Thanks. But are you doing all that personally? Do you have time?
Probably not - I certainly I'm not polling hundreds of people over each minutaie in my life. So, it is likely that neither of us have done the work personally.
The difference is that I distrust the output of science by default. I understand that it is an industry and I'm deeply suspicious of all its pronouncements. I'm on the lookout for the monetary upside, and what isn't being discussed. I love the scientific method, but it is not the be all and end all. What q
Could a drug company ever say:
"Guys, we've done the testing, and the best thing if you have XXX disease is NOT a drug. No, the best thing is to go on a juice diet and prolonged fasting."?
It could not.
With individuals, I am more open. If you can speak to someone, eg Doreen in this case has offered her perspective, that counts for far more with me. I know most individuals are happy to offer help and their perspective out of natural good will. Mostly individuals are trustworthy.
The system that individuals are forced to engage with however is degenerative, and system/corporate/governmental outputs are propagandistic and in the service of the system itself.
The entire point of clinical trials is to see if a specific drug is a good option and a great many of them fail, which is the drug company saying nope try something else. In specific cases they actually do compare them to other treatments like exercise. It’s mostly a question of what’s the current treatment, if they wanted to sell a post operation drug you can bet they would need to test exercise.
Edit: Now I agree drug companies would not make a big deal about advertising that result, but that’s a different story.
There are any number of studies in the effect of exercise and physical therapy currently uses motion not drugs to help people recover from surgery. Diet and exercise are actually prescribed to manage many health issues, it’s also recognized that people will often ignore such advice. We don’t do gastric bypass surgery etc for people who need to lose 10 pounds, but when people simply don’t follow medical advice there are simply fewer options.
So, a huge body of evidence suggests this deeply held belief of yours is wrong.
PS: there were approximately 210,900 physical therapists employed in the United States Exercise is actually the most commonly prescribed and studied treatment.
> Edit: Now I agree drug companies would not make a big deal about advertising that result, but that’s a different story.
Well, its only a different story for drug companies.
For you and I, as individuals, what value is science, if it will provide you with drug options to imperfectly manage your diabetes, but not tell you how to avoid it completely.
Would you say that science is progressing towards truth and greater knowledge, or towards truth and greater knowledge of how to extract more money from those it is purporting to serve?
Science doesn’t really serve humanity it’s simply a method. Drug companies very much benefit from making products that work, but viagra isn’t curing cancer. On the older side, people don’t study quasar’s because that makes some billionaire richer. It’s easy to argue the first one is less pure, but it’s also more useful to more people.
Commercial science has many issues. It’s probably a net negative for humanity that advertising is using science to sell more stuff, or gaming companies to make more addictive games. In the end science is used for all kinds of things from saving billions of lives to putting those same lives at risk.
Thinking of Science as good or bad is like thinking of Math as good or bad. It’s simply a tool used by humans doing human things, both great and terrible.
PS: As to drugs not curing diseases, that’s kind of a limitation on what drug actually are. I think Vaccines really confuse the issue in people’s minds, but that’s not the drug that’s someone’s immune system at work. Drugs can kill organisms, but they generally can’t cause permanent changes. Your body is constantly recycling material, breaking stuff down, and excreting it for a permanent change to occur they would need to cause long term physical changes even after being removed from the body. Mimic a growth hormone at the right time or kill off some cells and sure that can stick, but that’s about it.
With individuals, I am more open. If you can speak to someone, eg Doreen in this case has offered her perspective, that counts for far more with me.
For the record, I don't like being used in this manner to further your agenda. I consider it malicious behavior.
I know most individuals are happy to offer help and their perspective out of natural good will. Mostly individuals are trustworthy.
Most individuals mean well and are stating the truth as they best understand it. That doesn't mean their data is trustworthy or their inferences are trustworthy.
To the degree that people personally malign me, it's bad faith and malicious interaction. But where criticisms of my remarks are motivated by and grounded in genuine skepticism and a desire to seek solid data, those sorts of feedback are entirely welcome by me.
It's just that it's uncommon for people to get that right. It's much more common for people to be snide and dismissive out of hand than to ask genuinely probing questions to ascertain how I came to the conclusions I came to. They assume my conclusions are unfounded rather than wondering what makes me think I am on solid ground.
Over the years, people on HN helping me determine how to find solid ground has been valuable to me. So I do my best to be tolerant of the inevitably messy process involved.
> For the record, I don't like being used in this manner to further your agenda. I consider it malicious behavior.
How am I abusing you or being malicious? It certainly wasn't intended! I'm talking about you in the third person in the comment you quote me from, but then I was replying to someone else. I'm not misrepresenting what you said, or how I feel about it. That is all honest. I'm not sure what to make of you seeing malice there.
We agree that people are well intentioned but that their data and inferences are wrong.
I would describe myself as a hardcore skeptic, I don't accept data or information on trust. I actively distrust corporate/governmental information. From my perspective, when I hear the opinions on hn, many are simply parroting some consensus opinion that they have not verified. This is to say most are living their lives on the basis of unverified beliefs masquerading as knowledge. This is to say, ignorance.
> I know most individuals are happy to offer help and their perspective out of natural good will. Mostly individuals are trustworthy.
Scientiesta are individuals too. Most scientists I know personally are quite trustworthy people with good will and intent. Sure the academic system has some flaws, I myself left it because of the stress of hunting for grants. But the alternative is what are purely anectode based approach leads to: religion. What's the bible if not a collection of anectodes?
The bible is a bunch of stories that people believe in. They listen to the priest, read it for themselves. It has value at an allegorical level though. Believers believe it has the truth.
Science has its articles of faith. They pay lipservice to the scientific method and truth. In reality it is executing mathematics or some defined process. It might find the truth in that process, but this is a siloed truth. It is not true to say it is arriving or will ever arrive at the greater truth, if it does not align with corporate or governmental interests.
You yourself may testify to this, given that you say you were hunting for grants. Did you feel that this was about discovery and understanding the world or something else?
Probably not - I certainly I'm not polling hundreds of people over each minutaie in my life. So, it is likely that neither of us have done the work personally.
The difference is that I distrust the output of science by default. I understand that it is an industry and I'm deeply suspicious of all its pronouncements. I'm on the lookout for the monetary upside, and what isn't being discussed. I love the scientific method, but it is not the be all and end all. What q
Could a drug company ever say:
"Guys, we've done the testing, and the best thing if you have XXX disease is NOT a drug. No, the best thing is to go on a juice diet and prolonged fasting."?
It could not.
With individuals, I am more open. If you can speak to someone, eg Doreen in this case has offered her perspective, that counts for far more with me. I know most individuals are happy to offer help and their perspective out of natural good will. Mostly individuals are trustworthy.
The system that individuals are forced to engage with however is degenerative, and system/corporate/governmental outputs are propagandistic and in the service of the system itself.