5 ms·

If their record keeping had actually been so good they would have remembered that citrus (by whatever means, and not to the exclusion of other remedies) cures s

by fr0sty 17y ago

If their record keeping had actually been so good they would have remembered that citrus (by whatever means, and not to the exclusion of other remedies) cures scurvy and would not have wandered off into the weeds chasing spoiled meat (which, if the navies were at sea for years at a time could not possibly have been the case). I don't see the 'direct progress' you mention, then again maybe my sarcasm detector is miss-calibrated.

neilk 17y ago
No, I didn't mean that sarcastically. Their theories go like this, at least in my reading. 1 - Something about citrus fruits cures scurvy. Correct. 2 - Something about living on a diet of preserved foods causes scurvy. This is even more correct, since now we're getting at the cause. But I agree we're seeing some interesting cognitive biases here. Once their original theory is disproved, they focus on explaining the latest results, and seem to forget that they still have to explain why citrus fruit ever seemed to cure scurvy. (Or perhaps the story is more complex than we suppose, and they had some other explanation). What's certain is that they don't test their ideas with enough experimentation. There seems to be a bias towards formulating theories, and trusting in the expert's judgment, without any empirical verification.
- idlewords 17y ago
  2 is more like "toxins in improperly canned meat cause scurvy".
btilly 17y ago
Did you actually read the article? It isn't so simple. They transitioned from lemons to limes without realizing that they had gone from a kind of citrus that protected from scurvy to one that didn't. Their interest in meat was due to expeditions which unambiguously demonstrated that lime juice did not protect against scurvy while polar bear meat did. And no simple categorization would have explained to them why you don't want to use copper in preparing food.
- fr0sty 17y ago
  The only thing shown unambiguously was that "that juice did not prevent scurvy". Taking this to reason inductively that "no citrus juice prevents scurvy" is the real problem. They discarded documented evidence and grasped at other straws instead of stepping back and investigating history.
  - btilly 17y ago
    The problem is that they had no mental frame of reference from which to understand the importance of avoiding heat, light, and copper. Therefore even if they performed experiments and discovered the truth, they would have no theory to tell them that taking the obvious next step was a bad idea. Witness for example Scott's ability to demonstrate that seal meat prevented scurvy, and his inability to realize that trying to preserve it by boiling it wouldn't work.

by fr0sty 17y ago

neilk 17y ago

No, I didn't mean that sarcastically. Their theories go like this, at least in my reading. 1 - Something about citrus fruits cures scurvy. Correct. 2 - Something about living on a diet of preserved foods causes scurvy. This is even more correct, since now we're getting at the cause. But I agree we're seeing some interesting cognitive biases here. Once their original theory is disproved, they focus on explaining the latest results, and seem to forget that they still have to explain why citrus fruit ever seemed to cure scurvy. (Or perhaps the story is more complex than we suppose, and they had some other explanation). What's certain is that they don't test their ideas with enough experimentation. There seems to be a bias towards formulating theories, and trusting in the expert's judgment, without any empirical verification.

idlewords 17y ago
2 is more like "toxins in improperly canned meat cause scurvy".

btilly 17y ago

Did you actually read the article? It isn't so simple. They transitioned from lemons to limes without realizing that they had gone from a kind of citrus that protected from scurvy to one that didn't. Their interest in meat was due to expeditions which unambiguously demonstrated that lime juice did not protect against scurvy while polar bear meat did. And no simple categorization would have explained to them why you don't want to use copper in preparing food.

fr0sty 17y ago
The only thing shown unambiguously was that "that juice did not prevent scurvy". Taking this to reason inductively that "no citrus juice prevents scurvy" is the real problem. They discarded documented evidence and grasped at other straws instead of stepping back and investigating history.
- btilly 17y ago
  The problem is that they had no mental frame of reference from which to understand the importance of avoiding heat, light, and copper. Therefore even if they performed experiments and discovered the truth, they would have no theory to tell them that taking the obvious next step was a bad idea. Witness for example Scott's ability to demonstrate that seal meat prevented scurvy, and his inability to realize that trying to preserve it by boiling it wouldn't work.