Reminder to not swallow whole everything you read...

[MarionP]

Periodic reminder

Just scroll on down and into the bullets for an interesting few minutes

And these are just the established, credentialed professional scientists... Professional scientific journals... You know, the ones who spend their lives formally advancing the state of knowledge in a provable, verifiable, repeatable way....

Noticed, for a moment, by a system distinctly set up to NOT catch them... NOR MAKE THEM PUBLIC. People who you would assume understand and accept the vital importance to practice with ethics and fidelity... And who, even with their faults and flaws, still distinctly do represent the most trustworthy among us... Every other class of persons are, as a group, less trustworthy than these.

retractionwatch.com/

Take a look especially at the news about the leading large group of professional and scientific journals on the Sage name... And a little article about a few noted neuroscientists, people we would be interested in.

FYI

[MBAnderson]

Maybe the title should be "Reminder to not swallow whole anything you read..."

[MarionP in reply to MBAnderson]

No, (well maybe yes, now that I think about it and maybe that's what you mean,) just that you bring all your normal skepticism with you, that's all.

Actual real true scientists are HAPPY to be challenged, they're trained on using their info to overcome all challenges of their peers, that's how they get their degrees in the first place... In which they are formally told (dissertation for example) "we will attack you with everything we have, and to get your degree you have to convince us that you have appropriate scientific responses, including admissions were appropriate, to make you prove it... Because that's the only way any of this works and that's what science is... And how after this you will be behaving every day of your professional existence, and trying to extend the knowledge base in order to justify your professional existence throughout your career." And so those scientists live their life by saying "here's the information, now test me too. Knock yourselves out.... Which by the way I am going to do to you as well."

That's what keeps you safe when the guys who designs and the ones who manufacture and fabricate the brakes on your motorcycle sends them out under you...etc.

In large measure that works, but by the time something gets to you, there have been a few hundred to a few thousand participants in all the processes that ends up putting it in your hand, in your mouth, in your brain, in your blood, and building all manner of things that are placed inside your body (or taken out).

And that's just the sciences, not everybody else in the environments and the marketplaces that brings things to your door and into your body virtually every minute of every day...you and me and all of us, and we cannot do without them... But we can use our noggins to avoid and thus minimize the risks that we reasonably can, and that is something all of us CAN do.

[MarionP in reply to MarionP]

Actually I did mis-state something.. the idea is not to overcome all challenges, it is to overcome all challenges where it is possible and reasonable in search of the truth, which includes admitting errors when you or they establish them and notice them, so that one can go back to the drawing board to improve the mouse trap... Not to simply just win no matter what... Which means oftimes the very most valuable information is the information that there is something left to do or that you made a mistake or left something unturned, and finding out what to do to correct it even if that means future work, because as you go forth it is just as important to know what you have left open or don't know as it is to establish what you do know...both sucesses and failures are necessary to advance the knowledge.

[park_bear]

Related: healthunlocked.com/cure-par...

[MarionP in reply to park_bear]

Says it better than I did...

[CuriousMe12]

While accepting the point,unfortunately science is very slow and 60 years of thousands of phds investigations have not advanced parkinsons solutions very far. So although everything should be looked at critically I value people with parkinsons lived experience just as much.

[Likii]

Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

John P. A. Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine and Statistics at Stanford University.

journals.plos.org/plosmedic...

Is Most Published Research Wrong?

From Veritasium

youtube.com/watch?v=42QuXLu...(Not working as expected?)

[MarionP in reply to Likii]

"Most?" Now that would be quite a claim to have to prove, suggesting that without reading further, significant skepticism should be involved on the statement. Including proper definitions of "published" and "research." Sounds kind of like a sales tag line. "Most people who died ate carrots in the previous 6 weeks."

[Likii in reply to MarionP]

Of course. But could you have bothered to read/watch these before shitting on them?

[MarionP in reply to Likii]

I'm not in need of further illumination on that particular topic (recognizing an exaggerated and therefore probably unreliable claim to hook one for sales reasons or personal sales reasons) and have other demands on my time that are worth more to me. I wasn't aware anybody had asked me for my opinion on something to read for some other benefit then to pitch something at me rather than improve me, so I didn't see any need. I can tell an attention seeking motivation that renders any conclusions or claims in need of independent verification from other sources anyway, so what was the point except to let somebody try to sell me about something, or themselves, and use my own time to do it? If you did need such further assessment or effort, then it might be interesting to that person. In this case, not to me and I don't bite at every little worm that wiggles if I know it's probably not really a worm. There are too many people here who are a little more vulnerable and look to places like this for help, not targeting, and I take it seriously cuz I don't like to waste my time, they ain't making any more of it. I'm skeptical because I can be and some others sometimes can't. So they deserve what I can give them. And that justifies receiving the helpful things I get from them. And if that's the case, why would you care?

Does that answer your snarky little question?

[Likii in reply to MarionP]

Ha! The old "I'm just protecting the vulnerable" ruse!

If you can't seem to stop shitting on links without even viewing them, try keeping your fingers off the keyboard whilst counting to 10,000.

[MarionP in reply to Likii]

Snarky snarky snarky. Blah blah blah blah blah. Guess I got your goat huh?

[CuriousMe12 in reply to Likii]

Add to this that many peer reviews are signed off without proper scrutiny because of time constraints or the conclusion conforms to reviewers existing beliefs.

[MarionP in reply to CuriousMe12]

There have been quite a number of reported cases lately of ghost peer review, using some students in stand-ins instead of the named peer reviewer who sign as if the review had been done, and done by the actual assigned peer. Policing is largely an honor system.