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The problem is who is examine? Take this random page for exmaple. https://examine.com/nutrition/lemon-water/ https://examine.com/nutrition/lemon-water/ It's

by tus88 7y ago

The problem is who is examine? Take this random page for exmaple. https://examine.com/nutrition/lemon-water/ https://examine.com/nutrition/lemon-water/ It's written by some guy called "Wyatt Brown". Who is he? Is he a scientist? A doctor? A university professor. Oh - I don't need to worry about that, because: > Our evidence-based analysis features 42 unique references to scientific papers. Right then. Quoting papers makes you a reliable expert and able to make claims about medicine and science and health. No, I think I understand why Google has de-ranked this one. This website is clearly a fraud - and looks like one too - that uses a form of sophistry to make claims as to it's own reliability, namely that by quoting "references" a non-person can make claims they ought not to be making. References help boost the credibility of an already credible publication or individual, that don't make something out of nothing.

Dumblydorr 7y ago
That's overly critical, one of cofounders was a very knowledgeable supplement expert who was getting his PhD in the subject. It's definitely not a fraud, its had great quality science based content for a number of years, I've been checking back in every few months for various questions.
tallanvor 7y ago
I have my own issues with how the site presents itself, but I don't think it's correct to claim that the site is "clearly a fraud". Digging in, the studies they link to do seem to correlate with what they're saying, but I'm not skilled at performing a meta-analysis of scientific research, nor have I fully examined all of the sources for any of their articles, or looked for additional articles that might contradict what they're presenting. So it's ok to suggest taking the site with a grain of salt, but claiming they're a fraud is definitely unsubstantiated.
simonsarris 7y ago
> Right then. Quoting papers makes you a reliable expert and able to make claims about medicine and science and health. Does being a researcher or doctor make you a reliable expert and able to make claims about medicine and science and health? It is very good to doubt papers. In doing so you are doubting countless scientists [many of whom perform poor studies] though. There isn't any thing epistemologically sacred about doctors or scientists. Not defending the site itself, but a person who does a study roundup of various claims made with citations has some value. You can't expect him to interpret the studies well, that's still up to you, but that's fine. Unlike a doctor, our internet rando doing the link roundup isn't presuming any authority. But he is giving a lot more information, with more citations that you can further examine, than a typical doctor.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  > Does being a researcher or doctor make you a reliable expert and able to make claims about medicine and science and health? Doubting people quoting papers, and doubting papers are two fundamentally different things.
  - Malician 7y ago
    They're not really doing much that isn't in the papers they're quoting. Their flaws, of which there are certainly many, stem from the flaws in those papers. That's a rather hard problem to fix, so I have trouble faulting them.
jerf 7y ago
The problem is, who is Google to decide who examine is? This is the fears of a lot of people, that Google isn't using any particularly objective criteria, but just reflecting pretty much the same biases you can see on display in dozens of HN posts here. Why should I trust examine on this matter? Well, why should I trust Google? Who is Google? Is Google staffed with doctors? Is Google a well-known expert in the field of medical practices? Did Google undertake a careful review? Or is there some contract employee whose knee-jerk 60 second reaction from the same bias set as a number of HN commenters here now being stamped with Google's imprimatur and now the simply the default answer? Why would we expect Google's decision is based on... on anything in particular at all? Who can show me their criteria? Who can show me their particular analysis of their criteria for this particular site? This site at least references papers; where is Google's defense of their opinion of their site? Did they read the papers and decide they were being used deceptively? Why should I give Google even the slightest bit of credence on this or any other matter not related to their core competencies in the tech industry? (An example of where their competencies would be relevant would be in determining who is spamming the system, creating circular sites to boost each other, gaming the SEO by presenting different pages to Google and not-Google, etc. But as they get farther and farther into deciding based on content the Pandora's box is opened ever wider.) Repeat these questions for any number of sites on this matter, then repeat for any number of subject matters. (What's the solution? Beats me. Right now I'm just on problem identification.)
squeaky-clean 7y ago
> Right then. Quoting papers makes you a reliable expert and able to make claims about medicine and science and health. > No, I think I understand why Google has de-ranked this one. So by this logic why is Wikipedia the top rank for like 90% of these kinds of searches. It's exactly the same isn't it, except anyone can come on and incorrectly change Wikipedia briefly until a moderator corrects it.
cyrusshepard 7y ago
Perhaps you don't know who Examine.com is, but they are cited by the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, CBC, multiple Wikipedia pages all over the world, and over 12,000 other websites. I assume they did more homework than you.
- tus88 7y ago
  > New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, CBC, multiple Wikipedia page I would take one reputable medical journal over all of them. I mean the MSM covers all sorts of trivial things all the time.
  - data_required 7y ago
    Why would a medical journal cite Examine? Examine just compiles and analyzes research, they don't generate it. Has any medical journal ever cited any supplements website? What would there be to cite??
    - AhmedF 7y ago
      We could be cited in a letter, but very unlikely as they would reference the primary research itself.
  - AhmedF 7y ago
    I mean, we were straight-up plagiarized. Which is linked in the article.
AhmedF 7y ago
I enjoy how you ask questions but never click on anything because it must fraud. You can click to the about page to see who he is. And who edits the work. And how the editorial process is. "Wyatt Brown" is clickable. The 42 citations are done directly after each claim, and the study is linked. Most sites just have a bibliography at the end. You are just cruising here to pick a fight. > Fraud Lordy, I'm afraid to even consider what you do professionally.
- dang 7y ago
  Hey, I understand how frustrating is to have people criticize your work unfairly, especially when they seem to be just picking a fight. Believe me, I get it. Still, it breaks HN's guidelines to cross into this sort of attack back, no matter how provocative another comment may be. We can't allow that because it leads into a predictable downward spiral that makes this place worse for everyone. (I'm a moderator here btw, in case this comment doesn't make sense otherwise.) Would you mind taking a look at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and posting in the intended spirit? As a bonus, it will make your own comments stronger and get a more receptive hearing from the community here, the overwhelming majority of whom are fair-minded even when the comments are not.
  - AhmedF 7y ago
    Fair enough.
hanspeter 7y ago
Wait, how did you jump to the conclusion that it's clearly a fraud site? What's fraudulent about the site? Relaying scientific results by the best of your ability without being a doctor or scientist is not fraudulent by itself. All mainstream media sites does this on a regular basis.
data_required 7y ago
I think skeptics like you need to be asking a different question. That question is "what are the best informational websites?". And after that question is answered- "is Google ranking the best pages at the top of its search results?". These are the important questions, right? I do think there is some minor room for improvement with Examine.com, but what else out there is better? I think people who have spent a lot of time researching supplements consider Examine to be one of the best, if not the best, general website on this topic. For individual pages, some will be better, some worse. But on average, Examine is quite excellent. So, this is why many of us consider it tragic if Google makes it almost impossible for the public to find its pages on various supplements. If there were lots of other websites that were more credible, that would be one thing, but for the niches Examine specializes in, there's not much competition. Google is clearly failing here.
dang 7y ago
Would you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? When people go into the internet warrior thing, it cheapens this place, regardless of how right your underlying points may be. It's also against the site guidelines, which ask for thoughtful, substantive comments, as well as several other things which your post here has broken. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by tus88 7y ago

Dumblydorr 7y ago

That's overly critical, one of cofounders was a very knowledgeable supplement expert who was getting his PhD in the subject. It's definitely not a fraud, its had great quality science based content for a number of years, I've been checking back in every few months for various questions.

tallanvor 7y ago

I have my own issues with how the site presents itself, but I don't think it's correct to claim that the site is "clearly a fraud". Digging in, the studies they link to do seem to correlate with what they're saying, but I'm not skilled at performing a meta-analysis of scientific research, nor have I fully examined all of the sources for any of their articles, or looked for additional articles that might contradict what they're presenting. So it's ok to suggest taking the site with a grain of salt, but claiming they're a fraud is definitely unsubstantiated.

simonsarris 7y ago

> Right then. Quoting papers makes you a reliable expert and able to make claims about medicine and science and health. Does being a researcher or doctor make you a reliable expert and able to make claims about medicine and science and health? It is very good to doubt papers. In doing so you are doubting countless scientists [many of whom perform poor studies] though. There isn't any thing epistemologically sacred about doctors or scientists. Not defending the site itself, but a person who does a study roundup of various claims made with citations has some value. You can't expect him to interpret the studies well, that's still up to you, but that's fine. Unlike a doctor, our internet rando doing the link roundup isn't presuming any authority. But he is giving a lot more information, with more citations that you can further examine, than a typical doctor.

joshuamorton 7y ago
> Does being a researcher or doctor make you a reliable expert and able to make claims about medicine and science and health? Doubting people quoting papers, and doubting papers are two fundamentally different things.
- Malician 7y ago
  They're not really doing much that isn't in the papers they're quoting. Their flaws, of which there are certainly many, stem from the flaws in those papers. That's a rather hard problem to fix, so I have trouble faulting them.

jerf 7y ago

The problem is, who is Google to decide who examine is? This is the fears of a lot of people, that Google isn't using any particularly objective criteria, but just reflecting pretty much the same biases you can see on display in dozens of HN posts here. Why should I trust examine on this matter? Well, why should I trust Google? Who is Google? Is Google staffed with doctors? Is Google a well-known expert in the field of medical practices? Did Google undertake a careful review? Or is there some contract employee whose knee-jerk 60 second reaction from the same bias set as a number of HN commenters here now being stamped with Google's imprimatur and now the simply the default answer? Why would we expect Google's decision is based on... on anything in particular at all? Who can show me their criteria? Who can show me their particular analysis of their criteria for this particular site? This site at least references papers; where is Google's defense of their opinion of their site? Did they read the papers and decide they were being used deceptively? Why should I give Google even the slightest bit of credence on this or any other matter not related to their core competencies in the tech industry? (An example of where their competencies would be relevant would be in determining who is spamming the system, creating circular sites to boost each other, gaming the SEO by presenting different pages to Google and not-Google, etc. But as they get farther and farther into deciding based on content the Pandora's box is opened ever wider.) Repeat these questions for any number of sites on this matter, then repeat for any number of subject matters. (What's the solution? Beats me. Right now I'm just on problem identification.)

squeaky-clean 7y ago

> Right then. Quoting papers makes you a reliable expert and able to make claims about medicine and science and health. > No, I think I understand why Google has de-ranked this one. So by this logic why is Wikipedia the top rank for like 90% of these kinds of searches. It's exactly the same isn't it, except anyone can come on and incorrectly change Wikipedia briefly until a moderator corrects it.

cyrusshepard 7y ago

Perhaps you don't know who Examine.com is, but they are cited by the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, CBC, multiple Wikipedia pages all over the world, and over 12,000 other websites. I assume they did more homework than you.

tus88 7y ago
> New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, CBC, multiple Wikipedia page I would take one reputable medical journal over all of them. I mean the MSM covers all sorts of trivial things all the time.
- data_required 7y ago
  Why would a medical journal cite Examine? Examine just compiles and analyzes research, they don't generate it. Has any medical journal ever cited any supplements website? What would there be to cite??
  - AhmedF 7y ago
    We could be cited in a letter, but very unlikely as they would reference the primary research itself.
- AhmedF 7y ago
  I mean, we were straight-up plagiarized. Which is linked in the article.

AhmedF 7y ago

I enjoy how you ask questions but never click on anything because it must fraud. You can click to the about page to see who he is. And who edits the work. And how the editorial process is. "Wyatt Brown" is clickable. The 42 citations are done directly after each claim, and the study is linked. Most sites just have a bibliography at the end. You are just cruising here to pick a fight. > Fraud Lordy, I'm afraid to even consider what you do professionally.

dang 7y ago
Hey, I understand how frustrating is to have people criticize your work unfairly, especially when they seem to be just picking a fight. Believe me, I get it. Still, it breaks HN's guidelines to cross into this sort of attack back, no matter how provocative another comment may be. We can't allow that because it leads into a predictable downward spiral that makes this place worse for everyone. (I'm a moderator here btw, in case this comment doesn't make sense otherwise.) Would you mind taking a look at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and posting in the intended spirit? As a bonus, it will make your own comments stronger and get a more receptive hearing from the community here, the overwhelming majority of whom are fair-minded even when the comments are not.
- AhmedF 7y ago
  Fair enough.

hanspeter 7y ago

Wait, how did you jump to the conclusion that it's clearly a fraud site? What's fraudulent about the site? Relaying scientific results by the best of your ability without being a doctor or scientist is not fraudulent by itself. All mainstream media sites does this on a regular basis.

data_required 7y ago

I think skeptics like you need to be asking a different question. That question is "what are the best informational websites?". And after that question is answered- "is Google ranking the best pages at the top of its search results?". These are the important questions, right? I do think there is some minor room for improvement with Examine.com, but what else out there is better? I think people who have spent a lot of time researching supplements consider Examine to be one of the best, if not the best, general website on this topic. For individual pages, some will be better, some worse. But on average, Examine is quite excellent. So, this is why many of us consider it tragic if Google makes it almost impossible for the public to find its pages on various supplements. If there were lots of other websites that were more credible, that would be one thing, but for the niches Examine specializes in, there's not much competition. Google is clearly failing here.

dang 7y ago

Would you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? When people go into the internet warrior thing, it cheapens this place, regardless of how right your underlying points may be. It's also against the site guidelines, which ask for thoughtful, substantive comments, as well as several other things which your post here has broken. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html