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Not having a scientific study backing something by default makes it bullshit? Was mindfulness meditation bullshit until scientists stamped it with their approva

Not having a scientific study backing something by default makes it bullshit? Was mindfulness meditation bullshit until scientists stamped it with their approval? It seems that a proper scientific mindset would declare something neither true nor false until a study is done.

hnfong 5y ago
> It seems that a proper scientific mindset would declare something neither true nor false until a study is done. That's how it's supposed to be done, but generally I don't see that happening... cough COVID19 cough. The GP did say that the "bullshit" note was their personal opinion though.
Quekid5 5y ago
The default is 'disbelief', yes. At least with grand claims and when no clear plausible mechanism of action, etc. etc. is proposed. As to whether 'bullshit' is justified, I dunno. I just see that as being a bit blunt phrasing-wise.
- sdoering 5y ago
  That bluntness was the reason I clearly marked it as my personal opinion and not that of the scientific community. I like bluntness, as it often helps to cut to the core of things. But I try as best I can not to be blunt against people, but ideas/hypotheses.
  - Quekid5 5y ago
    ... but wasn't the OP saying the *claims* (specifically) were bullshit? That's what I'm reading in the OP comment now, but perhaps it was edited.
icoder 5y ago
I don't see them calling the practice bullshit, just the claims.
- colordrops 5y ago
  What's the difference?
onion2k 5y ago
It seems that a proper scientific mindset would declare something neither true nor false until a study is done. That's true but it doesn't mean what you're implying it means. You're suggesting that saying "We don't know" means there's an equal probability that the thing will turn out to be true as there is it'll turn out to be false. That's not what skepticism in science means. It's entirely valid to say "The chance of this being real is 0.01." and then use science to prove it it's false. You might turn out to be wrong, and that tiny chance shows that the science was worthwhile, but most of the time you'll just end up showing that your intuition was correct.
- darkerside 5y ago
  You can say "this is probably wrong" before you start experimenting, but it's not scientific at all. There's a reason practitioners are blinded in a double blind trial. Also, there is an art to deciding what to "aim" your science at, and as much as some might hate to admit it, it is simply based on logic and intuition. In this case, it is entirely logical to me that breathing can modify circulatory patterns pumping more blood to your joints, thereby promoting healing for arthritis. I'd personally be surprised if there was zero benefit, but I respect your right to a different intuition from mine. I'm less confident about any similar benefits to something like MS although perhaps circulation to the brain could be similarly helpful. I'd recommend withholding judgment until we have more science, but again, that's my intuition. If you don't want to improve your breathing, you certainly don't have to.
  - simiones 5y ago
    > In this case, it is entirely logical to me that breathing can modify circulatory patterns pumping more blood to your joints, thereby promoting healing for arthritis. By this logic, people with tachycardia would be much faster at healing, right? Since all that you can do with breathing techniques directly (without discussing how this might affect your mind etc.) is to increase your pulse and maybe arterial pressure. Why exactly increased pulse would reduce the inflammatory auto-immune response that is the cause of arthritis is beyond me. If anything, I would expect increased blood flow to increase the auto-immune response and make the arthritis worse.
throw1234651234 5y ago
Mindfulness meditation still does nothing. Read "Altered Traits" - the author practiced for 10 years and then ended up taking medication to control blood pressure.
- dpark 5y ago
  Did you really trot out a lone anecdote about someone needing blood pressure medication to claim that mindfulness medication does nothing?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
krageon 5y ago
> Was mindfulness meditation bullshit "mindfulness" is a corporate re-packaged and whitewashed variant of buddhist meditation tradition. It misses the point spectacularly and actively seeks to cultivate a harmful mindset. This is not something to refer to positively, or to use as a benchmark.
- dpark 5y ago
  > It misses the point spectacularly and actively seeks to cultivate a harmful mindset. This is some impressive hand waving. You said literally nothing meaningful here. > This is not something to refer to positively, or to use as a benchmark. Lots of people find it benefits them. I would absolutely refer to a treatment that people find useful as positive.
  - krageon 5y ago
    If you quote in such a way as to take away all the points, you are left with nothing. That doesn't reflect on me :)
    - dpark 5y ago
      I literally quoted two thirds of your comment. Here’s the last piece: > ”mindfulness" is a corporate re-packaged and whitewashed variant of buddhist meditation tradition. This still says nothing meaningful. “Whitewashed” is nonsense when discussing a meditation practice that’s not based on race. (Maybe you mean “westernized”, but that doesn’t create the same visceral response that bypasses critical thinking.) “Corporate” is not an actual criticism, either. It’s again an emotional appeal. The fact that some companies make money from a thing does not make a thing bad. You can check out a book from the library for free if you want to avoid giving a corporation your money. Given that you took the time to respond and still couldn’t be bothered to say anything substantive, I am left to assume you actually don’t have a real criticism, but an axe to grind.
awb 5y ago
> It seems that a proper scientific mindset would declare something neither true nor false until a study is done. Bertrand Russell might disagree. You don’t need to weight all conjectures equally or even entertain them without sufficient explanation or evidence. Here’s his Russell’s Teapot thought experiment: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
- sdoering 5y ago
  Thanks. Spares me to post the teapot. Also in a lot of cases - this being one of it, we already know that many of the effects are not possible under the proscribed methods. Science already knows a lot from other inquiries and studies having shown that claimed effects are not realistically probable. It is like if I create a study showing that black cars with a combustion engine need gasoline to run. Someone later stating that red cars with a combination engine can run on pure water from the tap doesn't warrant a new study.
  - colordrops 5y ago
    > we already know that many of the effects are not possible under the proscribed methods Do we? This is news to me. Do you have any studies or explanations as to how this is the case?
- colordrops 5y ago
  Except these claims are not empirically unfalsifiable.
  - awb 5y ago
    Sure, but I think there's some leeway there. If I claim that if you burn $1M it'll rain for a year, it's falsifiable, but we don't really need to test it. The burden would be on me to demonstrate scientifically how this hypothesis has any merit before it's reasonable to test it.
- lumb63 5y ago
  Regarding the teapot, what’s unfalsifiable about the claims of the Wim Hof method? It seems to me that they should be easily able to be disproven if they are in fact false.

hnfong 5y ago

> It seems that a proper scientific mindset would declare something neither true nor false until a study is done. That's how it's supposed to be done, but generally I don't see that happening... cough COVID19 cough. The GP did say that the "bullshit" note was their personal opinion though.

Quekid5 5y ago

The default is 'disbelief', yes. At least with grand claims and when no clear plausible mechanism of action, etc. etc. is proposed. As to whether 'bullshit' is justified, I dunno. I just see that as being a bit blunt phrasing-wise.

sdoering 5y ago
That bluntness was the reason I clearly marked it as my personal opinion and not that of the scientific community. I like bluntness, as it often helps to cut to the core of things. But I try as best I can not to be blunt against people, but ideas/hypotheses.
- Quekid5 5y ago
  ... but wasn't the OP saying the *claims* (specifically) were bullshit? That's what I'm reading in the OP comment now, but perhaps it was edited.

icoder 5y ago

I don't see them calling the practice bullshit, just the claims.

colordrops 5y ago
What's the difference?

onion2k 5y ago

It seems that a proper scientific mindset would declare something neither true nor false until a study is done. That's true but it doesn't mean what you're implying it means. You're suggesting that saying "We don't know" means there's an equal probability that the thing will turn out to be true as there is it'll turn out to be false. That's not what skepticism in science means. It's entirely valid to say "The chance of this being real is 0.01." and then use science to prove it it's false. You might turn out to be wrong, and that tiny chance shows that the science was worthwhile, but most of the time you'll just end up showing that your intuition was correct.

darkerside 5y ago
You can say "this is probably wrong" before you start experimenting, but it's not scientific at all. There's a reason practitioners are blinded in a double blind trial. Also, there is an art to deciding what to "aim" your science at, and as much as some might hate to admit it, it is simply based on logic and intuition. In this case, it is entirely logical to me that breathing can modify circulatory patterns pumping more blood to your joints, thereby promoting healing for arthritis. I'd personally be surprised if there was zero benefit, but I respect your right to a different intuition from mine. I'm less confident about any similar benefits to something like MS although perhaps circulation to the brain could be similarly helpful. I'd recommend withholding judgment until we have more science, but again, that's my intuition. If you don't want to improve your breathing, you certainly don't have to.
- simiones 5y ago
  > In this case, it is entirely logical to me that breathing can modify circulatory patterns pumping more blood to your joints, thereby promoting healing for arthritis. By this logic, people with tachycardia would be much faster at healing, right? Since all that you can do with breathing techniques directly (without discussing how this might affect your mind etc.) is to increase your pulse and maybe arterial pressure. Why exactly increased pulse would reduce the inflammatory auto-immune response that is the cause of arthritis is beyond me. If anything, I would expect increased blood flow to increase the auto-immune response and make the arthritis worse.

throw1234651234 5y ago

Mindfulness meditation still does nothing. Read "Altered Traits" - the author practiced for 10 years and then ended up taking medication to control blood pressure.

dpark 5y ago
Did you really trot out a lone anecdote about someone needing blood pressure medication to claim that mindfulness medication does nothing?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

krageon 5y ago

> Was mindfulness meditation bullshit "mindfulness" is a corporate re-packaged and whitewashed variant of buddhist meditation tradition. It misses the point spectacularly and actively seeks to cultivate a harmful mindset. This is not something to refer to positively, or to use as a benchmark.

dpark 5y ago
> It misses the point spectacularly and actively seeks to cultivate a harmful mindset. This is some impressive hand waving. You said literally nothing meaningful here. > This is not something to refer to positively, or to use as a benchmark. Lots of people find it benefits them. I would absolutely refer to a treatment that people find useful as positive.
- krageon 5y ago
  If you quote in such a way as to take away all the points, you are left with nothing. That doesn't reflect on me :)
  - dpark 5y ago
    I literally quoted two thirds of your comment. Here’s the last piece: > ”mindfulness" is a corporate re-packaged and whitewashed variant of buddhist meditation tradition. This still says nothing meaningful. “Whitewashed” is nonsense when discussing a meditation practice that’s not based on race. (Maybe you mean “westernized”, but that doesn’t create the same visceral response that bypasses critical thinking.) “Corporate” is not an actual criticism, either. It’s again an emotional appeal. The fact that some companies make money from a thing does not make a thing bad. You can check out a book from the library for free if you want to avoid giving a corporation your money. Given that you took the time to respond and still couldn’t be bothered to say anything substantive, I am left to assume you actually don’t have a real criticism, but an axe to grind.

awb 5y ago

> It seems that a proper scientific mindset would declare something neither true nor false until a study is done. Bertrand Russell might disagree. You don’t need to weight all conjectures equally or even entertain them without sufficient explanation or evidence. Here’s his Russell’s Teapot thought experiment: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

sdoering 5y ago
Thanks. Spares me to post the teapot. Also in a lot of cases - this being one of it, we already know that many of the effects are not possible under the proscribed methods. Science already knows a lot from other inquiries and studies having shown that claimed effects are not realistically probable. It is like if I create a study showing that black cars with a combustion engine need gasoline to run. Someone later stating that red cars with a combination engine can run on pure water from the tap doesn't warrant a new study.
- colordrops 5y ago
  > we already know that many of the effects are not possible under the proscribed methods Do we? This is news to me. Do you have any studies or explanations as to how this is the case?
colordrops 5y ago
Except these claims are not empirically unfalsifiable.
- awb 5y ago
  Sure, but I think there's some leeway there. If I claim that if you burn $1M it'll rain for a year, it's falsifiable, but we don't really need to test it. The burden would be on me to demonstrate scientifically how this hypothesis has any merit before it's reasonable to test it.
lumb63 5y ago
Regarding the teapot, what’s unfalsifiable about the claims of the Wim Hof method? It seems to me that they should be easily able to be disproven if they are in fact false.