12 ms·

This. The purpose of science is to discover the truth, not make the truth. You don't science to confirm everything before you try it. With things like breathing

This. The purpose of science is to discover the truth, not make the truth. You don't science to confirm everything before you try it. With things like breathing where you know it's not going to cause harm, just try it for yourself.

tines 6y ago
The problem is that you're biased - confirmation bias, expectation bias, selection bias, optimism bias, observer expectancy effect, the list goes on - and you end up learning all things except the truth.
- onemoresoop 6y ago
  As long as it does something beneficial who cares after all what the bias is? Placebo may play a role in it but once again, what do we care about here, whether something is beneficial or whether it can be explained why it is beneficial? For some the former and for some the latter, ofc depending on perspective.
  - CamperBob2 6y ago
    As long as it does something beneficial who cares after all what the bias is? I do. I hate being wrong about stuff.
    - tedunangst 6y ago
      Wrong about what exactly? I'd say I'm mostly a breathing skeptic, but if it makes you feel better, then... it makes you feel better and you aren't wrong for feeling better.
      - CamperBob2 6y ago
        Wrong about what exactly? If someone observes measurable benefits after (e.g.) breathing through one nostril for a while, I'd consider it important to know exactly why. Maybe there are important things about the mechanics of respiration that we haven't understood yet. Dismissing such phenomena with "If it feels good, who cares why?" seems counterproductive in the long run. OTOH, if no one sees measurable benefits, then the various anecdotes from practitioners really are just bias in action, and (IMO) are not worth expending further thought on.
    - onemoresoop 6y ago
      But even if you think you’re right you may be wrong. All current understanding is bound to change when better understanding is achieved. Sometimes things that are scientifically thought to work in a certain way take turns, sometimes going into opposite directions. So even if you think you understand something, it’s healthy to keep a bit of skepticism and a bit of open mind.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    I guess I care. Yes it's beneficial if something works, but I want to know why it works too and not just believe in random pseudoscience. Also, determining if something really works is hard. I want to understand the mechanism. If there's something true there then you may be able to use that directly, you can also avoid untrue things that are harmful (history is full of these harmful 'treatments'). [0] Without this people just end up wearing energy crystals, while dismissing real medicine for homeopathic nonsense that can lead to death [1][2]. Humanity has used the scientific method to barely rise above the collection of hocus pocus explanations. It's worth the effort not to fall back into that. [3] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Health_problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Health_problems [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23882029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23882029 [3]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RgkqLqkg8vLhsYpfh/fake-causality https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RgkqLqkg8vLhsYpfh/fake-causa...
    - brigandish 6y ago
      There's a big difference between wearing crystals because you believe it improves your life, and doing a physical exercise that changes your mental state. If one can't confirm changes in their own mental state, especially profound changes, I'd suggest that's a far bigger and more pressing problem than anything you've listed.
      - fossuser 6y ago
        I'm sure people believe they confirm 'profound changes in their own mental state' from energy crystals too. We can delude ourselves into believing anything. That's why we need to test things empirically in order to find out the truth.
        brigandish 6y ago
        > I'm sure people believe they confirm 'profound changes in their own mental state' from energy crystals too. Not sure about you, but if someone tells me "I've been exercising lately and mentally I feel much better" I don't say "but does homeopathy really work" and wink at them.
  - talaketu 6y ago
    Maybe there are more reliable ways to achieve the benefit for a greater number of people. Science offers an approach to discovering this, and the "why" - the theory - is what drives science.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    > As long as it does something beneficial You can't easily measure if something is beneficial. Which is precisely why a bunch of plants that people were taking before for different ailments were found to have absolutely no medical value when tried through a scientific method. And in the age of social media, individual confirmation bias and a megaphone is the best way to promote non-science to hordes of people.
    - fsloth 6y ago
      Placebo can provide actual benefit to an individual. Easing suffering, thus reducing stress levels, which in turn help body to function better. But you are quite right, individuals with strong confirmation bias and a large social media following are harmfull. Still, that does not mean individuals should not perform harmless experiments. Individuals should experiment. But they should not claim their findings as universal truths.
      - ekianjo 6y ago
        > Placebo can provide actual benefit to an individual. It depends what you refer to when you talk about a placebo. What people call the "placebo effect" is in practice "regression to the mean" in most cases, which is the fact that you would get better over time even if you did absolutely nothing. You will notice that placebo 'effect' works best in contexts where the illness has a psychological component (mental illnesses and the like), but absolutely fail to show any effect at all in other contexts like viral infections. > Individuals should experiment. But they should not claim their findings as universal truths. I agree, but how can you prevent people from claiming that something worked for them if they are absolutely convinced of it. It's an unsolvable problem.
        fsloth 6y ago
        "how can you prevent people from claiming..." Do I understand correctly that you oppose people searching holistic remedies to their ills because they might accidentally get better, and a percentage of these might accidentally turn into snake oil salespeople?
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  We don’t even understand the placebo effect, there is little hope in learning the truth in regards to human biology as it would be too complicated, expensive, and unethical to try.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cgag 6y ago
  I suspect you learn less by doing nothing. This kind of advice is probably good for normal people, but the people who need it least seem to be the ones most paralyzed by it.
- jclos 6y ago
  That's only a problem if you are trying to generalise your discovery and say write a paper or sell a product about it. If it's just "a thing you do" and it makes you feel good, then biases don't really matter as much as the end result.
talaketu 6y ago
Reminds me of the President's rhetorical "What do you have to lose?", that he apparently hadn't thought through.

tines 6y ago

The problem is that you're biased - confirmation bias, expectation bias, selection bias, optimism bias, observer expectancy effect, the list goes on - and you end up learning all things except the truth.

onemoresoop 6y ago
As long as it does something beneficial who cares after all what the bias is? Placebo may play a role in it but once again, what do we care about here, whether something is beneficial or whether it can be explained why it is beneficial? For some the former and for some the latter, ofc depending on perspective.
- CamperBob2 6y ago
  As long as it does something beneficial who cares after all what the bias is? I do. I hate being wrong about stuff.
  - tedunangst 6y ago
    Wrong about what exactly? I'd say I'm mostly a breathing skeptic, but if it makes you feel better, then... it makes you feel better and you aren't wrong for feeling better.
    - CamperBob2 6y ago
      Wrong about what exactly? If someone observes measurable benefits after (e.g.) breathing through one nostril for a while, I'd consider it important to know exactly why. Maybe there are important things about the mechanics of respiration that we haven't understood yet. Dismissing such phenomena with "If it feels good, who cares why?" seems counterproductive in the long run. OTOH, if no one sees measurable benefits, then the various anecdotes from practitioners really are just bias in action, and (IMO) are not worth expending further thought on.
  - onemoresoop 6y ago
    But even if you think you’re right you may be wrong. All current understanding is bound to change when better understanding is achieved. Sometimes things that are scientifically thought to work in a certain way take turns, sometimes going into opposite directions. So even if you think you understand something, it’s healthy to keep a bit of skepticism and a bit of open mind.
- fossuser 6y ago
  I guess I care. Yes it's beneficial if something works, but I want to know why it works too and not just believe in random pseudoscience. Also, determining if something really works is hard. I want to understand the mechanism. If there's something true there then you may be able to use that directly, you can also avoid untrue things that are harmful (history is full of these harmful 'treatments'). [0] Without this people just end up wearing energy crystals, while dismissing real medicine for homeopathic nonsense that can lead to death [1][2]. Humanity has used the scientific method to barely rise above the collection of hocus pocus explanations. It's worth the effort not to fall back into that. [3] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Health_problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Health_problems [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23882029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23882029 [3]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RgkqLqkg8vLhsYpfh/fake-causality https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RgkqLqkg8vLhsYpfh/fake-causa...
  - brigandish 6y ago
    There's a big difference between wearing crystals because you believe it improves your life, and doing a physical exercise that changes your mental state. If one can't confirm changes in their own mental state, especially profound changes, I'd suggest that's a far bigger and more pressing problem than anything you've listed.
    - fossuser 6y ago
      I'm sure people believe they confirm 'profound changes in their own mental state' from energy crystals too. We can delude ourselves into believing anything. That's why we need to test things empirically in order to find out the truth.
      - brigandish 6y ago
        > I'm sure people believe they confirm 'profound changes in their own mental state' from energy crystals too. Not sure about you, but if someone tells me "I've been exercising lately and mentally I feel much better" I don't say "but does homeopathy really work" and wink at them.
- talaketu 6y ago
  Maybe there are more reliable ways to achieve the benefit for a greater number of people. Science offers an approach to discovering this, and the "why" - the theory - is what drives science.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > As long as it does something beneficial You can't easily measure if something is beneficial. Which is precisely why a bunch of plants that people were taking before for different ailments were found to have absolutely no medical value when tried through a scientific method. And in the age of social media, individual confirmation bias and a megaphone is the best way to promote non-science to hordes of people.
  - fsloth 6y ago
    Placebo can provide actual benefit to an individual. Easing suffering, thus reducing stress levels, which in turn help body to function better. But you are quite right, individuals with strong confirmation bias and a large social media following are harmfull. Still, that does not mean individuals should not perform harmless experiments. Individuals should experiment. But they should not claim their findings as universal truths.
    - ekianjo 6y ago
      > Placebo can provide actual benefit to an individual. It depends what you refer to when you talk about a placebo. What people call the "placebo effect" is in practice "regression to the mean" in most cases, which is the fact that you would get better over time even if you did absolutely nothing. You will notice that placebo 'effect' works best in contexts where the illness has a psychological component (mental illnesses and the like), but absolutely fail to show any effect at all in other contexts like viral infections. > Individuals should experiment. But they should not claim their findings as universal truths. I agree, but how can you prevent people from claiming that something worked for them if they are absolutely convinced of it. It's an unsolvable problem.
      - fsloth 6y ago
        "how can you prevent people from claiming..." Do I understand correctly that you oppose people searching holistic remedies to their ills because they might accidentally get better, and a percentage of these might accidentally turn into snake oil salespeople?
mensetmanusman 6y ago
We don’t even understand the placebo effect, there is little hope in learning the truth in regards to human biology as it would be too complicated, expensive, and unethical to try.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cgag 6y ago
I suspect you learn less by doing nothing. This kind of advice is probably good for normal people, but the people who need it least seem to be the ones most paralyzed by it.
jclos 6y ago
That's only a problem if you are trying to generalise your discovery and say write a paper or sell a product about it. If it's just "a thing you do" and it makes you feel good, then biases don't really matter as much as the end result.

talaketu 6y ago

Reminds me of the President's rhetorical "What do you have to lose?", that he apparently hadn't thought through.