I read it on the internet so it must be true!

[Guest]

This thread started out pretty fun, but now it's getting more and more redundant with each post. "Righteous indignation" and smugness overload, so to say. On both "sides".

 

Sorry to point this out.

[Vegan Joe]

No you're not.

[Rob PMFF]

I also was surprised and disappointed at the amount of hostility between supposedly "like-minded" people of a community. Oh well. Shit happens.

[beforewisdom]

I also was surprised and disappointed at the amount of hostility between supposedly "like-minded" people of a community. Oh well. Shit happens.

 

I mean no offense to you personally, but I think you are overstating things a bit.

 

I can only speak for myself, but I don't think I or medman felt any hostility to metacalf. Our posts fell into two categories IMO. Having some fun with Metcalf's extreme responses...which a number of people did. The second, venting our frustration with people, in general, who accept what they are told without thinking.

 

We aren't really a community of like minded people. Some of us eat a vegan diet for health. Some of us are vegans. Beyond that we don't have much in common beyond liking working out.

 

I don't think disagreeing, good natured ribbing or even venting frustration with a way of thinking is the same as hostility.

 

Maybe calling people e-fags and threatening to crush them is hostility and that is what you meant by the use of the word.

[Rob PMFF]

Maybe calling people e-fags and threatening to crush them is hostility and that is what you meant by the use of the word.

 

More or less

[xjohanx]

Pretty good video from the Richard Dawkins foundation. Baloney detection kit

 

[New World Vegan]

What do i get here?Nothing but disrespect.

That's why I'm rarely here. I stop by once a month to if the same 4 jerks are still making vegans look like arrogant fools.

 

Now there's 5. This thread shows the paradox that is vegans with closed-minds. But I've heard a$$holes love it.

 

I'm gonna go 2 months this time. I won't see the responses to this - but that won't stop the jerks from putting me down (in there minds).

 

 

New World Vegan: Truly Beyond Vegan.

[beforewisdom]

Pretty good video from the Richard Dawkins foundation. Baloney detection kit

 

 

This looks good.

[Im Your Man]

Sure Medman there are people saying stupid things on Internet and they think what they say is the truth. But we can say the same about Science from what we read in scientific magazines or we see on tv. I find funny that internet is labelled as not a good source of true information, but there are stupid books out there, and nowadays everything, from newspapers to movies goes is then published on internet afterwards, so there is good and bad everywhere. There are so many stupid scientific studies. Even if they are well conducted and their results are ture, the whole thing is useless and will only sell more drugs. And most of studies are made on mice, as if it was an intelligent thing to do. They choose to study stupid things that have been studied a million times already, so it proves that its not good science, otherwise 2 or 3 times would be enough. And they contradict one another. And what they choose to study is often stupid, they don't focus on the important things.

And let me tell you that science is stupid and is all based on mistakes; we make mistakes on purpose to hopefully learn something, they think they found the truth but they discover ten years later they were wrong, they think they finally know the truth but they find out later they were wrong again.

They make blood transfusions on people who don't really need it, so it kills them, because the body who already fights to survive must fight the new blood. They must redefine the standards for blood transfusions, because they do it to people who have much better chance to live without it.

They use morphine as a painkiller for patients with cancer, but after decades of using it they found out this substance helps the tumor to increase ! So now they give another substance to cancel the sideeffetc of morphine... and in 20 years they will find out this other substance has a deadly side effect, and they will give a third substance, etc, ad nauseam...

ALL drugs have side effects, and they're never good.

They don't care, they are stupid and it's as if they don't have a brain.

They say the swine flue killed 5 people that were vaccinated, saying the vaccines couldn't protect them because it takes 10-14 days to take effect and they got the virus before... but they are too stupid to even realize that maybe its the vaccine that killed them, because this virus is not deadly, it always needs a complication, like asthma, etc (...or the vaccine), to cause death. Each person that died of the swine flue either had respiratory problems or a shot of the vaccine.

Thing is, death is natural and necessary; let people die of diseases and natural disasters, we are too many people on Earth anyway and human specie is a disgrace to life and nature, we are the worst animal on the planet. No drugs or medecine are good, we should focus on living in harmony with nature and respecting the laws of universe, we could prevent many diseases this way.

 

---

 

I am not Scientific

 

Sept 1946

Hygienic Review

Herbert Shelton

 

When "science" divorces herself from her capitalistic masters and ceases to play the part of bawd, when she discards her stultifying axiom that only conventions are acceptable as data, when she seeks for truth without fear or favor, when she discards her burden of prejudices and throws off her prepossessions, when she empties her inflated body of its gaseous vanity and odoriferous pride, when she becomes willing to learn of all who have knowledge,when she places more stock in fact and prinicple than she does in captivating speculations garbed in a flowery array of technical gibberish, and neither last nor least, when she unburdens herself of accumulated load of methodological puerilities, then, and not until then , will she be able to say to me, you are scientifically and demonstrably wrong.

 

I am far from being infallible. I will learn more as I go along. But as between my world and that of the "science of medicine" and the " science of dietetics" I'll await the verdict of time with calmness and without fear, I am not "scientific" and in the present state of " science" I would be a fool if I were. I'd rather be right than to be " scientific".

 

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/hygienic.review.articles.htm

[medman]

New World Vegan,

 

There is a very big difference between "having a closed mind" and "scrutinizing information". The burden of proof is on the person making the claim; if you say something is true, prove it. Scientific literacy is about being able to tell when a claim is BS, regardless of whether the person making the claim is a clinician or a guru.

 

I'm Your Man,

 

You touch on many issues. The reason many studies are repeated is to independently verify the results; if there is truly a link/effect, a separate group of people should be able to confirm it. This is good science, not bad science. Usually, any additional studies on a similar subject are actually designed differently, to answer a different question. The scientific community doesn't "repeat the exact same thing a million times". And the fact that results can often contradict each other means you have to scrutinize the design of the studies - if both had large samples, were blinded, had proper control groups, etc, etc, then a contradictory result means that you can't accept the hypothesis. This shows the danger of blindly trusting a single source (the very error I satirized in my original post).

 

As for blood transfusions - again, I'm afraid I'm not sure what sources you're using, but transfusion is used only in patients with a dire need for it. It's not done superfluously. I've been in the OR and I've hung bags of blood, and each time I did it, it was for a patient who would die without it. I challenge your statement that it's done in people with "much better chances without it". I have never seen this to be the case.

 

It has been demonstrated that it takes 10-14 days for the H1N1 vaccine to confer adequate immunity. For the people who died - you claim the doctors are "too stupid to realize it could have been the vaccine that killed them" and that people who died from H1N1 needed a complication to render them susceptible. A family member of a good friend of mine came within a hair of dying from H1N1 (truly heroic measures were taken and even then, she barely made it through), and this person was young and perfectly healthy, without ever having had the vaccine. The epidemiology of H1N1 is such that it seemingly randomly ravages one person while affecting the next less severely - severity is not correlated with age the way it is for seasonal flu.

 

You make a lot of very wild accusations about the medical system, and I must ask you a question at the core of my initial message in this thread - what are your sources? There's a lot of cold hard evidence behind transfusion medicine, for example. Claiming that it kills people more than it helps them goes against all available epidemiological data, and the burden of proof of such a claim lies on the person making it.

[beforewisdom]

http://startswithabang.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/science-youre-doing-it-wrong.jpg

[beforewisdom]

It is not my intent to offend anyone, but I for one am glad that medman is here and as opposed to New World Vegan's opinion I think people like him, who have better things to do with his time and who chooses to share his time in sharing his knowledge makes vegans look better.

[Lyric]

This board can get really mean sometimes >.

[lobsteriffic]

http://startswithabang.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/science-youre-doing-it-wrong.jpg

 

I think I want to put that on the cover of my dissertation.

 

I agree, Medman, I really appreciate your posts. Thank-you for sharing your knowledge with us.

[Lean and Green]

It's been forever since I logged on and thendanisays said this thread must be viewed. Skepticism is a good thing or you can wind up becoming a lemming. As for medman, definitely appreciate your wit and dialogue

[Im Your Man]

Medman,

you say about the unlimited number of studies made on the samething is to "independently verify the results", so you agree with me that some studies alone are worthless if they need others, and you'll agree with me that a good study does not need a thousand others or even just another one to prove anything, a good study proves the statements it makes, it repeats the experiment a thousand times if necessary, it validates the result and does not need a thousand more study to validate it. But most studies worth nothing and concludes by: "further tests are needed to confirm", bla bla bla. Pure science like mathematics never fail. Most others are inexact, pseudo science. Simple observation of nature with eyesight is more real and true than most of hypothesis and suppositions that half of studies make. Often, a good common sense makes more sense than a bunch of mad scientists without common sense and with their microscopes and test-tubes.

I have never said that blood tranfusion "kills people more than it helps them" or kill more people than people saved by it. It can save lives and it saves more than it kills. I said "they do it to people who have much better chance to live without it." or if you prefer I'll say it with more nuance: some of the people who get blood transfusion don't need it and it does not help in the healing process of their body. You say "there's a lot of cold hard evidence behind transfusion medicine" and what I say "goes against all available epidemiological data"... There has been no rerious studies made on blood transfusions, which is surprising because this medicinal measure is used since so long and puts the life of patients in its "hands", while they continue to make a thousand studies on green tea. Well the first serious study to look closely on blood transfusions and make statistics was made less than 2 years ago. In an hospital, they looked at 800 persons (I think it was in an hospital for children) with anemia. They chose kids completely aleatory to divide in 2 groups of 400. One group had blood transfusion according to the usual standards in Quebec (and elsewhere I guess its about the same) when they do transfusion systematically to everyone with hemoglobin under a certain level, and to the other group they only did transfusion to more serious anemia, when the level of red blood cells is under 70 instead of 100 for the other group, something like that ... well there has been 20 less deaths in the group with less blood transfusions ! so more kids died in the group with more blood transfusions. Blood transfusions saved many lives (we don't know how many; we would need to make an experiement with one group with no blood transfusions at all) but what we know is that blood transfusion also kill people. So it would be good to study something we take for granted and redefine higher criteria for transfusion to choose case by case to see if it is necessary or not. Doing less blood transfusions, only when it is needed, save more lives; doing blood transfusion to a sick person who may not need transfusion but something else may kill him/her. I have found an old paper where I've written the names of this study, so you can search: Jacques Lacroix and Dr Paul Hébert, from an hospital and university in Quebec, Montreal if I remember well.

 

About H1N1, you say your friend was "perfectly healthy". Really ? Tell me what is perfect health and how many people are perfectly healthy. I suspect your definition of perfectly healthy is just to not feel sick and to have no disease. Medecine define everything based on disease: the dose of certain poison before they become too harmful, and doctors in nutrition defined the amount of each micro and macro-nutrients we need based on what we need to avoid deficiency, instead of defining it for optimal health. Everything is relative and perfection is very relative, and perhaps impossible or rare to get, or each person get to his own definition of perfection, which is different for eah person, each goal. But even if this person was perfectly healthy and almost died of h1n1 virus (...the medias said this about a young hockey player in Canada, "perfectly healthy", maybe, in their definition of it, "died of the h1n1", until they said 2 weeks later he died of a pneumonia, so not very different than the others.. At age 15, he was probably eating fast food and junk food like most other kids, very few eat lots of fruits and greens, so can we say of someone who eats mostly pizza and cheeseburgers he is "perfectly healthy" ? I'm talking about the hockey player, not your friend. It is very well known that we must not vaccinate someone who's already infected with the virus and fighting it ! We read : "a nurse died 5 days after she had the vaccine"... They say it takes 10-14 days for the vaccine to give protection and immunize, so we must not blame the vaccine... but what they never say is their immune system is hurt and amputated right after the shot and in the following days, this person is more vulnerable to infections, have more chances to get sick, and less strong to fight if she encounters the virus or already has it, so higher chances to die from it. And many people got the virus by going to the place where they give the vaccine, which is place with high risks of contagion, and also some retards even go get the vaccine when they start feeling symptoms, as if the vaccine is gonna cure them. I heard also an old woman who had the swine flue "for 3 weeks" and after this she went to get a shot of the vaccine "because she doesn't wanted to get this flue again" but nobody told her that once she got the flue she's already immunized, more than with the vaccine, and without any risk of poisoning and no need to be vaccinated each year. The adjuvants in the vaccine solution are there especially to attack the immune system, but of course they say it "boosts" it... Well these things happened. It was their decision to receive the vaccine, and they cannot sue the government or the company that makes the vaccine, because anyway they have special contract for full impunity in case the vaccine could cause some problems.

 

And it is interesting you did not comment about what I said on morphine. The victims of morphine and all other drugs/medecine/poison (because we know that ALL substances used in medecine are harmful and toxic -- in small dose they are not good, they are just less deadly) should receive apologies and monetary compensation, or to their family members if they died, because they were going to the hospital hoping they could get better, not worse; they have been fooled.

Look at it: with all modern technologies in medecine, we are able to make miracles sometimes, with outstanding surgeries or treatments... people live older. But do they really live, or just survive ? They continue to be sick, just longer. They have poor quality of life: they must swallow 20 pills a day that costs them all their savings. There's more people sick than ever, because medecine just treat them but does not remove the causes and the diseases always come back. So we should focus on the real problem. The diseases, instead of decreasing, have increased by 300%, 600% and even 1000% for some diseases. Do you see less sick people than before the recent progress in medecine, can you say medecine succeeds overall ? No, there's sick people and people dying everywhere, goverment always ask for more nurses and doctors, more blood and organs, etc. There are more allergies, cancers, heart attacks than ever before in the history of mankind, more people with infertility or impotence, more and younger people with diabetes and cancers, even when they are still children ! And we just learned that the scanners used to find breast cancer actually cause a tumor 20-30 years later for 30% of women who had those tests. So what is supposed to find cancer actually give cancer! Science did those scanners based only on the presomption that its such a low amount of radiation that it cannot be dangerous. That's beautiful, science, especially when its not scientific at all. You will say all this is because of bad habits, pollution, etc, not the fault of medecine... well you see, we agree. Medecine is useless and people need to take care of themselves and militate against companies that drop their toxic products in our water, air and soil.

Now what's new in science of medecine: an anti-mucus presented as a miracle for people with a flue who refuse to endure the symptoms of sneezing and wiping their nose... as if mucus was useless, as if it wasn't playing an important role in the healing process the body uses and as if removing mucus like it never existed will not harm or be counterproductive in the healing process. What will result of this, will we know only in twenty years, after we learn what it does to not make mucus when we're sick, perhaps there's mucus but it stays in the body instead of going out, and the mucus goes into their brains. But if they don't sneeze, they don't care about the rest.

[VeganEssentials]

Pure science like mathematics never fail.

 

I'm not going to touch most of this because it usually ends up badly, but this one statement requires a reply because it's extremely inaccurate.

 

Pure science is not equivalent to the constant of mathematices. A zero is always a zero, a five is always a five, and that's that - you can CALL them something else, but that does not change what they truly are. People are different, science applying to health and humanity is never a constant between each and every person, so that's what makes the above statement complete rubbish. I'm sorry, IYM, I try not to get too into debating these points with you because we never see eye-to-eye, but you have to realize the absurdity in the statement you made above. By your logic, if it is found that component X (hypothetical ingredient/nutrient/drug/whatever) were to be beneficial to 999,995 out of 1,000,000 people, then it is worthless to you because it is not perfect and constant across the board. By that logic, anything less than 100% successful and constant without potential for less-than-perfect results is a failure. That should be pretty obvious as to why your continual choice to completely cirucumvent the factors of the differences from person to person are not accurate, and quite frankly, are more flawed than the science you condemn.

 

As I've pointed out in the past, your strong anti-science stance has never allowed you to explain things such as why two identical twins living the exact same diet/lifestyle could start smoking at the same time, and how one could develop lung cancer a few years later and the other could live to be 100 while smoking 2 packs/day. And that's being extreme for a case of absolute closeness in similarity between two individuals - now consider the extreme variables in truly making human comparisons with actual differences between people and you'll find that your argument holds less and less truth. We've already gone through previous discussion where we've noted that despite the claims that raw veganism is somehow believed by many to make one "disease-proof", it is far from truth, so the naturalist anti-science perspective is as flawed as anything that you are against that is rooted in science which you consider flawed.

 

Again, I'm not saying these things to be spiteful to you - I admire your conviction (even if I believe many things you hold dear are frightfully wrong), but sometimes I think you need to be more open to more than you've come to hold as truth, because honestly, many of your anti-science arguments do not make any true sense and are more of a quasi-religious view than one that's rooted in fact. People gain the most knowledge by taking stock in the value and merits of two opposing points rather than simply choosing one side and always being against the other without considering that extremes are rarely correct. It's severely limiting and only builds bias and allows one to be susceptible to untruths, so that's something to ponder. I don't expect to change your mind, but at some point, I do hope you'll consider the possibility that pehaps the naturalist view you hold is not absolute irrefutable truth, and that the science you oppose, had it not been held with value by generations before you, may have allowed something to remove you from existence long before you made it this far.

[medman]

IYM, I will have to echo Ryan's sentiment about not addressing every specific point because of the futility of arguing.

 

I will simply say this: You seem to have absolute conviction that "science" is an evil establishment filled with conspiracies and malice. You say on one hand what the medical establishment SHOULD be doing to help people the most, but then contradict yourself by saying that you believe people should just be allowed to die and that disease should not be treated. This makes it impossible to have any kind of dialogue. You also call science "pseudoscience". This is ironic, since "pseudoscience" is a term applied to claims that aren't backed up with study using the scientific method.

 

I will speak to this one specific point, because it is an area in which I have a particular interest and body of knowledge, which is that about "morphine promoting cancer". There is not one shred of evidence that this is true. Opioid painkillers help MILLIONS of cancer patients cope with their pain, and these ridiculous news stories came out based on a study that showed that cultured (read: cells in a dish) lung cancer cells had their growth slowed when they applied naltrexone, an opioid antagonist. So an "anti-morphine" drug slowed some cells of a particular type in a petri dish. Extrapolating this to say that opioids promote tumour growth in a complete human being is absolutely ridiculous, given that no patient data has ever supported this. The only papers with any sort of connection between morphine and cancer prognosis had to do with anesthetic procedures, and didn't even track of the amount morphine used.

 

I think there is one other important thing I have to say addressing your post. I honestly feel your distrust of science stems from a lack of understanding what the core principles of the scientific method are, and how to tell "good science" (using proper techniques) from "bad science" (connecting dots that you can't due to limitations of your study design). If you can't tell good studies from bad ones, it's easy to start believing that everything "we" believe flip-flops every 2 years with results of a new study. This is far from the truth. Try to be humble and accept that there are people who understand these things better than you do. I don't mean this as an insult - there are many who understand it far better than I do, as well. I've done my B.Sc., I've written a thesis, I've taken stats classes...and yet, last week, an epidemiologist absolutely schooled me when he informed me that a paper I had selected to do a presentation on "was so poorly designed, it should never have gotten published." There were some problems with the way they did their stats, so while it seemed to demonstrate a clear effect, their method actually limited them to the point that the study had no investigative power.

 

But, you know what? The people who determine standards of care in the medical system (such as that epidemiologist) DO know all their hardcore stats, even if I don't, so worthless studies don't change the way we're taught to practice medicine. Only the good (properly conducted and analyzed) ones do. And this all goes back to the title of this thread - experts are experts for a reason. When the news misinterprets and sensationalizes something like "morphine causing cancer", yet the world's leading oncologists still recommend opioids for cancer pain relief, it's not because those doctors are trying to kill their patients. It's because they know better. Many viewpoints are presented side-by-side on the internet...but experts in their field make decisions based on objective, proper data. "Experts" on the internet are hardly this thorough.

[Vegan Joe]

Medman

You'll never get any respect until you change your profession.

 

http://www.soccerotago.co.nz/news_09/news_09/voodoo.jpg

[beforewisdom]

IYM, I will have to echo Ryan's sentiment about not addressing every specific point because of the futility of arguing.

 

It is not futile if you believe that people not posting in the thread are reading both sides and forming opinions as a result.

 

Otherwise I agree with you. You aren't going to open IYM's mind, when you and others haven't over umpteen iterations of this argument.

[medman]

beforewisdom, you're right. I guess I have been down a similar road so many times on this board that I've become a bit cynical and assume that nothing will come of it, but hopefully someone out there is reading it and thinking about the issues each time we go through this.

 

Vegan Joe, that cracked me up and made me a little sad at the same time.

[Vegan Joe]

beforewisdom, you're right. I guess I have been down a similar road so many times on this board that I've become a bit cynical and assume that nothing will come of it, but hopefully someone out there is reading it and thinking about the issues each time we go through this.

 

Vegan Joe, that cracked me up and made me a little sad at the same time.

Sorry for the sad part. I always speak before I think.

[Cold Fission]

i'myourman is right about a lot of mainstream science being total bs.No one thinks all science is lies but the science that says fluoride in our water is a good thing and aspartame in our foods is harmless is clearly evil work.

 

The people saying IYM has a closed mind are fooling themselves.He doesn't believe everything the mainstream science tells people.That would mean he thinks for himself and not told what to think or how to be.

 

I feel as though i have to make the point again that only SOME science is corrupt and it's necessary to question it to avoid total mind control.

 

Stop telling people their wrong as well when what they say is just an opinion because nothing is solved that way and people just get pissed off.It's not like he's trying to convince us the moon is made of cheese.What he's saying is a shared view by many intelligent people.

[hilary wright]

I have been to the moon on several occasions. I can tell everyone that it is made of cheese, albeit almond cheese, but cheese none the less.

. . . or did I read that somewhere?? It's so hard to remember these days.

[VeganEssentials]

i'myourman is right about a lot of mainstream science being total bs.No one thinks all science is lies but the science that says fluoride in our water is a good thing and aspartame in our foods is harmless is clearly evil work.

 

The people saying IYM has a closed mind are fooling themselves.He doesn't believe everything the mainstream science tells people.That would mean he thinks for himself and not told what to think or how to be.

 

I feel as though i have to make the point again that only SOME science is corrupt and it's necessary to question it to avoid total mind control.

 

Stop telling people their wrong as well when what they say is just an opinion because nothing is solved that way and people just get pissed off.It's not like he's trying to convince us the moon is made of cheese.What he's saying is a shared view by many intelligent people.

 

To be fair, you'd have to go back through about 3 years worth of back-and-forth debates with IYM to understand where some of us are coming from in our frustrations.

 

There's nothing wrong with a healthy dose of skepticism. It's a great thing to have, helps filter out a lot of B.S. However, being totally opposed to that which you already believe to be absolute truth without consideration that you may not be 100% correct is not healthy (particularly when your ideals are based off of a desire to be anti-science without validity, seemingly out of a desire to go against the grain as much as a desire for true knowledge). Nor is it valid to say "Science sucks", then say you want people to "scientifically prove" anything that they state they believe in which coflicts with your own theories, as he's done time and time again. You can't have your cake and eat it, too, which is what IYM often attempts - he'll claim science is invalid, then ask you to use science to back up any claims that aren't in line with his beliefs, all without being able to prove his own theories beyond saying "That's what I think is true". And the wheel goes 'round and 'round again....

 

Nobody here is saying that all things promoted by those who use science is correct. That's taking the whole argument out of context. But, if you're going to claim something like morphine does more damage to those in extreme pain than it helps, you'd BETTER be able to show some evidence if you want to be credible. That shouldn't be too hard to figure out as to why we get frustrated with some of his notions, when they can't be backed up with anything to show proof of his concepts.