Re: The "Science can't explain this" fallacy

On Mon, Jul 03, 2006, Arik Baratz wrote about "Re: [hackers-il] The "Science can't explain this" fallacy":
> So? What's your point? Penicillin is better than placebo. So are the
> other cures you mentioned.

Indeed. And "better than placebo" is the only thing that matters what it
comes to quacks selling you stuff. Why should I buy 100 shekel "medicine"
when a 1 shekel "medicine" will work just as well (both will be placebos)?

> > I find it utterly ridiculous that people accept these remedies, and continue
> > to sell them, without a trivially conducted experiment. For example, take
> > 100 babies and give them nothing or sugar-water (or whatever placebo you want)
>..
> So, what's the point? That no one has done that test, or that a test
> has been done and not found effective? You cannot prove it nor
> disprove it without such a test, and for some reason or another, this
> test was not yet performed. Why is no one doing this test? This is my

Who said nobody did this test? Maybe the manufacturer did it, and didn't
like the results. Maybe the manufacturer didn't want to do the test, because
he knew that he just invented this remedy (e.g., "let's take juice from some
fruits I have here on the table, and sell this as a cure to XYZ") and there
is no way in the world that the test will show it to work?

And even if nobody tried to test it, it doesn't give this product temporary
validity. It just proves the seller is a quack, as all decent sellers (not
just in the field medicine) make sure that their product works before selling
it.

> Conspiracy theorists will say the large corporates don't want these
> things to be tested because they don't make money from unpatented
> mixtures of herbs.

That's like saying that any mathematical theorem is true, it's just that
the large universities conspired to call only the math theorems they invent
"true".

Most people don't care about the corporate's wishes. See, for example, free
software. People use it because it actually works - even if the large
corporates might wish that it never existed because they don't make money
from it.

> > There is certain value in being skeptical. The problem is that it's not
> > hard to write a 10 page scientific article that ends with the conclusion
> > that 1=2, and then you have to spend hours looking for what has to be
> > a mistake in one of the arguments.
> 
> Oh, do be skeptical, and work to disprove what is claimed, but do the
> work and don't just ignore it.

The burden of proof is the other way around. The more outlandish your
results are, the harder *you* should work to convince others that you're
right. If your result is surprising *and* nobody can understand your
reasoning, don't be surprised if nobody believes you.

The problem is that it's much easier to invent false theorems, than correct
ones. Scientists don't - and shouldn't - spend their time discrediting all
the possible false theorems, but rather finding correct ones.

> > The question is, why should they be more difficult to measure?
> > Why is it difficult to take a control group, and compare it to a group
> > on which you applied any sort of "healing", include "belief change workshops"?
> 
> I can't explain it rationally, except that I think scientists just shy
> away from these topics, believing them in the realm of religion or
> new-age or whatnot.

I think you are confusing "scientists" with "scientific method". Ok, then
"scientists" - such as tenured professors and employees of billion dollar
drug companies - shy away from such research. Ok. But who cares? Whoever
does care about these subjects - such as the people who actually run such
workshops (for example) - can do the research themselves, using the scientific
method.
Why can't they say "1,000 people graduated from my workshop in the last 10
years; Let's see if the percent of them that got sick is smaller than that
in the general population"? They can. And if they want to convince me that
there's any truth to their method, this is what they need to do.


-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |        Monday, Jul 3 2006, 7 Tammuz 5766
nyh-TS7m/[email protected]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |A computer program does what you tell it
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |to do, not what you want it to do.


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