Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Anthony  Second, your comment about the auto mechanic seems a little off to me. If a human being had designed my body, I'd expect my doctor to be able to say "yeah, I know what that is" every time.  But in all honesty, we really don't know everything there is to know about how and why people work, whereas we really do know how and why cars work, so comparing a doctor to an auto mechanic isn't really fair. |
A heart surgeon takes her car in to get the oil changed and her annual tune-up. She's standing, watching the mechanic finish up, when the mechanic suddenly says,
"Hey, you know, there's not that much difference between us. We both basically fix motors when they're not working. You have to disconnect the plumbing, correct the error in the main engine, and reconnect it. No big deal. So how come you get paid hundreds of thousands a year, and I'm barely scraping by?"
The surgeon replies, "Try doing it while the motor's running."
....
I was very pleased to see the title of this article this morning, since we've been having a discussion in the Health and Fitness forum about whether there's enough scientific evidence to prove that veganism is the correct health choice for everyone. I was hoping Steve would have good arguments that would be worth referencing/using.
And he does, especially the one about whether or not the same effects will be shown in a brown-haired, healthy-weight, short, active female in Colorado. But after reading Cron's rebuttal, I have to agree that Steve overstated the case a bit. (Of course, I know that he creates his post titles to attract maximum attention on search engines. It's possible that he doesn't think they're "worthless" but that "not nearly as useful as you think they are, and in many cases may actually be harmful" didn't make a very snappy headline.) I think a better title would have been
Media reporting of health studies are worthless to those who care about health.
The problem with Cron's solution, of course, is that most of us aren't trained to read a health study. I have a very firm basis in mathematics, so I can at least recognize a "every time we did this, that happened" study as compared to a "rumour of a focus group, who might have said something which, taken out of context, could imply that you're not becoming a weasel" study.
But suppose I read a study whose data clearly shows that consumption of animal protein slows dephosphorylation...
I can't even tell if that's an argument for vegetarianism or omnivorism, much less whether their data collection methods were valid and analysis of the data supports the written conclusion.
The solution to
this problem is left as an exercise for the student.
Weasel quote shamelessly copied from Dilbert