4 ms·

It's incredible to see how this site turned from valuable feedback in the comments to well...this. Half of the comments making assumptions that you can not mak

It's incredible to see how this site turned from valuable feedback in the comments to well...this. Half of the comments making assumptions that you can not make on the data provided, the other half seems to be IF Crusaders trying to justify their own "healthy" eating behavior as if their life depends on it. Here is a very simple thing to do when you don't understand a paper or how to interpret it. Send the Authors a mail and ask politely if they could help you understand their work better. There are multiple E-Mail Addresses provided from the Authors. Seriously "I feel great when I stop eating by 2 PM" is a fun comment, but feeling great and being healthy are not exactly correlated. I climbed Everest once and my body started dying at about 26000 feet, it felt amazing, still I was literally dying. Maybe I should just take a break from reading HN comments, it's not like it used to be.

BaseballPhysics 4y ago
> It's incredible to see how this site turned from valuable feedback in the comments to well...this. ... > Here is a very simple thing to do when you don't understand a paper or how to interpret it. Send the Authors a mail and ask politely if they could help you understand their work better. There are multiple E-Mail Addresses provided from the Authors. So, just so I'm clear: You're complaining that people didn't email the study authors and interrogate their work before commenting on the article here?
- Jamesbeam 4y ago
  Thank you for asking. Everyone should feel free to express themselves and I always encourage people to contribute. I'd just appreciate if people spent more time thinking about if they actually have something to say that has any sort of value for me as a reader on the topic in return for the time I'm giving them to read their submission / comments, as a basic form of respect. In my opinion the steady decline of quality in comments and submissions, especially on scientific submissions posted here, is because a growing amount of people are not doing the minimal amount of research it takes to form an educated opinion about a topic. But getting the science wrong has very real consequences. For example, when a community doesn’t vaccinate children because they’re afraid of “toxins” and think that prayer (or diet, exercise, and “clean living”) is enough to prevent infection, outbreaks happen. To form a truly educated opinion on a scientific subject, you need to become familiar with current research in that field. And to do that, you have to read the primary research literature. Reading and understanding research papers is a skill which every single doctor and scientist has had to learn during graduate school. Everyone can learn it, but like any skill it takes patience and practice. Based on what I read in the comments for this submission, a lot of people do not want or can not spend that time on building an educated opinion on the topic and figuring out if the underlying paper has scientific authority. That's why I encouraged them to ask the Authors directly, if something is unclear or they are making assumptions that are simply not supported by the paper. I'd still appreciate if more people learned how to read and interpret scientific work but in a world where most people want instant rewards and have a rather short attention span, a short, polite E-Mail to the Authors is a shortcut to gain valuable insight on the scientific work and your own assumptions about it, so that you don't sound like a complete idiot to people who have actual knowledge about the topic when you say things like "Most people in this study were probably obese and would have died anyway" or "Probably junkies skipping meals". I could take time to explain this paper in an even lengthier comment, but I'm just Jamesbeam on HN. You have no idea if I'm a nobel prize winner or maybe having an agenda to persuade you into a certain direction, but the authors of this paper are actually scientists published in a reputable journal and they were so kind to even give you the ability to contact them by publishing their E-Mails. And yes, I think it's a good idea to challenge your assumptions by asking people with actual knowledge about the topic so you don't look like a complete fool on the Internet.
  - BaseballPhysics 4y ago
    Honestly, and I mean this with all due respect: You're being unreasonable. A study gets posted to Hacker News. You seem to expect every single person who wishes to discuss the study to first become an expert in the subject matter ("To form a truly educated opinion on a scientific subject, you need to become familiar with current research in that field.") and deeply engage with the material at the level of, if not an expert, at least a dedicated amateur ("That's why I encouraged them to ask the Authors directly, if something is unclear or they are making assumptions that are simply not supported by the paper."). You're basing this all on a claim that HN comments have reduced in quality ("In my opinion the steady decline of quality in comments and submissions...") which is rooted in nothing more than your own personal opinion (which is a bit ironic for someone insisting that everyone do a deep and fundamental analysis of a topic before they weigh in on it) and, frankly, a fairly self-centered view of what dialog should look like here ("I'd just appreciate if people spent more time thinking about if they actually have something to say that has any sort of value for *me*"). Bluntly, this just looks like gatekeeping and elitism to me. Yes, I agree, folks should read the articles or studies before commenting. No question there. That's just basic due diligence. But this is a discussion forum first and foremost, and some of the very best interactions I've seen, here, have been between interested amateurs either asking questions or posing theories, and experts coming along and chiming in. Weirdly, you seem to recognize the value in that ("And yes, I think it's a good idea to challenge your assumptions by asking people with actual knowledge about the topic so you don't look like a complete fool on the Internet.") You apparently just don't want people using this forum to engage in those conversations, which is really very strange to me. If you don't want that kind of interaction, maybe you should continue to dial down your interactions with HN, because it seems to me this community is not what you want or need (which appears to be a group of only subject matter experts weighing in on any given topic).
    - Jamesbeam 4y ago
      Thank you for your honest opinion. I respect that. And no worries, I don't feel offended. I assume good faith from your end. Like I said in my original comment and you coming to the same conclusion, maybe after eight years of reading daily and interacting whenever I had something to say on HN it's time to dial down my overall interactions with HN and look for a different kind of community. People change, and so do communities. Maybe it's time to move on.

BaseballPhysics 4y ago

> It's incredible to see how this site turned from valuable feedback in the comments to well...this. ... > Here is a very simple thing to do when you don't understand a paper or how to interpret it. Send the Authors a mail and ask politely if they could help you understand their work better. There are multiple E-Mail Addresses provided from the Authors. So, just so I'm clear: You're complaining that people didn't email the study authors and interrogate their work before commenting on the article here?

Jamesbeam 4y ago
Thank you for asking. Everyone should feel free to express themselves and I always encourage people to contribute. I'd just appreciate if people spent more time thinking about if they actually have something to say that has any sort of value for me as a reader on the topic in return for the time I'm giving them to read their submission / comments, as a basic form of respect. In my opinion the steady decline of quality in comments and submissions, especially on scientific submissions posted here, is because a growing amount of people are not doing the minimal amount of research it takes to form an educated opinion about a topic. But getting the science wrong has very real consequences. For example, when a community doesn’t vaccinate children because they’re afraid of “toxins” and think that prayer (or diet, exercise, and “clean living”) is enough to prevent infection, outbreaks happen. To form a truly educated opinion on a scientific subject, you need to become familiar with current research in that field. And to do that, you have to read the primary research literature. Reading and understanding research papers is a skill which every single doctor and scientist has had to learn during graduate school. Everyone can learn it, but like any skill it takes patience and practice. Based on what I read in the comments for this submission, a lot of people do not want or can not spend that time on building an educated opinion on the topic and figuring out if the underlying paper has scientific authority. That's why I encouraged them to ask the Authors directly, if something is unclear or they are making assumptions that are simply not supported by the paper. I'd still appreciate if more people learned how to read and interpret scientific work but in a world where most people want instant rewards and have a rather short attention span, a short, polite E-Mail to the Authors is a shortcut to gain valuable insight on the scientific work and your own assumptions about it, so that you don't sound like a complete idiot to people who have actual knowledge about the topic when you say things like "Most people in this study were probably obese and would have died anyway" or "Probably junkies skipping meals". I could take time to explain this paper in an even lengthier comment, but I'm just Jamesbeam on HN. You have no idea if I'm a nobel prize winner or maybe having an agenda to persuade you into a certain direction, but the authors of this paper are actually scientists published in a reputable journal and they were so kind to even give you the ability to contact them by publishing their E-Mails. And yes, I think it's a good idea to challenge your assumptions by asking people with actual knowledge about the topic so you don't look like a complete fool on the Internet.
- BaseballPhysics 4y ago
  Honestly, and I mean this with all due respect: You're being unreasonable. A study gets posted to Hacker News. You seem to expect every single person who wishes to discuss the study to first become an expert in the subject matter ("To form a truly educated opinion on a scientific subject, you need to become familiar with current research in that field.") and deeply engage with the material at the level of, if not an expert, at least a dedicated amateur ("That's why I encouraged them to ask the Authors directly, if something is unclear or they are making assumptions that are simply not supported by the paper."). You're basing this all on a claim that HN comments have reduced in quality ("In my opinion the steady decline of quality in comments and submissions...") which is rooted in nothing more than your own personal opinion (which is a bit ironic for someone insisting that everyone do a deep and fundamental analysis of a topic before they weigh in on it) and, frankly, a fairly self-centered view of what dialog should look like here ("I'd just appreciate if people spent more time thinking about if they actually have something to say that has any sort of value for *me*"). Bluntly, this just looks like gatekeeping and elitism to me. Yes, I agree, folks should read the articles or studies before commenting. No question there. That's just basic due diligence. But this is a discussion forum first and foremost, and some of the very best interactions I've seen, here, have been between interested amateurs either asking questions or posing theories, and experts coming along and chiming in. Weirdly, you seem to recognize the value in that ("And yes, I think it's a good idea to challenge your assumptions by asking people with actual knowledge about the topic so you don't look like a complete fool on the Internet.") You apparently just don't want people using this forum to engage in those conversations, which is really very strange to me. If you don't want that kind of interaction, maybe you should continue to dial down your interactions with HN, because it seems to me this community is not what you want or need (which appears to be a group of only subject matter experts weighing in on any given topic).
  - Jamesbeam 4y ago
    Thank you for your honest opinion. I respect that. And no worries, I don't feel offended. I assume good faith from your end. Like I said in my original comment and you coming to the same conclusion, maybe after eight years of reading daily and interacting whenever I had something to say on HN it's time to dial down my overall interactions with HN and look for a different kind of community. People change, and so do communities. Maybe it's time to move on.