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How Much Science Is Fake?

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Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#31

Post by cynicalpeace »

cptaj wrote: post #29
cynicalpeace wrote: post #15

40-60% of scientific studies are not replicable, therefore fake as far as I'm concerned. That's why "show me the study" is such a midwit line of reasoning. We need to go back to thinking more with first principles, received wisdom, and personal experimentation. There's a place for scientific studies, but it's gone so far that many won't take an obvious point without a study behind it. There are many such examples tha…

Be careful with this default position. If we start from first principles: - Any one individual is not trained or experienced in the vast majority of scientific disciplines, regardless of his/her expertise in any one field - Even if half the studies published have flaws (where did you get that stat? was that study flawed?), their body of references is filtered by decades of replication and paper ranking of importance…

The 3 things I mentioned counterbalance each other. And also notice I didn't say we should get rid of science or scientists. I said we have gone too far in the other direction of disregarding "Joe Schmuck" (or granny), which your comment demonstrates.

Also there are lots of Joe Schmucks that know better than a so called "nutritionist" that a steak is better than an Oreo. Not all Joe Schmucks, but a lot of them.

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#32

Post by mewpmewp2 »

cynicalpeace wrote: post #27
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> processed foods are bad Are they? What kind of food is not processed that we should be eating? I think I know what people mean usually when they use this term and like that in a sentence, but this term has always confused me even far into adulthood. Still pointing it out, since I think it's such a bad or misleading term to use.

"quite obvious but are hard to prove" ... "people love to poke holes in obvious truths, especially in well educated spaces like HN" yes they're bad. It's not confusing, you're just overthinking it.

According to NHS:

A processed food is any food or drink that has been changed in some way when it’s made or prepared. Most foods we eat are processed in some way.

Processing can be used to:

make foods safe, for example milk is pasteurised to remove harmful bacteria make foods suitable for use, such as pressing seeds to make oil preserve foods or help them last longer, such as tinned or frozen foods change how food tastes, such as adding salt or sweeteners create ready meals and snacks

Not all processed foods are unhealthy, but many ultra-processed foods are high in calories, saturated fat, salt or sugar.

Eating too many calories, too much saturated fat, salt and sugar, and not enough fruit and vegetables and fibre is not good for you.

----

Like why should processing something make it inherently unhealthy? Do you want to eat raw meat?

> people love to poke holes in obvious truths, especially in well educated spaces like HN

Someone makes a statement that they say is obvious truth, yet it seems false or misleading. You can't get away by later saying that someone will try to counter this "obvious truth".

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#33

Post by cynicalpeace »

davisoneee wrote: post #30
efitz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, that as soon as a paper is published in a peer reviewed journal, it can be used to justify public policy positions. Then a large number of people will points to the study, or even worse, to press characterizations of what a person thinks the study says, to support their preference on the public policy position. Immediately, anyone who has an alternate position on the public policy will be accused of b…

You say you do a cost:benefit...but where do those costs come from? To me, that's just voluntarily doing your own ignorant, sloppy science I was mentioning above. If you only consider the blatantly obvious costs and benefits, you are completely ignorant of any 2nd or 3rd order...or even your own blind spots. You may radically under or overstate, or even calculate in the wrong direction. I think a better position is t…

It's not the current threshold, where you just need a single paper in a semi-prestigious journal to become "the science". This was my point.

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#34

Post by Dalewyn »

cjonas wrote: post #18
Dalewyn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>public trust in science. The argument that science should be trusted (believed) is insane, the whole point of science is questioning everything and deferring skepticism only in lieu of anything that can disprove. Trusting science is just another form of religion, especially since science ("science"?) is often positioned as the rival to religion.

If you're not an expert in something, you should probably listen to those who are... The general public does not have the time to study climate models and review raw data on vaccine efficacy. Without overall "trust in science" (or perhaps "trust in the scientific community") we lose the ability to form data driven policy. The exception being when there is monetary value to be gained by fooling the public. IOW, be ske…

Just because I listen doesn't mean I'm going to become.

I like making my own opinions, because that's how I become informed. If I'm just taking in what others say, I'm just an NPC acting along their programming.

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#35

Post by cynicalpeace »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #32
cynicalpeace wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"quite obvious but are hard to prove" ... "people love to poke holes in obvious truths, especially in well educated spaces like HN" yes they're bad. It's not confusing, you're just overthinking it.

According to NHS: A processed food is any food or drink that has been changed in some way when it’s made or prepared. Most foods we eat are processed in some way. Processing can be used to: make foods safe, for example milk is pasteurised to remove harmful bacteria make foods suitable for use, such as pressing seeds to make oil preserve foods or help them last longer, such as tinned or frozen foods change how food ta…

This is a disingenuous question because you obviously know cooked meat is not what we usually mean by processed food.

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#36

Post by Muller20 »

efitz wrote: post #24
davisoneee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think describing it as 'fake' is rather antagonistic. You could just as easily say 'poor quality' or 'unjustified'. I would say that more accurately describes the situation. It could be... - unjustified and sloppy (not 'fake', but also not considered reliable evidence) - unjustified and malicious (this i would consider 'fake') - unjustified and gamed (again, 'fake') - ...or just unjustified and under-specified (and…

The problem is, that as soon as a paper is published in a peer reviewed journal, it can be used to justify public policy positions. Then a large number of people will points to the study, or even worse, to press characterizations of what a person thinks the study says, to support their preference on the public policy position. Immediately, anyone who has an alternate position on the public policy will be accused of b…

This is a problem with the journalism and politics, it's not really about science. No scientist would trust a result that depends on a single small sample paper. Those are just stepping stones that may justify further research for more robust evidence. This fact is quite clear to scientist and it's why most would discourage the general public (including smart engineers) from reading academic articles.

But in general, I agree with you. It's ridiculous when someone pretends to shut down a complex issue by citing a random paper. However, an expert can still analyze the whole academic literature on a topic and determine what the scientific consensus is and how confident we are about it.

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#37

Post by davisoneee »

cynicalpeace wrote: post #33
davisoneee wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say you do a cost:benefit...but where do those costs come from? To me, that's just voluntarily doing your own ignorant, sloppy science I was mentioning above. If you only consider the blatantly obvious costs and benefits, you are completely ignorant of any 2nd or 3rd order...or even your own blind spots. You may radically under or overstate, or even calculate in the wrong direction. I think a better position is t…

It's not the current threshold, where you just need a single paper in a semi-prestigious journal to become "the science". This was my point.

From my perspective, I don't think I ever see "the science" being decided based on a single crap paper, so it seems a bit of a skeptical straw man. Perhaps that's different in your country, state, city, county, continent, island. Perhaps that's true for a particular policy _area_ that you are invested in. In general, I find arguments on scarequotes "science" often overblown and just reinforcing existing biases.

How much 'policy' are you happy with that you've never checked to validate that it was properly replicated beforehand? How much of your skepticism is against "the science" on new policy you start with an initial dislike to...compared to policy that we consider as standard, are probably comfortable with, likely consider to be 'beneficial enough'...and yet haven't adequately scrutinized?

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#38

Post by mewpmewp2 »

cynicalpeace wrote: post #35
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to NHS: A processed food is any food or drink that has been changed in some way when it’s made or prepared. Most foods we eat are processed in some way. Processing can be used to: make foods safe, for example milk is pasteurised to remove harmful bacteria make foods suitable for use, such as pressing seeds to make oil preserve foods or help them last longer, such as tinned or frozen foods change how food ta…

This is a disingenuous question because you obviously know cooked meat is not what we usually mean by processed food.

And that's why the term is confusing, because there's a magical meaning behind that, which who knows what it exactly means. And you use this term to raise children - I absolutely was confused as a child about the meaning behind it. It felt like this magical term that I was unable to comprehend. Almost like circular reasoning - if something is processed it's bad for you. What does processed mean? That it's made bad for you! It's the same thing about the word "chemical".

It's also hiding what are the exact and true health problems behind certain foods.

Then you get those terms that are used and you get the anti-terms.

"All natural", that is supposedly good, etc. Except there are quite many poisons and things in nature that can kill you.

Then people get those strong feelings associated to those labels, and they get manipulated in various directions, because something can be considered to be of that label.

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#39

Post by pclmulqdq »

cptaj wrote: post #29
cynicalpeace wrote: post #15

40-60% of scientific studies are not replicable, therefore fake as far as I'm concerned. That's why "show me the study" is such a midwit line of reasoning. We need to go back to thinking more with first principles, received wisdom, and personal experimentation. There's a place for scientific studies, but it's gone so far that many won't take an obvious point without a study behind it. There are many such examples tha…

Be careful with this default position. If we start from first principles: - Any one individual is not trained or experienced in the vast majority of scientific disciplines, regardless of his/her expertise in any one field - Even if half the studies published have flaws (where did you get that stat? was that study flawed?), their body of references is filtered by decades of replication and paper ranking of importance…

Reading many scientific studies that are done poorly, I am not convinced that you need a lot of formal training in a field to identify bad science. Many frauds and errors are blatantly visible in their data, which should have a given distribution but doesn't, or in their flawed analyses. Many others have several clearly uncontrolled variables (hint: if it's not in the paper, they didn't control it).

People of a given field will also often circle the wagons around bad actors to protect their own jobs and reputations. This introduces a very strong bias in the people who should be the most highly-informed on their own subject, and sadly makes them less trustworthy than people like Data Colada (https://datacolada.org/) who go beyond their own fields.

Re: How Much Science Is Fake?

#40

Post by davisoneee »

cynicalpeace wrote: post #22
davisoneee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think describing it as 'fake' is rather antagonistic. You could just as easily say 'poor quality' or 'unjustified'. I would say that more accurately describes the situation. It could be... - unjustified and sloppy (not 'fake', but also not considered reliable evidence) - unjustified and malicious (this i would consider 'fake') - unjustified and gamed (again, 'fake') - ...or just unjustified and under-specified (and…

Fake is a good word. "unjustified and sloppy" is fake to me. We have different definitions of fake and shouldn't get hung up on definitions. My last word on it is I should be antagonistic against people who are deciding what goes in my son's school lunch based off of "unjustified and sloppy" studies. First principles + received wisdom are counter balancing, not contradicting. Everything in life is a balance.

Definitions matter when it comes discussion, as what you say influences how people feel on a topic. Broad, non-specific definitions leave a lot of space for bias rather than clarity.

If you describe it as 'fake', I consider that to give the impression of 'the answer is NOT' this, and could lead to anti-policy.

If the description is 'unjustified and sloppy', that can lead to additional research to properly invalidate or potentially find something useful, so we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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