[data_required]

Why are skeptics like you usually so freaking lazy?

If Examine wasn't great, it should be quite easy for you to find literally just one source that was consistently and objectively better.

The task of the skeptic is quite a lot easier. For the the fan, it's a lot harder- a fan like me would have to literally track down EVERY single alternative and show it was not as good as the thing we admire.

All you have to do, as a skeptic, is find a single better source. Much easier to do.

But I'm willing to do some of your work for you.

Here is a list of the websites which usually rank above Examine:

WebMD (which openly partners with pharmaceutical companies)

Healthline (originally launched in 1999, it owns Drugs.com, Livestrong, Greatist, MedicalNewsToday)

VerywellHealth (partners with the Cleveland Clinic, started as an About.com company)

Hospital websites (such as UMMC, the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic, Sloan-Kettering, NYU, etc.)

Governmental institutions (NIH/Pubmed, CDC, ODS, FDA, etc.)

Other medical news sites (which are almost always owned by WebMD or Healthline)

Is any single one of those more credible and neutral than Examine, typically? Are their sources as comprehensive, and do they summarize things as cleanly and neutrally?

Does any one of them even have better moral incentives? Examine only makes money from selling informational guides, apparently. That sounds the best to me.

[Semiapies]

"Why are skeptics like you usually so freaking lazy?"

Because there are an endless number of fools, liars, and lunatics demanding that we do their work for them.

[data_required]

This is very simple, though. There appear to be two people competing claims here.

Me and other satisfied readers of a free website, claiming Examine is a great resource, and usually the best single resource.

And many of us have provided evidence- that they cite massive amounts of scientific papers, that they've been cited by the NYTimes and other media news outlets, the fact the post got hundreds of upvotes is its own evidence, the fact they don't sell supplements or make money from advertising, etc.

You (or other skeptics), saying it's not a great resource (while ignoring all evidence already provided).

And you are also providing zero evidence, despite the supporters of Examine providing a ton of evidence for why it is a high-quality and credible site.

By being skeptical, you are claiming something, right?

The claim you are making is much easier to back up. You literally just have to find ONE source which is usually better. We already did a lot of work, why can't you do some work?

And yet, you refuse to do that. You're being much more lazy than me. I've already tried things partly due to Examine's research, and I was satisfied with the results. And I paid nothing for those great benefits.

And then I shared my experience, for free, because I appreciate the help I was given.

All you have to do is find a single objectively superior source than Examine. (Or 10, if you want to actually address the original post).

I am not asking you to do "my work", which I have already done, I am asking you to do work to back up YOUR assertion.

Hell, I even provided you with some likely candidates to start your research, if you actually care to not be lazy.

[Semiapies]

"You (or other skeptics), saying it's not a great resource (while ignoring all evidence already provided)."

No, simply pointing out that it's your job in this discussion to present that evidence, not to try the frequently disingenuous tactics of "Oh, if you knew anything about this subject you'd know this is the greatest site EVAR" or "I'm saying this site is great. You have to do the legwork to dare to doubt me!".

I'm not claiming anything about the site that you're stanning for. I'm simply doubting the tales of rainbow unicorn farts and victimization by Google that people like you are pushing here.

But then, you are a very easy person to doubt. Your knee-jerk hostility to "skeptics" makes me think you push a lot of woo to anyone who has the misfortune to be stuck listening to you.

[data_required]

"No, simply pointing out that it's your job in this discussion to present that evidence"

I have provided evidence. (I've even included the unique evidence of personal experience. Hundreds of hours of research & experimentation- research on multiple websites- from someone with no vested financial interest, should count for something.)

I am also asserting that skeptics should also provide evidence. It's like in a courtroom- both the prosecution and the defense should provide evidence.

And again, the task for the skeptic is far easier- they only have to find a single superior resource, among thousands of possible contenders.

And if you want to be an effective skeptic, you should probably try to add some compelling evidence to your skepticism. It's in your interest to add evidence, if you are really such a big believer in your skepticism.

(I don't hate skepticism btw- normally I am a skeptic, that's why my nickname is "data_required"- I just dislike the lazy reflexive style of skepticism on display in this thread.)

And if I knew of other evidence to add besides what was in the comments section so far (having read all of the comments), I would add it.

The only other thing I can think of is that I know that the user "silverhydra" posts a lot on reddit, and is heavily involved with Examine. So I guess you can see a track record of how an employee of theirs behaves in an online forum.

"I'm simply doubting the tales of rainbow unicorn farts and victimization by Google that people like you are pushing here."

Why do you feel the need to exaggerate? How do you go from reading a claim of "great resource for information!" to "rainbow unicorn farts"?

Nobody has even asserted that Examine is the only site people should use, or that it is absolutely authoritative.

HN is filled with skeptics (compared to the general population), and Examine is clearly popular among skeptics. Maybe that should count for something?

It's not like anybody has claimed they used the site to figure out how to cure their own cancer. You know what I mean?

Also, nobody from Examine asserted that Google is trying to deliberately harm the company. (Nor am I asserting it.)

The blog post was a rather polite complaint, with evidence attached, that they had mystifyingly lost the prominence in search results which they once had.

And numerous people have documented that other search engines (Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.) have much more respect for Examine. It's a Google-specific complaint, and appears to be due to a generic update to their algorithm.

[LordAtlas]

You're clearly not familiar with the "burden of proof" principle. Go ahead, google it, especially given that you mention legal cases. The person who makes a particular assertion has the onus of proving the same. Like one of the previous posters said, we are flooded with people making bullshit claims of how something like homeopathy "works" because they know it from personal experience, and we shouldn't have to be the ones to disprove nonsense like that.

> It's like in a courtroom- both the prosecution and the defense should provide evidence.

You're mistaken. In criminal cases, the burden is on the prosecution to establish their case beyond all reasonable doubt. The defence does not have to prove innocence; it merely has to establish there is insufficient evidence for a guilty verdict.

[data_required]

And actually, let's revisit the prosecution vs. defense analogy.

The skeptic is really more in the position of the prosecution. The fans are really more in the position of the defense.

The skeptic is basically saying the fans have committed a crime against truth. They are saying that the fans have something to DEFEND. (Hence, the fans are the defendants.)

And the skeptics claim is much easier to prove. It is far easier for the prosecution to prove that a crime has been committed (if it has been committed), than it is for the defense to prove that a crime wasn't committed (assuming no crime was committed).

The skeptics in this position SHOULD have the easier case to prove, which is why the burden should be on them.

Like I've repeated endlessly, and I even furnished the main competitors, if there are websites that are clearly better than Examine, that should be pretty easy to show.

Literally no human on the planet is capable of proving that Examine is better than every single competitor, though. There are thousands of other supplement websites.

You can't support the position that skeptics are allowed to show up everywhere, and voice skepticism of literally everything, and then suddenly that means that people who appreciate things must then be forced to prove things which in some cases are nearly impossible to prove. That is utterly ridiculous.

Skeptics should at least participate a little bit, if they actually give a shit.

[data_required]

"The person who makes a particular assertion has the onus of proving the same."

But both sides are making assertions. The appreciators of Examine and other resources, are not the only people making assertions.

And the assertion that Examine isn't the best- the skeptics position- should be far easier to prove.

For some reason, that one guy will go to great lengths to make the general case for skepticism, when the specific case for skepticism- that there are sufficient websites objectively better than Examine such that Examine shouldn't be ranked near the top- should in theory be much easier to establish.

But he avoids that at every turn.

"In criminal cases, the burden is on the prosecution to establish their case beyond all reasonable doubt. The defence does not have to prove innocence; it merely has to establish there is insufficient evidence for a guilty verdict."

Lol. As though the defense never provides evidence boosting their client. But thanks for telling me what anybody could ever tell you who has served on a jury, or had a class in basic civics.

Look, skeptics need to furnish evidence, too. The people who appreciate Examine have provided a ton of evidence. It is LAZY LAZY LAZY that every skeptic wants to avoid digging deep.

I've already DONE immense research on supplements and the websites providing information about them. So have many others.

None of the skeptics in this thread are people who claim to be familiar with this domain. They just want to act like they are superior know-it-alls because they can lazily tout the general merits of skepticism.

Just like the defense will eagerly provide any evidence of innocence that they can muster, it is in the interests of skeptics to furnish evidence that the skeptical position is warranted. But few skeptics in this thread seem to want to do that.

If they think there is something better, they should let the rest of us know. Or they should build it themselves.

[JamesBarney]

Supplements aren't homeopathy. The research done on then and linked to on examine is scientific research. It's just not great scientific research, similar to the entire field of psychology.

Also "supplements work really well" is a very different argument than this is the best website on supplement research.

There is not a single person in this thread of 100's who can name a single source of better information on supplements.

How would you prove that a psychology text book was the best even if it was so obviously the case that anyone who had ever read multiple psychology textbooks agreed with you. And everyone who disagreed with you had never more than a skimmed one?

[data_required]

Also, it's rude of you to keep downvoting my replies to you. If you apparently respect the discussion enough to continue it, you don't need to automatically downvote everything, especially when you refuse to put in any evidentiary work yourself.

Stop being so petty.

[Semiapies]

So that you know, in case you haunt this place in the future, posters here can't downvote direct responses to their posts.

That's other people doing that. When enough people downvote your posts, that's when they start turning lighter and lighter gray.

[data_required]

Also, to be honest, none of my comments shows as grey, but a couple of yours do. I don't get it. (I do have one comment showing as -1, previously -2).

[data_required]

"in case you haunt this place in the future"

I've "haunted" this place since the first day it existed (though with other nicknames), and will doubtless haunt it for years to come. I just normally lurk, not comment.

This was just a topic important enough to bring me out of the woodwork.

"posters here can't downvote direct responses to their posts."

I did not know this, thank you for explaining. Apparently someone is following our discussion and almost instantly downvoting me each time (I guess...)

I never experienced that before, so I thought it was you. My apologies, apparently you are not rude like I thought.

[data_required]

And I want to explain why I am so passionate about this.

Resources like Examine are amazing for lots of people. And the fact that they are free and credible, is incredible.

So I hate it when people like you are incredibly lazy, only doing cursory looks at things, and then pretend that those of us who have done hundreds of hours of research are the lazy ones.

Not only that, but people like you are probably scaring off lots of people who need help, from one of the few credible resources in the online space.

To me, you are not only lazy, your lazy skepticism is the sort of thing which will hurt lots of people. (Maybe you don't do so much damage by yourself, but people like you absolutely do damage sometimes. Sometimes your skepticism helps people. But sometimes your lazy skepticism hurts people, too.)

[Semiapies]

"So I hate it when people like you are incredibly lazy, only doing cursory looks at things, and then pretend that those of us who have done hundreds of hours of research are the lazy ones."

Then maybe look into how to present yourself as something other than a wide-eyed lunatic.

To me, if not mindlessly taking the word of an online hype squad sets them off, that's a big, red flag.

[data_required]

I think you need to allow people to be passionate about things which have helped them.

Hell, I'm not even as passionate as the typical sports fan.

And this is true, despite my not having to pay any money for information which has helped my sleep, concentration, athletic performance, social comfortability, empathy for others, etc.

Most people would pay tens of thousands of dollars for the benefits I've received. And I got those benefits with some free info, and a few hundred dollars worth of supplements.

So don't feel so shocked if someone has a positive opinion about the company which provided a lot of the "free information" part of that equation.

Anyway, thank you for the interesting discussion. One thing I've learned from supplement experimentation is that biochemistry heavily dictates the kinds of feelings and thoughts people are capable of. It's entirely possible we will be unable to persuade each other of much of anything, if our biochemistry doesn't make it salient to do so :).

Have a great day, wherever you are!!