3 ms·

While I appreciate a fair dose of skepticism, why should I trust your claims that these are all pseudoscience as opposed to the people that claim to be experts

by _gabe_ 3y ago

While I appreciate a fair dose of skepticism, why should I trust your claims that these are all pseudoscience as opposed to the people that claim to be experts in those fields? How are you sure that your understanding isn’t simply a dunning Kruger effect and you truly do have knowledge that debunks all these fields? Once again, I’m skeptical of many supposed sciences as well, but I’m just as skeptical of internet commenters that claim entire fields of expertise and science are all pseudoscience and made up.

alluro2 3y ago
It should not be about who is presenting the argument, but the weight of the argument itself. For example, for balistics: the debate falls onto whether each individual weapon's barrel would leave a uniquely matching trace that can be analyzed from the fired casing. The argument against this method is that machining precision today is so high that there will be no huge differences between each 2 barrels, that make any match valid as unique and as evidence. For all the other claims (e.g. polygraph), you can easily search for more information online. The point is that authority or lack there of should not be a part of your evaluation of the claims, on either side.
- _gabe_ 3y ago
  I can just as easily make the counter claims to all the proposed areas of pseudoscience and then make the same argument you just did: “it’s not about the authority of the person making the argument, it’s about the weight of the argument itself”. And then I can tell you how you can just look up the counterclaims and find supporting evidence (which you probably can). Just because you can find supporting evidence for your view doesn’t mean it’s right, and I like to know all sides of the story before I make a decision. The point I’m making is I’m definitely not qualified to analyze all these claims that you’re making in support of these being pseudoscience. Sure your claims sound reasonable, but people also thought the earth being the center of the universe sounded reasonable. The thing I like about hacker news is people usually don’t just make unsubstantiated claims, and when they do they usually get gut checked by opposing views, which is a good thing. And OP didn’t really make any claims, they just listed a bunch of fields and said they were all pseudoscience. I appreciate the fact that you’re at least giving an explanation as to why it’s not considered science.
culi 3y ago
Well you can just... look them up. Some of these were new to me (e.g. firearm ballistics). But when it comes to stuff like the unreliability of drug tests or bite mark forensics, it's not at all a secret. Any recently published meta analysis would suffice. In fact I'd be shocked if you could find any in support of these methods. Why put the onus of the work to quote a bunch of articles on the OP when these are all very easily verifiable with a tiny bit of effort
- doubleg72 3y ago
  Drug metabolites are measured repeatedly and precisely, as is a forensic bite analysis . Not sure how you can claim those are unreliable when they are used daily. GC/MS is a good start for drug testing..
  - kelnos 3y ago
    "Used daily" is not proof of efficacy. Law enforcement does all sorts of sketchy things in order to get a conviction. Why is it a surprise that they use pseudoscience that juries eat up because they've seen it used in their favorite police procedural TV show hundreds of times?
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > Drug metabolites are measured repeatedly and precisely Drug metabolites are measured repeatedly and precisely, assuming no one mislabeled anything and the machine is well-calibrated and the technicians are honest even though they know who chooses which lab to use and the sample was collected fastidiously and not contaminated with anything. But drug metabolites aren't drugs. Eat a bagel with poppy seeds and you can test positive for opioids. Take certain decongestants and you can test positive for meth.

by _gabe_ 3y ago

alluro2 3y ago

It should not be about who is presenting the argument, but the weight of the argument itself. For example, for balistics: the debate falls onto whether each individual weapon's barrel would leave a uniquely matching trace that can be analyzed from the fired casing. The argument against this method is that machining precision today is so high that there will be no huge differences between each 2 barrels, that make any match valid as unique and as evidence. For all the other claims (e.g. polygraph), you can easily search for more information online. The point is that authority or lack there of should not be a part of your evaluation of the claims, on either side.

_gabe_ 3y ago
I can just as easily make the counter claims to all the proposed areas of pseudoscience and then make the same argument you just did: “it’s not about the authority of the person making the argument, it’s about the weight of the argument itself”. And then I can tell you how you can just look up the counterclaims and find supporting evidence (which you probably can). Just because you can find supporting evidence for your view doesn’t mean it’s right, and I like to know all sides of the story before I make a decision. The point I’m making is I’m definitely not qualified to analyze all these claims that you’re making in support of these being pseudoscience. Sure your claims sound reasonable, but people also thought the earth being the center of the universe sounded reasonable. The thing I like about hacker news is people usually don’t just make unsubstantiated claims, and when they do they usually get gut checked by opposing views, which is a good thing. And OP didn’t really make any claims, they just listed a bunch of fields and said they were all pseudoscience. I appreciate the fact that you’re at least giving an explanation as to why it’s not considered science.

culi 3y ago

Well you can just... look them up. Some of these were new to me (e.g. firearm ballistics). But when it comes to stuff like the unreliability of drug tests or bite mark forensics, it's not at all a secret. Any recently published meta analysis would suffice. In fact I'd be shocked if you could find any in support of these methods. Why put the onus of the work to quote a bunch of articles on the OP when these are all very easily verifiable with a tiny bit of effort

doubleg72 3y ago
Drug metabolites are measured repeatedly and precisely, as is a forensic bite analysis . Not sure how you can claim those are unreliable when they are used daily. GC/MS is a good start for drug testing..
- kelnos 3y ago
  "Used daily" is not proof of efficacy. Law enforcement does all sorts of sketchy things in order to get a conviction. Why is it a surprise that they use pseudoscience that juries eat up because they've seen it used in their favorite police procedural TV show hundreds of times?
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > Drug metabolites are measured repeatedly and precisely Drug metabolites are measured repeatedly and precisely, assuming no one mislabeled anything and the machine is well-calibrated and the technicians are honest even though they know who chooses which lab to use and the sample was collected fastidiously and not contaminated with anything. But drug metabolites aren't drugs. Eat a bagel with poppy seeds and you can test positive for opioids. Take certain decongestants and you can test positive for meth.