Why It's OK Not to Trust "Scientific Studies" info thread

[JohnnyL]

In this thread, I want to streamline this--not to a debate over it, but as a resource of reasons why it's ok to not trust "scientific studies" (you know, those things the mainstream is always asking the alternative people for, and often ignoring when it's inconvenient/ hurts ("not needed") for their own positions). I love science--true science and its reaches and current limits. It's ok to be skeptical, as long as you truly are skeptical, not biased and blind.

Here's one for starters:

Establishment academia's credibility destroyed by hundreds of cases of research fraud, plagiarism

Wednesday, February 18, 2015 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer

(NaturalNews) What was once considered a rare exception to the norm appears to be evolving into a disturbingly common pattern of abuse. Peer-reviewed science, and the integrity of what makes it into even the most well-respected scientific journals today, may not be all that it seems, as closer scrutiny reveals rampant publishing of plagiarized and oftentimes entirely fraudulent content.

Research studies that seem on their surface to have been vested by qualified scholars are increasingly turning out to be completely fabricated, according to new reports. An extensive investigation by Scientific American's Charles Seife, for instance, reveals a shocking pattern of counterfeit "paper mill" studies making their way into some of the most highly regarded and extensively cited journals, further damaging the credibility of what the world considers to be factual knowledge.

Klaus Kayser, who's been publishing electronic journals for nearly two decades, says he was unaware of the serious anomalies at the journal he currently edits, Diagnostic Pathology, prior to being contacted by Scientific American. A shocking six of the 16 studies published in the May 2014 edition of Diagnostic Pathology, which were analyzed by Scientific American, contained unusual phrase repetitions and other irregularities that pointed to fraud.

With an impact factor of 2.411, which puts it in the top 25 percent of all scientific journals tracked by the Thompson Reuters Journal Citation Reports, Diagnostic Pathology generally has a good reputation for publishing quality content. But the discovery of not just one but several potentially fraudulent papers in just one issue of the journal kind of changes things.

"Nobody told this to me," stated Kayser to Scientific American, apparently unaware of what was taking place under his editorship. "I'm very grateful to you," he added about having this information brought to his attention.

But isn't this Kayser's job as editor of Diagnostic Pathology, to investigate the legitimacy of papers submitted to him prior to their publication? Why did it take Scientific American conducting its own investigation to reveal that a process largely driven by the lure of grant money, influence and power might be getting hijacked by opportunistic leeches without a conscience?

Many major publishers having to deal with onslaught of scientific fraud
Blame doesn't fall solely on Kayser or his journal, of course, as scientific fraud is rearing its ugly head all throughout the publishing and research world. The Scientific American investigation detected more than 100 scientific articles recently published that show signs of fraud or plagiarism, suggesting that the entire peer-review system may be compromised.

"The apparent fraud is taking place as the world of scientific publishing--and research--is undergoing rapid change," wrote Seife.

"Scientists, for whom published articles are the route to promotion or tenure or support via grants, are competing harder than ever before to get their articles into peer-reviewed journals. Scientific journals are proliferating on the Web but, even so, supply is still unable to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for respectable scientific outlets."

All major publishers, including Wiley, Public Library of Science, Taylor & Francis and Nature Publishing Group, are having to come to grips with the strong likelihood that fraudulent studies sneaked their way through the gates and into their respected journals. Whether it be plagiarized verbiage, stolen imagery or even computer-generated nonsense, the flood of fake papers being published is a serious issue that can no longer be ignored.

"Now that a number of companies have figured out how to make money off of scientific misconduct, that presumption of honesty [that used to be standard in the publishing world] is in danger of becoming an anachronism," warned Seife.

Sources for this article include:
http://www.scientificamerican.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.nature.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.npr.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.naturalnews.com/048676_acade ... rnals.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[JohnnyL]

New York Times columnist says 'Stanford Study' bashing organics is totally flawed

Monday, October 22, 2012 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) The conclusions arrived at in the infamous "Stanford study," which the mainstream media has been hyping up as "proof" that pesticide-ridden, conventional produce and meat products are basically the same as their organic alternatives, are flawed, says New York Times columnist Mark Bittman. In one of the few honest assessments of the study to emerge from a mainstream news source, a recent editorial written by Bittman explains that the Stanford study essentially compares apples to oranges, and misses the bigger picture as to why organic food is superior to conventional food.

Rather than carefully analyze the full implications of the 200-or-so existing studies they reviewed as part of their meta-analysis, Stanford researchers instead focused solely on an extremely limited scope of criteria in evaluating the potential nutritional differences between organic and conventional food, suggests Bittman. These researchers then extrapolated their incomplete assessment into a general ruling concerning organics, which suggests organic foods are not nutritionally superior to conventional foods.

Stanford study can't see the forest for the trees
To be fair, the Stanford study does explain that organic foods may contain fewer pesticide residues than conventional foods. It also highlights how organic milk is preferable to conventional milk, and that organic produce contains higher phosphorus levels than conventional produce. But the study's final declaration, which seems to discredit the overall value and benefit of organics, ignores these other findings, choosing instead to view the entire issue through the lens of strictly nutritional differences, which even from that angle led to a limited and incomplete conclusion.

"If I may play with metaphor for a moment, the study was like declaring guns no more dangerous than baseball bats when it comes to blunt-object head injuries," writes Bittman, illustrating how clueless the Stanford study researchers made themselves appear with their impotent assessment of organics. "It was the equivalent of comparing milk and Elmer's glue on the basis of whiteness."

To quote the words of Susan Clark, Executive Director of the Columbia Foundation, a human rights group, the Stanford study researchers "started with a narrow set of assumptions and arrived at entirely predictable conclusions." Even within the category of nutritional differences, which was their primary scope of comparison, Stanford researchers failed to evaluate the full scope of nutrients found in produce and meat, which falsely implies that there are no nutritional differences between organic and conventional foods.

Organic study that came to opposite conclusion largely ignored by mainstream media
Interestingly, a similar assessment by Kirsten Brandt of Newcastle University in the U.K., which included many of the same studies analyzed in the Stanford study, found quite the opposite concerning organics. According to Brandt's analysis, which was published in the journal Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences in 2011, organic produce actually contains far higher levels of secondary metabolites than does conventional produce. These secondary metabolites are believed to be largely combative against a wide range of chronic illnesses. (http://phys.org/news/2011-05-fruit-vegetables.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

The takeaway from all this is that the Stanford study is largely deficient in its assessment of organics, which means the mainstream media has erred greatly, whether deliberately or out of ignorance, in its various declarations that organic food is a waste of money and effort. In reality, organic food continues to outpace conventional food in almost every way, a fact that even the Stanford study admits in spite of its erroneous conclusions.

Sources for this article include:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[JohnnyL]

NCI's Flawed SELECT Study Attacks Vitamin E

Another example of how flawed studies distort the value of beneficial supplements:

Thursday, October 30, 2008 by: Byron Richards

(NaturalNews) The National Cancer Institute's (NCI) SELECT study (Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention *Trial) for prostate cancer in men was halted this week after initial data analysis showed that selenium and vitamin E, taken alone or together for an average of five years, did not prevent prostate cancer. Since the goal of SELECT was to prove a 25% risk reduction, and since early data suggested such a result was unlikely, the trial was stopped. Furthermore, the researchers felt that there were non-statistically significant possible risks: "there were slightly more cases of prostate cancer in men taking only vitamin E and slightly more cases of diabetes in men taking only selenium. Neither of these findings proves an increased risk from the supplements and may be due to chance."

I have a question for the nutritionally-challenged people at NCI; why did you design a study that couldn't possibly succeed and then waste taxpayer money on it? Was it simply to discredit vitamins so that your highly toxic human experiments with dangerous biotech drugs (which cost taxpayers a fortune) would be the only choice?

Already, numerous Big Pharma-funded mainstream news organizations are running anti-vitamin E and selenium headlines, warning physicians to tell their prostate patients not to take vitamin E and selenium.

Useless Vitamin E Used in Study

The SELECT trial used non-natural and chemically-derived vitamin E (dl-alpha tocopherol acetate) at a dose of 400 IU per day. Any time you see an "l" after the "d" in a vitamin E product throw it in the trash where it belongs. This vitamin E molecule is synthesized from coal tar and typically made by German pharmaceutical companies like Bayer and BASF. It has little or no antioxidant activity and is useless for human health - which was obvious long before the SELECT trial was started.

This is very similar to an earlier attack on beta-carotene, implying that beta carotene caused an increase in lung cancer in smokers who took it. Once again the "study" used a chemically-derived synthetic beta carotene made from acetylene gas produced by BASF, masquerading as a dietary supplement.

Natural Vitamin E is a Powerful Cancer Prevention Tool

Vitamin E is a required nutrient for immune system function. If you lack it, especially as you age, it is not technically possible that your immune system will work at optimal capacity. Thousands of studies confirm this statement, as well as fully documented molecular pathways relating to vitamin E and immune system function. Many Americans over the age of 50 are lacking vitamin E because it is destroyed in food processing and many people don't eat enough of the fattier vitamin E containing foods - making vitamin E supplementation a necessity for immunologic health.

Unlike drugs that kill cancer cells with "overwhelming toxic force," that is if they can be killed at all before killing the person with the treatment, the majority of anti-cancer nutrients such as green tea and vitamin E have a level of intelligence in human physiology. They are smart enough to know the difference between a healthy cell that should stay alive and a diseased cell that should die. This means the very same nutrient will help keep a healthy cell alive by protecting it while helping to kill cancer cells. This is truly a marvel of Mother Nature at work. No drug is even on the same playing field as nutrients provided by nature.

This does not mean that nutrients alone are a treatment for cancer. It does mean they are a powerful player in the natural immune toolbox, nothing to be discredited by bogus or incompetent "science."

There are eight natural forms of vitamin E, 4 tocopherols (alpha, beta, gamma, and delta) and 4 tocotrienols (alpha, beta, gamma, and delta). While d alpha tocopherol is the most common form of vitamin E in dietary supplements, it is actually gamma tocotrienol that is one of the most powerful anti-cancer nutrients known to Mankind. Why didn't NCI test natural gamma tocotrienol in their study instead a synthetic and useless form of vitamin E?

There are at least three known mechanisms by which gamma tocotrienol, unlike plain vitamin E, knocks out cancer cells. The first is by directly inducing death signals in cancer cells, which has been demonstrated in prostate and breast cancer cells. It also activates the well-known tumor suppression gene, p53, which in turn governs the cell cycle to prevent cancer. And it even shuts off the flow of blood to tumors to help starve them of nutrition. It does all this while simultaneously keeping healthy cells alive and assisting in the flow of blood to healthy cells! This is not a miracle; it is simply Mother Nature at work to aid survival.

References:
http://www.wellnessresources.com/studie.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

http://www.wellnessresources.com/studie.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

http://www.wellnessresources.com/studie.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

http://www.wellnessresources.com/studie.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

http://www.wellnessresources.com/studie.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

Don't for a moment think that cancer researchers don't know about gamma tocotrienol. They have specifically tested it in combination with chemotherapy drugs and found that they could kill cancer cells with far less drugs. This is very important because the toxicity of cancer drugs reaches a limit of success if the dose needed exceeds the ability of one's body to tolerate the inherent toxicity of the drugs. The fact that the gamma tocotrienol form of vitamin E is not given simultaneously along with cancer treatments is a crime of omission by the 50 billion-dollar-a-year cancer industry. They just can't stand the idea of using a natural supplement to help anything. It's all about money and control, not your health.

References:

http://www.wellnessresources.com/studie.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

http://www.wellnessresources.com/studie.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

It is one thing to fail to tell cancer patients what natural remedies are indeed helpful for prevention and treatment of cancer. It is yet another to bad mouth vitamin E based on the use of a form of vitamin E that could not possibly help. In both situations, NCI's connections to the Big Pharma and Big Biotech cancer industry are driving their research at the expense of human health, and media that views its livelihood on perpetuating the sales of Big Pharma has no clue on how to report about nutrition in an accurate way.

[inho]

On the other hand, when frauds are discovered the science community acknowledges them and the publications are retracted. This is something that is strength of the "Scientific Studies". Most of the frauds or mistakes are also caught by other scientists. This is how the cumulative nature of science works. In pseudoscience it's much more rare to see any retractions.

[passionflower]

-delete-

[AlbertaBronco]

I don't trust the scientific studies because the results usually follow the funding. The scientists don't work for science anymore but rather they work for the institute/corporation that pays for the research.

[JohnnyL]

On the other hand, when frauds are discovered the science community acknowledges them and the publications are retracted. This is something that is strength of the "Scientific Studies". Most of the frauds or mistakes are also caught by other scientists. This is how the cumulative nature of science works. In pseudoscience it's much more rare to see any retractions.

That would be nice if it happened that way... History and experience says, wait for years for the frauds and mistakers to die, and then it might change. There are catalogs of anomalies of evidence and experiment that just aren't discussed.

In pseudoscience?, ... What studies haven't retracted?

[inho]

That would be nice if it happened that way...

But it does happen that way. Go check http://retractionwatch.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Scientific community tests itself and criticizes, corrects, and improves itself.

[jbalm]

Then I got a hold of correct science, and vision went from 20/550 to 20/10.

What's this about? Must know more!

[KMCopeland]

On the other hand, when frauds are discovered the science community acknowledges them and the publications are retracted. This is something that is strength of the "Scientific Studies". Most of the frauds or mistakes are also caught by other scientists. This is how the cumulative nature of science works. In pseudoscience it's much more rare to see any retractions.

Nicely said.

[KMCopeland]

We should all be highly skeptical of any "studies" paid for by any of the for-profit drug companies. But when you have a study that is free of that conflict of interest, although skepticism is still required because it's always required, it's important not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

[passionflower]

Then I got a hold of correct science, and vision went from 20/550 to 20/10.

What's this about? Must know more!

-delete-

[passionflower]

We should all be highly skeptical of any "studies" paid for by any of the for-profit drug companies. But when you have a study that is free of that conflict of interest, although skepticism is still required because it's always required, it's important not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

.

[KMCopeland]

We should all be highly skeptical of any "studies" paid for by any of the for-profit drug companies. But when you have a study that is free of that conflict of interest, although skepticism is still required because it's always required, it's important not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

No new scientific information can get off the ground if it displeases the powers that be, or is not immensely profitable.

I don't believe no new scientific information can get off the ground if displeases the powers that be or it's not immensely profitable. I do believe those issues are valid. But again: you can't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Originally electronic and telephone cables could all have been placed underground, but business interests forced them above ground because they were poised to make a lot of money that way. Ask Tesla about stuff like this.

Super important information for the public to have. Super important for people like you to keep spreading it around. Also important to look for exceptions to it.

The medical profession has created a virtual monopoly on health care, and no one is allowed to compete with them without risking seizure and destruction of their business on the grounds of "practising medicine without a license. their license.

Have you seen the movie "The Cider House Rules?" One of my all time favorites. One of the plot lines deals with this very point.

I can practically guarantee you, that if some of these alternative cancer cures became legal, and were allowed on the same playing field as chemo and radiation, we would suddenly see the cost of all that going down down down. It happened with computers.

I've heard it said that if aspirin hadn't already been discovered that it never would be. It doesn't matter how effective it is. It's too cheap to be profitable. And that's a sad state of affairs for sure.

KM Copeland, I just want to take this opportunity to thank you for being a person that I see as always listening to people, and actually hearing what they say, instead of reacting and putting words in their mouths and making them defend it, and even when you don't agree. I like that about you. I wrote this post because I knew you are fair enough to really listen to me. Thanks.

Now that was really sweet. Thank you for it.

[passionflower]

We should all be highly skeptical of any "studies" paid for by any of the for-profit drug companies. But when you have a study that is free of that conflict of interest, although skepticism is still required because it's always required, it's important not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

No new scientific information can get off the ground if it displeases the powers that be, or is not immensely profitable.

I don't believe no new scientific information can get off the ground if displeases the powers that be or it's not immensely profitable. I do believe those issues are valid. But again: you can't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Originally electronic and telephone cables could all have been placed underground, but business interests forced them above ground because they were poised to make a lot of money that way. Ask Tesla about stuff like this.

Super important information for the public to have. Super important for people like you to keep spreading it around. Also important to look for exceptions to it.

The medical profession has created a virtual monopoly on health care, and no one is allowed to compete with them without risking seizure and destruction of their business on the grounds of "practising medicine without a license. their license.

Have you seen the movie "The Cider House Rules?" One of my all time favorites. One of the plot lines deals with this very point.

I can practically guarantee you, that if some of these alternative cancer cures became legal, and were allowed on the same playing field as chemo and radiation, we would suddenly see the cost of all that going down down down. It happened with computers.

I've heard it said that if aspirin hadn't already been discovered that it never would be. It doesn't matter how effective it is. It's too cheap to be profitable. And that's a sad state of affairs for sure.

KM Copeland, I just want to take this opportunity to thank you for being a person that I see as always listening to people, and actually hearing what they say, instead of reacting and putting words in their mouths and making them defend it, and even when you don't agree. I like that about you. I wrote this post because I knew you are fair enough to really listen to me. Thanks.

Now that was really sweet. Thank you for it.

And I can tell you're a true southern gentleman.

[JohnnyL]

http://www.sciencealert.com/major-journ ... er-reviews" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Major journal publisher admits to publishing fabricated peer reviews

BEC CREW
30 MAR 2015

BioMed Central, a UK-based publishing house that’s responsible for distributing 277 peer-reviewed journals, has retracted 43 papers, having discovered that they had published several papers with fabricated peer reviews...

[JohnnyL]

04/20/17 - 88% Of Medical 'Second Opinions' Give A Different Diagnosis - And So Do Some AI
First, "A new study finds that nearly 9 in 10 people who go for a second opinion after seeing a doctor are likely to leave with a refined or new diagnosis from what they were first told," according to an article (via slashdot.org) shared by Slashdot reader schwit1: Researchers at the Mayo Clinic examined 286 patient records of individuals who had decided to consult a second opinion, hoping to determine whether being referred to a second specialist impacted one's likelihood of receiving an accurate diagnosis. The study, conducted using records of patients referred to the Mayo Clinic's General Internal Medicine Division over a two-year period, ultimately found that when consulting a second opinion, the physician only confirmed the original diagnosis 12 percent of the time. Among those with updated diagnoses, 66% received a refined or redefined diagnosis, while 21% were diagnosed with something completely different than what their first physician concluded.

But in a related story, Slashdot reader sciencehabit writes that four machine-learning algorithms all performed better than currently-used algorithm of the American College of Cardiology, according to newly-published research, which concludes that "machine-learning significantly improves accuracy of cardiovascular risk prediction, increasing the number of patients identified who could benefit from preventive treatment, while avoiding unnecessary treatment of others."

"I can't stress enough how important it is," one Stanford vascular surgeon told Science magazine, "and how much I really hope that doctors start to embrace the use of artificial intelligence to assist us in care of patients."

[JohnnyL]

"How 'Settled Science' Helped Create A Massive Public Health Crisis

JOHN MERLINE 4/18/2016

Anyone who thinks it's enough to rest an argument on "settled science" or a "scientific consensus" ought to read about John Yudkin.

Yudkin was a British professor of nutrition who, in 1972, sounded the alarm about sugar in diets, saying that if sugar were treated like any other food additive "that material would be promptly banned." He said sugar, not fat, was the more likely cause of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

For his efforts, Yudkin was branded a shill for the meat and dairy industries. His work was dismissed as "emotional assertions," "science fiction" and "a mountain of nonsense." Journals refused to publish his papers. He was uninvited from nutrition conferences and was ridiculed by the scientific community.

"Prominent nutritionists combined with the food industry to destroy his reputation, and his career never recovered," writes Ian Leslie in a lengthy piece titled "The Sugar Conspiracy" that was published recently in The Guardian.

Nutritionists, Leslie explains, had decided that dietary fat was the enemy of good health, based in large part on a huge Seven Countries Study, published in 1970, which looked at 12,770 middle-aged men in countries ranging from the U.S. to Yugoslavia.

"The Seven Countries study had become canonical, and the fat hypothesis was enshrined in official advice," Leslie writes. By 1980, the U.S. government issued its first Dietary Guidelines telling the country to cut back on saturated fats and cholesterol, and Americans dutifully complied.

CapHill-041516That's precisely when the nation's obesity rate started to skyrocket. While the obesity rate barely changed from 1960 to 1980 -- going from 13% to 15% -- over the following two decades – 1980-2000 – the rate jumped to 35%.

"At best, we can conclude that the official guidelines did not achieve their objective; at worse, they led to a decades-long health catastrophe," Leslie writes.

Nutritionists are only now grudgingly beginning to admit that their approach to nutrition guidelines could have been, well, wrong, and Yudkin's work is only now being rediscovered. The federal government, for example, quietly admitted recently that there's nothing wrong with eating cholesterol.

So why didn't scientists wise up sooner?

Leslie correctly points out that, despite the patina of pure objectivity, "scientific inquiry is prone to the eternal rules of human social life: deference to the charismatic, herding toward majority opinion, punishment for deviance, and intense discomfort with admitting to error."

That's not to say the scientific method doesn't eventually correct these errors, but the process isn't fast or painless.

For example, when a major study of low-fat diets found that they had no positive effect on women's health, "a consensus quickly formed that the study -- meticulously planned, lavishly funded, overseen by impressively credentialed researchers -- must have been so flawed as to be meaningless," Leslie notes.

Yudkin's plight should be a cautionary tale to anyone who thinks we should blindly follow a scientific consensus, particularly when it involves extraordinarily complex entities like the human body, or when the consensus is used to push public policies that could affect vast populations.

It's not as though the nation's entire obesity problem is the result of the faulty nutrition advice – lots of other factors are at work.

Still, had nutritionists listened to a "fat-denier" like Yudkin four decades ago, we might have avoided the scale of today's obesity epidemic, which has claimed millions of lives."

http://www.investors.com/politics/comme ... =mattkibbe

[Serragon]

"How 'Settled Science' Helped Create A Massive Public Health Crisis

JOHN MERLINE 4/18/2016

Anyone who thinks it's enough to rest an argument on "settled science" or a "scientific consensus" ought to read about John Yudkin.

Yudkin was a British professor of nutrition who, in 1972, sounded the alarm about sugar in diets, saying that if sugar were treated like any other food additive "that material would be promptly banned." He said sugar, not fat, was the more likely cause of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

For his efforts, Yudkin was branded a shill for the meat and dairy industries. His work was dismissed as "emotional assertions," "science fiction" and "a mountain of nonsense." Journals refused to publish his papers. He was uninvited from nutrition conferences and was ridiculed by the scientific community.

"Prominent nutritionists combined with the food industry to destroy his reputation, and his career never recovered," writes Ian Leslie in a lengthy piece titled "The Sugar Conspiracy" that was published recently in The Guardian.

Nutritionists, Leslie explains, had decided that dietary fat was the enemy of good health, based in large part on a huge Seven Countries Study, published in 1970, which looked at 12,770 middle-aged men in countries ranging from the U.S. to Yugoslavia.

"The Seven Countries study had become canonical, and the fat hypothesis was enshrined in official advice," Leslie writes. By 1980, the U.S. government issued its first Dietary Guidelines telling the country to cut back on saturated fats and cholesterol, and Americans dutifully complied.

CapHill-041516That's precisely when the nation's obesity rate started to skyrocket. While the obesity rate barely changed from 1960 to 1980 -- going from 13% to 15% -- over the following two decades – 1980-2000 – the rate jumped to 35%.

"At best, we can conclude that the official guidelines did not achieve their objective; at worse, they led to a decades-long health catastrophe," Leslie writes.

Nutritionists are only now grudgingly beginning to admit that their approach to nutrition guidelines could have been, well, wrong, and Yudkin's work is only now being rediscovered. The federal government, for example, quietly admitted recently that there's nothing wrong with eating cholesterol.

So why didn't scientists wise up sooner?

Leslie correctly points out that, despite the patina of pure objectivity, "scientific inquiry is prone to the eternal rules of human social life: deference to the charismatic, herding toward majority opinion, punishment for deviance, and intense discomfort with admitting to error."

That's not to say the scientific method doesn't eventually correct these errors, but the process isn't fast or painless.

For example, when a major study of low-fat diets found that they had no positive effect on women's health, "a consensus quickly formed that the study -- meticulously planned, lavishly funded, overseen by impressively credentialed researchers -- must have been so flawed as to be meaningless," Leslie notes.

Yudkin's plight should be a cautionary tale to anyone who thinks we should blindly follow a scientific consensus, particularly when it involves extraordinarily complex entities like the human body, or when the consensus is used to push public policies that could affect vast populations.

It's not as though the nation's entire obesity problem is the result of the faulty nutrition advice – lots of other factors are at work.

Still, had nutritionists listened to a "fat-denier" like Yudkin four decades ago, we might have avoided the scale of today's obesity epidemic, which has claimed millions of lives."

http://www.investors.com/politics/comme ... =mattkibbe

Nutrition science is a great example of where this stuff goes off the rails. Often conclusions are formed and then studies are sought to prove the conclusion. In this case, the "scientists" wanted meat to be unhealthy.. so it was.

Another huge issue is that these studies are never repeated and tested. The initial study is taken as fact. The scientific process requires that the studies be replicated multiple times with the same predictable results. That almost never happens in areas like nutrition and climate science.

My grandfather loved eggs. He had 2 for breakfast every single morning of his adult life. His doctor told him he couldn't have anymore because of studies like this. He dutifully stopped. Too bad he had to give up that simple pleasure in his later years for no good reason.

[kittycat51]

Kind of like vaccines? (can of worms)

[Robin Hood]

I don't trust the scientific studies because the results usually follow the funding. The scientists don't work for science anymore but rather they work for the institute/corporation that pays for the research.

Absolutely!
He who pays the piper calls the tune.

[buffalo_girl]

I've heard it said that if aspirin hadn't already been discovered that it never would be. It doesn't matter how effective it is. It's too cheap to be profitable. And that's a sad state of affairs for sure.

And then I've heard that the reason so many died from Spanish influenza is because of aspirin. Spanish flu is a hemorrhagic virus. Aspirin thinned the blood of the sick and caused them to suffocate in the blood leaking into their lungs. Could be.

My grandfather loved eggs. He had 2 for breakfast every single morning of his adult life. His doctor told him he couldn't have anymore because of studies like this. He dutifully stopped. Too bad he had to give up that simple pleasure in his later years for no good reason.

Medical school indoctrination, I suspect. Within the past 2 weeks the oldest person died at 117. She ate 3 eggs a day, 2 raw & 1 cooked.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news ... o-10233732

You know, eggs are actually stem cells.

There are all sorts of things we are told to eat and to not eat. I now eat the least modified food I can find. Each person needs to follow promptings and bypass the 'expert' opinions.

[Silver Pie]

There are all sorts of things we are told to eat and to not eat. . . . Each person needs to follow promptings and bypass the 'expert' opinions.

Triple Amen to this!

[JohnnyL]

I went to DrCarly.com, and found out that she was suddenly sick in the hospital, and a few days later (yesterday), her website has been shut down. This was after child services took her son away. Why? After taking away her license, she still wouldn't stay away from vaccines, so they needed more collateral to shut down her work, to shut her up, but she still refused to listen.

She had letter after letter to the top vaccine dogs, research after research, and threatened lawsuits to stop the "top vaccine scientists" and shills from
putting out false studies, swearing false testimonies, etc.

I fear we have lost the top anti-vaccine researcher in the world to treachery. :(( :((

[JohnnyL]

Wow. I'm looking for drcarly.com on the internet wayback machine, and while its record is there, the site has been scrubbed. If someone else can find it and prove me wrong, please do so!!