literally get louder and louder until you stop arguing. They won't provide any evidence, they'll just keep saying the same thing over and over.

What a strange example. Has this ever happened to you? Additionally, does General Relativity count as "an underlying mechanism for gravity"?

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#107

Post by vidarh » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 12:27 PM UTC

mirekrusin wrote: post #90

user-the-name wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do know that nicotine is harmful, whether vaped or smoked or ingested in any other way. No mysteries there.

Is it? I thought it's basically addictive.

Pretty much. I've never smoked, and tried picking up nicotine at one point (via patches and gum) because it's one of the safest nootropic substances we know with a clear effect next to caffeine. (My tolerance was too low and in the end I couldn't be bothered to figure out the dosing).

Even the physical addictiveness of nicotine is not that strong when separated from the rituals of smoking compared to e.g. caffeine (where addiction is also massively affected by rituals).

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#108

Post by 542354234235 » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 12:31 PM UTC

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…

> They will shame people for expressing any doubt against a "scientific consensus".

Doubt based on what? This is the classic “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”. The scientific consensus absolutely can be wrong on something, but people that read a few Facebook articles and think they’re argument holds any weight whatsoever deserve to be shamed. You want to question the scientific consensus? Conduct a study or get in a lab, have it peer reviewed. If you want to say “I think the major experts and accumulated understanding in this field are wrong ” then you are going to have to bring more to the table than some random doubts and suggestions.

> For instance, the Theory of Gravity.

Wonderful example. As almost every physicist has stories of people that send them their pet theories about theoretical physics models. Have they done mathematical models? Of course not. But they are sure their theory is going to crack this unifying theory wide open. Maybe ask yourself “if I disagree with all the experts, have they all misunderstood what I am seeing or do I not understand the subject as much as I think I do?” Shame is the cousin to humility.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#109

Post by TchoBeer » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 12:31 PM UTC

goodpoint wrote: post #25

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…

> how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge You quoted it yourself: scientism is "excessive", or, more correctly, it treats scientists as authoritative sources of truths that should not be questioned. This form of blind trust goes against the scientific method. Also scientism can make categorical error in the type of questions that can be answered e.g. journalists asking physicists about "god particles"…

>e.g. journalists asking physicists about "god particles" and such

Can you give an example? There is something called "the god particle" but a journalist asking about it wouldn't be a categorical error.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#110

Post by TchoBeer » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 12:33 PM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #104

krisoft wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Could you clarify this? I understand that humans committed terrible atrocities in the name of "racial supremacy". I also understand that the same people used science as a fig leaf to justify their actions. But you seem to be saying that over reliance on scienc…

I’m not the person you’re replying to (and I agree with your) but thinking about your question the closest thing I could come up with is maybe lobotomies? Even then I’m not really sure about the chicken and the egg. Was it ever about treating the patient or was it meant to make caring for an “embarrassing” patient easier for the family by turning the patient into a shell of a human?

Also, unlike e.g. phrenology, I wouldn't say lobotomies were one of the darkest chapters in the history of mankind. Sorely misguided and tragic, but not that.