Right, because professional researchers and academics have never been blinkered by biases or had financial motives to publish certain things or the fact that most published research is unreproducible horseshit. I don’t need a meta-analyses and cross corroborated studies to know something works for me despite all the published reasons that say it shouldn’t (or vice versa). Pathetic attempt at gatekeeping IMO completely forgetting that most research is in fact based on tinkering and trial & error. Professional researchers are not magically immune to human biases and fallacies, case in point thalidomide, trans fats, “heart healthy” seed oils etc etc.
I would agree that scientific practice is far from the ideal in the post, but it doesn’t claim that researchers aren’t susceptible to those biases. That is why there are processes in place like peer review.
I think it’s more complex than this. Yes, absolutely, if something works for you personally but it’s not supported by scientific consensus, that makes sense to follow your own research. Health routines, diet, religion, whatever you do in your personal life, especially if you aren’t concerned about whether your neighbors are doing it too. The sentiment of the post applies best to subjects that apply broadly to groups of people, like vaccines, or trans people, or climate change, or even creationism or flat earth. If you aren’t following the scientific consensus, then you may be hurting yourself or others. Yes, science gets things wrong, but it also has drastically improved quality of life for everyone.
I think you have this backwards. They aren’t saying that professional research doesn’t have any of these problems. They’re just iterating what research is, and pointing out that the “do your own research” crowd are almost never actually doing any research.
Right, because professional researchers and academics have never been blinkered by biases or had financial motives to publish certain things or the fact that most published research is unreproducible horseshit. I don’t need a meta-analyses and cross corroborated studies to know something works for me despite all the published reasons that say it shouldn’t (or vice versa). Pathetic attempt at gatekeeping IMO completely forgetting that most research is in fact based on tinkering and trial & error. Professional researchers are not magically immune to human biases and fallacies, case in point thalidomide, trans fats, “heart healthy” seed oils etc etc.
I would agree that scientific practice is far from the ideal in the post, but it doesn’t claim that researchers aren’t susceptible to those biases. That is why there are processes in place like peer review.
I think it’s more complex than this. Yes, absolutely, if something works for you personally but it’s not supported by scientific consensus, that makes sense to follow your own research. Health routines, diet, religion, whatever you do in your personal life, especially if you aren’t concerned about whether your neighbors are doing it too. The sentiment of the post applies best to subjects that apply broadly to groups of people, like vaccines, or trans people, or climate change, or even creationism or flat earth. If you aren’t following the scientific consensus, then you may be hurting yourself or others. Yes, science gets things wrong, but it also has drastically improved quality of life for everyone.
I think you have this backwards. They aren’t saying that professional research doesn’t have any of these problems. They’re just iterating what research is, and pointing out that the “do your own research” crowd are almost never actually doing any research.
Finding a thing that worked for you is great, but that does not make you an expert in that thing or qualified to give advice to other people about it.