5 ms·

Who are you gonna believe, peer reviewed research or your own lyin' eyes? If you pick "eyes", you lack understanding of the strength of evidence and the fallib

Who are you gonna believe, peer reviewed research or your own lyin' eyes? If you pick "eyes", you lack understanding of the strength of evidence and the fallibility of in-person observation.

adnam 13y ago
If you pick "peer reviewed research" you probably never held your own newborn child in your arms, promising you'd do anything to protect them, and secretly wishing they never grow old. And perhaps you overestimate the strength of evidence.
- JulianMorrison 13y ago
  Cute anecdata is still anecdata. Congrats, you experienced the internal sensation of parent-child bonding. This is not evidence.
  - adnam 13y ago
    My point is it's not just a question of evidence.
    - JulianMorrison 13y ago
      If you are updating your opinions about the world on non-evidence, your opinions are skewed.
      - adnam 13y ago
        Equally skewed as using scientific journals as your only source of evidence for complex human issues.
aaronem 13y ago
I recently did a brief stint in academia; peripherally so, I grant, but close enough to see that sausage made, and indeed I had the rare privilege of seeing one particular lump of particularly indigestible offal picked apart and analyzed in microscopically unforgiving detail as a sort of teaching example, a short-hand demonstration of all the things which can and do separate the ideal of peer review from the reality. If the latter lived up to the former, you'd have a compelling argument; having seen firsthand how broad can be the chasm between them, I'd say you are verging very near a naked appeal to authority. Reproducibility, in the unfortunately exceptional cases where it actually exists, is all that saves you from going over the edge; that said, even when I can reproduce an experiment to see whether my results match what the journal saw fit to publish, using a child of mine as a test subject is not a thought which appeals.

Who are you gonna believe, peer reviewed research or your own lyin' eyes? If you pick "eyes", you lack understanding of the strength of evidence and the fallibility of in-person observation.

adnam 13y ago

If you pick "peer reviewed research" you probably never held your own newborn child in your arms, promising you'd do anything to protect them, and secretly wishing they never grow old. And perhaps you overestimate the strength of evidence.

JulianMorrison 13y ago
Cute anecdata is still anecdata. Congrats, you experienced the internal sensation of parent-child bonding. This is not evidence.
- adnam 13y ago
  My point is it's not just a question of evidence.
  - JulianMorrison 13y ago
    If you are updating your opinions about the world on non-evidence, your opinions are skewed.
    - adnam 13y ago
      Equally skewed as using scientific journals as your only source of evidence for complex human issues.

aaronem 13y ago

I recently did a brief stint in academia; peripherally so, I grant, but close enough to see that sausage made, and indeed I had the rare privilege of seeing one particular lump of particularly indigestible offal picked apart and analyzed in microscopically unforgiving detail as a sort of teaching example, a short-hand demonstration of all the things which can and do separate the ideal of peer review from the reality. If the latter lived up to the former, you'd have a compelling argument; having seen firsthand how broad can be the chasm between them, I'd say you are verging very near a naked appeal to authority. Reproducibility, in the unfortunately exceptional cases where it actually exists, is all that saves you from going over the edge; that said, even when I can reproduce an experiment to see whether my results match what the journal saw fit to publish, using a child of mine as a test subject is not a thought which appeals.