3 ms·

While inflammations and even frank ulceration are painful, you can live your life with IBD while still enjoying very spicy food, for the same reason that you ca

by epgui 6y ago

While inflammations and even frank ulceration are painful, you can live your life with IBD while still enjoying very spicy food, for the same reason that you can enjoy spicy food when you're used to it. There's a good reason to think that spicy food improves outcomes causally from a neurological point of view as well as, possibly, a gut microbiome point of view. I would say that the alternative you describe is mechanistically possible but not as plausible.

derefr 6y ago
Your reply isn't on the same meta-level as the comment it was replying to. :) My comment wasn't really attempting to assert the hypothesis it mentions. In fact, please ignore the textual content of my hypothesis–it's entirely irrelevant. I was just trying to take this opportunity to talk about a technique for good epistemological hygiene. What I was trying to do, was: 1. to propose a question that needs an experiment to answer (a hypothesis); and to use that question to make clear that the implicit thought people jump to thinking when reading a headline like this is also "a question that needs an experiment to answer" (a hypothesis.) 2. to propose that when you encounter a headline like this, you should do the same — generate alternative hypotheses, in order to remind yourself that the first interpretation you jumped to of the study's correlation was also just a question. The point of differentiating the two, is that hypotheses, by themselves, do not convey information about the world. You should not update your mental model of the world based solely on the fact that you generated a plausible-sounding hypothesis. A hypothesis is a question, not an answer. Certain facts about the world are contingent on a given hypothesis proving out. By privileging a hypothesis — thinking about it and no other — you may implicitly raise your expectations of those contingent facts being true. And that can lead you astray. Those facts haven't earned a place in your mental model of the world. They're not paying rent. They're freeloaders. And it's potentially dangerously false to allow yourself to believe them. The point of generating other hypotheses isn't to find one that could be more true. It's to scrub those contingent-facts of your intuitively-privileged hypothesis from your mind, by throwing other contingent worlds at it — hopefully many such contingent worlds — until your brain just gives up and avoids absorbing any of those contingent facts, treating them all as they should be treated: as mental noise, unworthy of more than a moment's consideration. Or, to put that another way: When there's evidence in favor of two things being somehow connected, but nothing has been proven about the way in which they're connected, the only rational thing to believe about that connection... is nothing. :)
- nunchuck 6y ago
  Nearly all experiments suffer from correlation/causation problem, even as the experimenters repeatedly claim that it was factored out. People in general point to scientific evidence only when it backs their stake, or worse, world view. As soon as scientific evidence is shown that counters their stake or world view, then we go straight to "correlation is not causation."
  - reificator 6y ago
    > As soon as scientific evidence is shown that counters their stake or world view, then we go straight to "correlation is not causation." I like to think people are more fair than that. In this case in particular I tend to eat as much spicy food as I can. I have about 20 bottles of hot sauce within arms reach as I type this, I add some set of peppers onions and garlic to basically any meal I cook, and I usually order thai hot when it's offered even though it definitely kicks my ass. And yet when I read this headline I immediately jumped to correlation.
    - epgui 6y ago
      I think if 2020 should have taught us anything, it's that people have a very loose relationship with proper science. I think you may be over-estimating people's abilities and attitudes... Consider yourself lucky to have such a great entourage! ;)
- epgui 6y ago
  No, you're right, but I suppose in the grand scheme of things, I was alluding to the fact that in this case (and in many other cases) we do have incomplete and imperfect prior knowledge, but prior knowledge nonetheless, which would allow us to make causal inference. With some uncertainty of course. I would argue that making these causal inferences without formal proof is actually somewhat essential and desirable, so long as assumptions and uncertainty are recognized, and that they lead to further probing (informed by such inference). Many people seem to think science is about "finding the truth" (ie.: obtaining "first-order" information about the world), and that's certainly one way to see it... But I think it's more interesting to think of science as being all about finding, quantifying and describing uncertainty. This might seem pedantic, but you don't need to abandon all uncertainty in order to make causal inference. I think we're saying mostly the same things, in different ways and with different implicit assumptions about what it means to do science. It's obvious from your answer that you also understand all of this very well. PS.: I have an MSc in biochem: not claiming to be a great scientist, but I do have formal training so I'm at least familiar with the matter :)
BTCOG 6y ago
Capsaicin is a chemical irritant to any and all skin it touches in mammals. Furthermore, Capsaicin is anti-fungal so I can't see how it's possibly all that great for the gut microbiome. I can't see any cause for why it would be healthy for a human neurologically either. So, I'd say what you're saying is not all that plausible.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Furthermore, Capsaicin is anti-fungal so I can't see how it's possibly all that great for the gut microbiome Fungi tend to compete with bacteria; if modern lifestyles generally tend to result in a overly fungus-heavy gut biome, a food with anti-fungal properties could restore healthy balance.
- epgui 6y ago
  It's not as simple as chemical = good or bad. The principle behind modifying the gut microbiome to achieve good outcomes requires the intestinal flora to change: that means, for example, that some bacteria must die and some bacteria must proliferate. This is one of the main reasons why curcumin (from turmeric), for example, is the subject of much research in the field. Anti-microbial properties don't apply equally to all species of microbes, and such selective action is essential for modulating the microbiome. Disturbances of the gut flora do tend to lead to poorer outcomes more often than not, but this is not a hard rule. It's rather that complex machines are fragile, and most modifications done in flight lead to adverse outcomes: without prior knowledge and generally speaking, it's a bit like adding or removing a random line of code in a large application.

by epgui 6y ago

derefr 6y ago

Your reply isn't on the same meta-level as the comment it was replying to. :) My comment wasn't really attempting to assert the hypothesis it mentions. In fact, please ignore the textual content of my hypothesis–it's entirely irrelevant. I was just trying to take this opportunity to talk about a technique for good epistemological hygiene. What I was trying to do, was: 1. to propose a question that needs an experiment to answer (a hypothesis); and to use that question to make clear that the implicit thought people jump to thinking when reading a headline like this is also "a question that needs an experiment to answer" (a hypothesis.) 2. to propose that when you encounter a headline like this, you should do the same — generate alternative hypotheses, in order to remind yourself that the first interpretation you jumped to of the study's correlation was also just a question. The point of differentiating the two, is that hypotheses, by themselves, do not convey information about the world. You should not update your mental model of the world based solely on the fact that you generated a plausible-sounding hypothesis. A hypothesis is a question, not an answer. Certain facts about the world are contingent on a given hypothesis proving out. By privileging a hypothesis — thinking about it and no other — you may implicitly raise your expectations of those contingent facts being true. And that can lead you astray. Those facts haven't earned a place in your mental model of the world. They're not paying rent. They're freeloaders. And it's potentially dangerously false to allow yourself to believe them. The point of generating other hypotheses isn't to find one that could be more true. It's to scrub those contingent-facts of your intuitively-privileged hypothesis from your mind, by throwing other contingent worlds at it — hopefully many such contingent worlds — until your brain just gives up and avoids absorbing any of those contingent facts, treating them all as they should be treated: as mental noise, unworthy of more than a moment's consideration. Or, to put that another way: When there's evidence in favor of two things being somehow connected, but nothing has been proven about the way in which they're connected, the only rational thing to believe about that connection... is nothing. :)

nunchuck 6y ago
Nearly all experiments suffer from correlation/causation problem, even as the experimenters repeatedly claim that it was factored out. People in general point to scientific evidence only when it backs their stake, or worse, world view. As soon as scientific evidence is shown that counters their stake or world view, then we go straight to "correlation is not causation."
- reificator 6y ago
  > As soon as scientific evidence is shown that counters their stake or world view, then we go straight to "correlation is not causation." I like to think people are more fair than that. In this case in particular I tend to eat as much spicy food as I can. I have about 20 bottles of hot sauce within arms reach as I type this, I add some set of peppers onions and garlic to basically any meal I cook, and I usually order thai hot when it's offered even though it definitely kicks my ass. And yet when I read this headline I immediately jumped to correlation.
  - epgui 6y ago
    I think if 2020 should have taught us anything, it's that people have a very loose relationship with proper science. I think you may be over-estimating people's abilities and attitudes... Consider yourself lucky to have such a great entourage! ;)
epgui 6y ago
No, you're right, but I suppose in the grand scheme of things, I was alluding to the fact that in this case (and in many other cases) we do have incomplete and imperfect prior knowledge, but prior knowledge nonetheless, which would allow us to make causal inference. With some uncertainty of course. I would argue that making these causal inferences without formal proof is actually somewhat essential and desirable, so long as assumptions and uncertainty are recognized, and that they lead to further probing (informed by such inference). Many people seem to think science is about "finding the truth" (ie.: obtaining "first-order" information about the world), and that's certainly one way to see it... But I think it's more interesting to think of science as being all about finding, quantifying and describing uncertainty. This might seem pedantic, but you don't need to abandon all uncertainty in order to make causal inference. I think we're saying mostly the same things, in different ways and with different implicit assumptions about what it means to do science. It's obvious from your answer that you also understand all of this very well. PS.: I have an MSc in biochem: not claiming to be a great scientist, but I do have formal training so I'm at least familiar with the matter :)

BTCOG 6y ago

Capsaicin is a chemical irritant to any and all skin it touches in mammals. Furthermore, Capsaicin is anti-fungal so I can't see how it's possibly all that great for the gut microbiome. I can't see any cause for why it would be healthy for a human neurologically either. So, I'd say what you're saying is not all that plausible.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Furthermore, Capsaicin is anti-fungal so I can't see how it's possibly all that great for the gut microbiome Fungi tend to compete with bacteria; if modern lifestyles generally tend to result in a overly fungus-heavy gut biome, a food with anti-fungal properties could restore healthy balance.
epgui 6y ago
It's not as simple as chemical = good or bad. The principle behind modifying the gut microbiome to achieve good outcomes requires the intestinal flora to change: that means, for example, that some bacteria must die and some bacteria must proliferate. This is one of the main reasons why curcumin (from turmeric), for example, is the subject of much research in the field. Anti-microbial properties don't apply equally to all species of microbes, and such selective action is essential for modulating the microbiome. Disturbances of the gut flora do tend to lead to poorer outcomes more often than not, but this is not a hard rule. It's rather that complex machines are fragile, and most modifications done in flight lead to adverse outcomes: without prior knowledge and generally speaking, it's a bit like adding or removing a random line of code in a large application.