5 ms·

I don't want to believe real data, I will keep my prejudices. Is like that how it works?

oblib 8y ago
No, how it works is raising children and observing the real cause and effect and comparing it with others who've raised children. That is "real data". How many have you raised?
- cyphar 8y ago
  "Real data" would involve double-blind trials and a large sample size. Anything else is anecdotal evidence (which might be used to inform the question of a study, but is not a study unto itself). I don't know how many other parents you know, but I'd guess that's it in the range of n=36 (based on an average of 40 friends in adulthood and a parental rate of 90%). If you talked with people over the internet about this in parenting forums, there is an implicit selection bias towards people who believe there is something wrong with their children (more people will seek out such information who think they need help than those who think their children are okay). All of these biases and limited sample sizes mean that your experience isn't objective enough to count as "real data" -- and even if it was you'd be proving a correlation not causation (that requires even more rigor). I don't actually have an opinion either way, but I just wanted to point out that it would be a good idea to look up clinical studies on the topic with large sample sizes and review your position from there (maybe they back up your position, maybe they don't -- but ignoring them and stating that anecdotes from raising a child is the only valid form of evidence is incredibly unscientific).
  - oblib 8y ago
    Experience is "real data". Nothing could be more "real". To imply that real life experience is anything less is obstinate, and ignorant. Let's look at some of that "real data" being talked about here: __ Pediatrics. 1991 Nov;88(5):960-6. "Effects of sugar on aggressive and inattentive behavior in children with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity and normal children: 17 subjects with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity compared with 9 age-matched control subjects" __ Seriously, if that's all we've got for "real data" on this subject that's just bullshit, and really old bullshit too. Since that study was published the amount of sugar consumed per day has increased close to 30%. Do you think if they increased the amount of sugar they gave those kids by 30% in would have affected the results? That's what we're dealing with today, everyday, and most every kid. I have far more personal clinical experience than those who conducted that study done 27 years ago, both in the number of children observed and the total hours spent observing them, and it's far more up to date. I've also spoken with dozens of mothers who've confirmed those observations during this past decade alone, and the previous two as well, and none of us had any outside influences motivating us like those who take corporate funding to study just a handful of kids for a few weeks at most. I'll say the same thing I told those Physicians who denied there was such a thing as postpartum psychosis back in 1985, "you don't know shit about this". It wasn't until "Andrea Yates" that the connection was made on that. Between the time I pointed it out and 2001 they all didn't do a damned thing to learn more, and they ignored everyone like me who tried to enlighten them. That is what is happening here, right now. Read the damned article linked above and do some follow up on it. This is a serious problem, and kids getting hyperactive is not the most serious aspect of it. It's way worse than that.
    - cyphar 8y ago
      > Experience is "real data". Nothing could be more "real". To imply that real life experience is anything less is obstinate, and ignorant. Experiences are coloured by your personal opinions, emotions, retrospective reasoning, and so on. Yes, it's "real" -- but it's not objective or useful data in the context of discussion about a scientific argument (this is why I scare-quoted it in my response -- all data is "real" unless you literally fabricated it, but data being "real" isn't the only consideration). You can base your life on what you feel is important, I'm just saying that (on the whole) clinical studies are by far the most effective way of discovering whether a hypothesis stands up to scrutiny. > Do you think if they increased the amount of sugar they gave those kids by 30% in would have affected the results? You were talking about Red 40, not sugar (and you dismissed out-of-hand that the problem wasn't caffeine). But in any case, I never said that sugar (or Red 40) wasn't bad for children (sugar is obviously awful for humans in general, and that has been known since the 1950s with John Yudkin's work), I was saying that arguing it from purely anecdotal evidence weakens your argument needlessly. On the Wikipedia article for Red 40 I saw a study from 2011 by the FDA that showed a possible link between Red 40 consumption and hyperactivity, but also that further testing was needed (I can't download the PDF of the study -- it's missing from the FDA website). I think pointing people to that would be a better way to argue than to argue from anecdotes. > I've also spoken with dozens of mothers who've confirmed those observations during this past decade alone I guess I was in the right ball-park with n=32. How did you confirm these observations? How are you sure that they didn't have a preconceived view on what caused their experiences? Did you ask questions that might have lead them to a different answer (as we know, polling questions can be written to find either result)? While I do appreciate you wanting to find out information "from the horse's mouth", you need to consider whether you added any bias in your research. This is why double-blind trials exist, and is why you need to have a rigorous experimental design if you want to prove something. Would you accept the argument that "I've spoken to with dozens of mothers who've confirmed that their children became autistic after being vaccinated"? Of course not. Just because "sugar is bad for children" is probably true (and "vaccines cause autism" is categorically false) doesn't mean it should be subject to less scrutiny as an argument.
      - oblib 8y ago

No, how it works is raising children and observing the real cause and effect and comparing it with others who've raised children. That is "real data". How many have you raised?

cyphar 8y ago
"Real data" would involve double-blind trials and a large sample size. Anything else is anecdotal evidence (which might be used to inform the question of a study, but is not a study unto itself). I don't know how many other parents you know, but I'd guess that's it in the range of n=36 (based on an average of 40 friends in adulthood and a parental rate of 90%). If you talked with people over the internet about this in parenting forums, there is an implicit selection bias towards people who believe there is something wrong with their children (more people will seek out such information who think they need help than those who think their children are okay). All of these biases and limited sample sizes mean that your experience isn't objective enough to count as "real data" -- and even if it was you'd be proving a correlation not causation (that requires even more rigor). I don't actually have an opinion either way, but I just wanted to point out that it would be a good idea to look up clinical studies on the topic with large sample sizes and review your position from there (maybe they back up your position, maybe they don't -- but ignoring them and stating that anecdotes from raising a child is the only valid form of evidence is incredibly unscientific).
- oblib 8y ago
  Experience is "real data". Nothing could be more "real". To imply that real life experience is anything less is obstinate, and ignorant. Let's look at some of that "real data" being talked about here: __ Pediatrics. 1991 Nov;88(5):960-6. "Effects of sugar on aggressive and inattentive behavior in children with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity and normal children: 17 subjects with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity compared with 9 age-matched control subjects" __ Seriously, if that's all we've got for "real data" on this subject that's just bullshit, and really old bullshit too. Since that study was published the amount of sugar consumed per day has increased close to 30%. Do you think if they increased the amount of sugar they gave those kids by 30% in would have affected the results? That's what we're dealing with today, everyday, and most every kid. I have far more personal clinical experience than those who conducted that study done 27 years ago, both in the number of children observed and the total hours spent observing them, and it's far more up to date. I've also spoken with dozens of mothers who've confirmed those observations during this past decade alone, and the previous two as well, and none of us had any outside influences motivating us like those who take corporate funding to study just a handful of kids for a few weeks at most. I'll say the same thing I told those Physicians who denied there was such a thing as postpartum psychosis back in 1985, "you don't know shit about this". It wasn't until "Andrea Yates" that the connection was made on that. Between the time I pointed it out and 2001 they all didn't do a damned thing to learn more, and they ignored everyone like me who tried to enlighten them. That is what is happening here, right now. Read the damned article linked above and do some follow up on it. This is a serious problem, and kids getting hyperactive is not the most serious aspect of it. It's way worse than that.
  - cyphar 8y ago
    > Experience is "real data". Nothing could be more "real". To imply that real life experience is anything less is obstinate, and ignorant. Experiences are coloured by your personal opinions, emotions, retrospective reasoning, and so on. Yes, it's "real" -- but it's not objective or useful data in the context of discussion about a scientific argument (this is why I scare-quoted it in my response -- all data is "real" unless you literally fabricated it, but data being "real" isn't the only consideration). You can base your life on what you feel is important, I'm just saying that (on the whole) clinical studies are by far the most effective way of discovering whether a hypothesis stands up to scrutiny. > Do you think if they increased the amount of sugar they gave those kids by 30% in would have affected the results? You were talking about Red 40, not sugar (and you dismissed out-of-hand that the problem wasn't caffeine). But in any case, I never said that sugar (or Red 40) wasn't bad for children (sugar is obviously awful for humans in general, and that has been known since the 1950s with John Yudkin's work), I was saying that arguing it from purely anecdotal evidence weakens your argument needlessly. On the Wikipedia article for Red 40 I saw a study from 2011 by the FDA that showed a possible link between Red 40 consumption and hyperactivity, but also that further testing was needed (I can't download the PDF of the study -- it's missing from the FDA website). I think pointing people to that would be a better way to argue than to argue from anecdotes. > I've also spoken with dozens of mothers who've confirmed those observations during this past decade alone I guess I was in the right ball-park with n=32. How did you confirm these observations? How are you sure that they didn't have a preconceived view on what caused their experiences? Did you ask questions that might have lead them to a different answer (as we know, polling questions can be written to find either result)? While I do appreciate you wanting to find out information "from the horse's mouth", you need to consider whether you added any bias in your research. This is why double-blind trials exist, and is why you need to have a rigorous experimental design if you want to prove something. Would you accept the argument that "I've spoken to with dozens of mothers who've confirmed that their children became autistic after being vaccinated"? Of course not. Just because "sugar is bad for children" is probably true (and "vaccines cause autism" is categorically false) doesn't mean it should be subject to less scrutiny as an argument.
    - oblib 8y ago