EDIT: Let’s cool it with the downvotes, dudes. We’re not out to cut funding to your black hole detection chamber or revoke the degrees of chiropractors just because a couple of us don’t believe in it, okay? Chill out, participate with the prompt and continue with having a nice day. I’m sure almost everybody has something to add.
I’m going to give you a couple examples:
A study showed Dementia brainscans heavily correlating with a form of Plaque. For decades people believed it, but then it was debunked. Someone expressing disbelief in it before the debunking would not have been “flying in the face of everything we know about logic.” They would have been right.
A researcher made a study where Aspartame used to sweeten Gatorade correlated with fast developing terminal cancer in mice. The researcher who developed Aspartame shot back by saying they fed the mice daily with the equivalent to 400+ Gatorades. Of course, a French study later showed at large scales people who consumed aspartame were slightly more likely to develop cancer in the following decades, but the outcome was still preferred to the consumption of sugar. This is an example that is much more clearcut in the favor of science, but I think there is still room for skeptics to express doubts.
I think talking about these things in a welcoming environment can both alleviate certain less scientific beliefs while also giving a great idea of how the general public views certain topics. Also it’s fun. There is a guy in here who thinks maybe a dude can fight a bear, not that they should.
Yeah to be fair a few of the responses were that. I just don’t know a way to keep away the oxygen consuming idiot opinions like the woman so proud of doubting the moon landing.
Basically if you’ve got a logical explanation I can get on board with your idea as a hypothesis, but some of these replies are not that and are insane.
Okay, but if anyone forms full beliefs from single studies, they’ve grossly misunderstood the details of how science works.
This particular hierarchy is specific to medical science, it doesn’t fit the other scientific disciplines perfectly.
Also, if I had a nickle for every conflicting pair of meta-analyses… happens so often.
Fair, but my point is that it illustrates how much stock one should put in single studies.
This would apply to 99% of journalists.
This reminds me of the research on saccharine that involved massive doses of it in mice. The belief that pumping huge amounts into a mouse can substitute for lower levels over long times always struck me as odd. Most systems, especially biological ones, have a critical level where systems fail. An example is the body’s ability to process toxins like alcohol in the liver. If you overwhelm the enzymes in the liver you get far different results than if you gave low levels over long periods.
If we’re gonna be correct about this, the study showed that there’s potentially an increased risk of developing cancer but there is a lot of data that still needs to be analyzed, so it’s a bit early to draw conclusions.