[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.

[johnisgood]

You give skeptics a bad name. I am a skeptic yet I hold the belief that if you state the negation of a claim, then indeed you should support it with evidence. They did not do so.

I agree, allowing "skeptics" to make you prove everything is a waste of time.

I agree, examine.com is great because for everything I could find on it contained backed up statements on a single page. It is a great resource. I use it mostly for nutritional supplements.

[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.

[Kaiyou]

The sceptic makes no assertion, he's asking you to prove your claim. No more, no less. Asking for proof doesn't mean asserting the opposite and even if you cannot prove your claim, it doesn't mean that your claim is incorrect. It just means you couldn't prove it. And sometimes one should just admit to be unable to prove a certain claim, even if it is correct, and change scope to something provable. Especially when the claim is unprovable to begin with, like "being the best" usually is.

[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?

[Kaiyou]

I'd say it's unprovable and that you should just accept that you cannot prove your claim. After all, you don't know every [X] and just this moment a new [X] could've been published, which is better than the one you claim to be the best.

Just change your scope to something provable if you want your claims to be believed by sceptics. For example "[X] is the best that I know." would work.

[JamesBarney]

My use of the word prove shouldn't be read as the mathematical method for establishing proofs. But the conversational use of the word prove. As in what evidence would you like to convince you of a claim. Not the rigor of a mathematical proof but to the rigor of "convince me this is more likely than the alternative."

There are two competing claims "examine is the best supplement website online"(examiners) vs "there exists a better supplement supplement website online".(otherers) One of these is true and the other is false.

While lots of "examiners" have argued and provided evidence, but the only argument brought by the "otherers" is they they don't need to bring any evidence.

[Kaiyou]

..which they don't. Burden of proof doesn't lie with them. They also never made any other claim, like you suggest. My takeaway from this whole discussion thread is that the site is sketchy. It might not be, but that's my impression as someone who hasn't heard of the site before. As I don't care for the topic the site covers either, I won't bother researching this myself and will leave it at that.

[JamesBarney]

I can see that, but those of us interested in the topic have a lot of respect for examine. They tried very hard to make sure their incentivizes align with the readers (by selling subscriptions) when most supplement companies go for the far easier monetization strategy of selling or promoting supplements. They've worked with lots of great scientists and experts on nutrition. The quality of information on the website is high by any standard but especially high for the supplement industry which is filled with a toxic mix of fraud and ignorance.