6 ms·

looks like that day isn't today, given the downvotes xD in fairness, i think people have a hard time taking claims like this seriously without a little more in

looks like that day isn't today, given the downvotes xD in fairness, i think people have a hard time taking claims like this seriously without a little more information, due to its superficial similarity to those of a "crackpot". (but while the _precision_ is pretty poor on the correctness of "crackpot" theories, the _recall_ is pretty much 100%) arguably > 100%, to be a bit tongue-in-cheek

roenxi 7y ago
Even more information wouldn't really help. 'Crackpot' is something of a shorthand for an idea that disagrees with consensus research position. The only tool an average person has to determine an idea as truth or fiction is whether it lines up with the current professed norms; so for a technical forum like HN ideas that disagree with the standard research position can only be ignored due to lack of evidence.
- wtallis 7y ago
  > The only tool an average person has to determine an idea as truth or fiction is whether it lines up with the current professed norms; so for a technical forum like HN ideas that disagree with the standard research position can only be ignored due to lack of evidence. The manner in which someone presents their ideas is a decent secondary indicator. Common red flags include being evasive about what disease they're referring to, being unable to demonstrate where the mainstream theory fails, being unable to point to any good experimental evidence that even hints that the crackpot theory may be an equal or better explanation, not being able to anticipate and have a good answer for the most obvious questions raised by the crackpot theory.
  - wavepruner 7y ago
    Thank you for the feedback regarding how I come across. Next time I will try to include more specific detail in the OP that hopefully does not upset people. I've found that a vague introduction protects me from down-votes, but perhaps there is a way to talk about some details without that happening. The illness is chronic mercury toxicity and the treatment is chelation therapy. I know a man who reversed his dementia with chelation therapy. He's an older guy that would get lost in his own neighborhood. Steven Fowkes, a chemist, has done a lot of work in presenting the some of the latest research regarding Alzheimer's and how it relates to mercury toxicity. A good start is his Quora answer here: https://www.quora.com/Why-havent-we-made-progress-in-a-cure-for-Alzheimers-disease https://www.quora.com/Why-havent-we-made-progress-in-a-cure-... Some other good scientific literature is the work of Boyd Hayley with the chelator emeramide. He's in the process of getting it approved through the FDA for treatment of acute mercury toxicity. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3346673/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3346673/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29444690?dopt=Abstract https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29444690?dopt=Abstract
    - wtallis 7y ago
      You're really not helping your case by citing two people who come across as even more shifty. Piling on more low-quality evidence like this just raises more questions and doubts, and gives the impression that you either cannot identify credible evidence or that none exists.
      - not_kurt_godel 7y ago
        Agreed. The first source cites his own talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBTr9iQQuq4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBTr9iQQuq4, in which he starts out with the disclaimer: > It [his cure for Alzheimer's] isn't a proven reality so if you're looking for double-blind clinical studies of this you're gonna be disappointed. But if you're willing to suspend your disbelief and try something as simple as giving your family member without Alzheimer's disease something like coconut oil and B-complex vitamins and see if it works, you may be very pleased. Suspending disbelief should not be a requirement to make a persuasive argument about a scientific subject. This guy just smacks of snake oil salesman through and through.
        wavepruner 7y ago
        There's a lot more to it than that. Did you watch the series of videos? The underlying mechanism of how mercury can induce β‐amyloid production and tau phosphorylation has been discovered. Perhaps this paper would be better than the videos. I posted the videos because they are easier to understand. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1471-4159.2000.0740231.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1471-4159...
        not_kurt_godel 7y ago
        No, I did not watch all the videos. It seems like they/you are proposing a hypothesis that mercury poisoning is responsible for a significant percentage of Alzheimer's cases? And reading between the lines on your other posts, you seem to believe that mercury poisoning is a factor in your own illness due to your perception of chelation therapy being effective for you?
- darkerside 7y ago
  Hard disagree. Science is great, but logic is greater.
zby 7y ago
From another Hacker News discussion: "One common theme in the chronic Lyme communities is that people who go into remission tend to attribute their response to whatever technique, supplement, or medication they were trying at the time." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21707343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21707343 Once people form a community around a particular therapy the community will never admit that the therapy was wrong. On the other hand https://equilibriabook.com/ https://equilibriabook.com/ gives shocking examples of how the medical establishment was wrong even though all the information was available and an individual could do much better not following mainstream medical advice. That can happen when the incentives in the research institutions are misaligned. This is a subject I also put a lot of thinking into recently:https://medium.com/@zby/rational-patient-community-6d3617dffcfe https://medium.com/@zby/rational-patient-community-6d3617dff...

roenxi 7y ago

Even more information wouldn't really help. 'Crackpot' is something of a shorthand for an idea that disagrees with consensus research position. The only tool an average person has to determine an idea as truth or fiction is whether it lines up with the current professed norms; so for a technical forum like HN ideas that disagree with the standard research position can only be ignored due to lack of evidence.

wtallis 7y ago
> The only tool an average person has to determine an idea as truth or fiction is whether it lines up with the current professed norms; so for a technical forum like HN ideas that disagree with the standard research position can only be ignored due to lack of evidence. The manner in which someone presents their ideas is a decent secondary indicator. Common red flags include being evasive about what disease they're referring to, being unable to demonstrate where the mainstream theory fails, being unable to point to any good experimental evidence that even hints that the crackpot theory may be an equal or better explanation, not being able to anticipate and have a good answer for the most obvious questions raised by the crackpot theory.
- wavepruner 7y ago
  Thank you for the feedback regarding how I come across. Next time I will try to include more specific detail in the OP that hopefully does not upset people. I've found that a vague introduction protects me from down-votes, but perhaps there is a way to talk about some details without that happening. The illness is chronic mercury toxicity and the treatment is chelation therapy. I know a man who reversed his dementia with chelation therapy. He's an older guy that would get lost in his own neighborhood. Steven Fowkes, a chemist, has done a lot of work in presenting the some of the latest research regarding Alzheimer's and how it relates to mercury toxicity. A good start is his Quora answer here: https://www.quora.com/Why-havent-we-made-progress-in-a-cure-for-Alzheimers-disease https://www.quora.com/Why-havent-we-made-progress-in-a-cure-... Some other good scientific literature is the work of Boyd Hayley with the chelator emeramide. He's in the process of getting it approved through the FDA for treatment of acute mercury toxicity. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3346673/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3346673/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29444690?dopt=Abstract https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29444690?dopt=Abstract
  - wtallis 7y ago
    You're really not helping your case by citing two people who come across as even more shifty. Piling on more low-quality evidence like this just raises more questions and doubts, and gives the impression that you either cannot identify credible evidence or that none exists.
    - not_kurt_godel 7y ago
      Agreed. The first source cites his own talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBTr9iQQuq4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBTr9iQQuq4, in which he starts out with the disclaimer: > It [his cure for Alzheimer's] isn't a proven reality so if you're looking for double-blind clinical studies of this you're gonna be disappointed. But if you're willing to suspend your disbelief and try something as simple as giving your family member without Alzheimer's disease something like coconut oil and B-complex vitamins and see if it works, you may be very pleased. Suspending disbelief should not be a requirement to make a persuasive argument about a scientific subject. This guy just smacks of snake oil salesman through and through.
      - wavepruner 7y ago
        There's a lot more to it than that. Did you watch the series of videos? The underlying mechanism of how mercury can induce β‐amyloid production and tau phosphorylation has been discovered. Perhaps this paper would be better than the videos. I posted the videos because they are easier to understand. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1471-4159.2000.0740231.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1471-4159...
        not_kurt_godel 7y ago
        No, I did not watch all the videos. It seems like they/you are proposing a hypothesis that mercury poisoning is responsible for a significant percentage of Alzheimer's cases? And reading between the lines on your other posts, you seem to believe that mercury poisoning is a factor in your own illness due to your perception of chelation therapy being effective for you?
darkerside 7y ago
Hard disagree. Science is great, but logic is greater.

zby 7y ago

From another Hacker News discussion: "One common theme in the chronic Lyme communities is that people who go into remission tend to attribute their response to whatever technique, supplement, or medication they were trying at the time." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21707343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21707343 Once people form a community around a particular therapy the community will never admit that the therapy was wrong. On the other hand https://equilibriabook.com/ https://equilibriabook.com/ gives shocking examples of how the medical establishment was wrong even though all the information was available and an individual could do much better not following mainstream medical advice. That can happen when the incentives in the research institutions are misaligned. This is a subject I also put a lot of thinking into recently:https://medium.com/@zby/rational-patient-community-6d3617dffcfe https://medium.com/@zby/rational-patient-community-6d3617dff...