[slurgfest]

I'm not carrying water for the original poster.

"There is no universal truth"? Are you sure? Because if that's true then there is no standard to judge whether one model is "higher-fidelity" and in fact there is nothing for science to do at all. Do you really believe that?

Do you really need to give up the idea that anything is actually true in order to dispute this blog post?

I don't understand how you figure that there is a choice between distrusting science and knowledge and silencing dissent. You seem to think that science and knowledge are just some form of political orthodoxy.

[beagle3]

> Because if that's true then there is no standard to judge whether one model is "higher-fidelity" and in fact there is nothing for science to do at all. Do you really believe that?

Theoretically, there is a "universal truth", but for all intents and purposes, there isn't outside the realm of Math.

We judge science's fidelity by how well it correlates with repeatable experiments - which may be characterized by some "universal truth", but that's besides the point. In Newton's day and age, newtonian mechanics seemed to describe essentially everything. And then it turned out to be a crude approximation that only works in large scales.

In 1900, there was a Physics convention, in which the tone was basically: We have everything worked out, except for 3 minor things - Michelson Morley light aberration (solving this required developing the theory of relativity), Black body radiation (solving this required developing quantum theory), and the Photoelectric effect (which also requires quantum theory to explain properly).

> Do you really need to give up the idea that anything is actually true in order to dispute this blog post?

No. But you do need to give up the idea that you have certainty of knowledge about how true things are.

> You seem to think that science and knowledge are just some form of political orthodoxy.

In math, they aren't. In physics, they aren't.

In biology, it's not so clear.

In medicine, and nutrition, there's a ridiculous amount of political orthodoxy and "religious" beliefs -- and last I heard, they were considered sciences.

[slurgfest]

I never made any claim regarding my own certainty of knowledge, that is a straw man. Please refrain from giving me personal advice when you know nothing about me.

There is a huge difference between saying "something is true, but I don't know what (yet)" and "there is no such thing as truth"; between "a lot of people try to commandeer medicine to sell things" and "there is no actual truth of anything to discover in the field of medicine".

[beagle3]

> Please refrain from giving me personal advice when you know nothing about me.

I was not giving you any personal advice. I was taking your "you" as a general statement to the reader, and replying with the same language pattern (e.g. if I said "you can bring a horse to water", I would actually mean "one can bring a horse to water".)

> There is a huge difference between saying "something is true, but I don't know what (yet)" and "there is no such thing as truth"; between "a lot of people try to commandeer medicine to sell things" and "there is no actual truth of anything to discover in the field of medicine".

Indeed, there is a huge difference, I don't think anyone is disputing that.

What some people (me included) are disputing is that what is considered "the state of the art" in the many sciences (other than math and physics), is actually not the result of rigorous scientific study that it is assumed to be, and that therefore well reasoned and supported contrarian explanations, data and opinions should be welcome (they aren't; there's active suppression).

[guelo]

It's one thing when learned people dig into the science and find issues to disagree about, it is completely different when some ignorant reporter or blogger disagrees just based on anecdotes or how truthy it feels to them

[beagle3]

Someone who is good with statistics is more learned than the prominent experts in many areas when it come to disagreement. See e.g. this: http://blog.sethroberts.net/2012/04/08/gene-linked-to-autism... - Roberts is a professor of psychology, but he wears a statisticians hat in this post. He does this often and in many fields, and more often than not, his review (though well argued) is discarded as "a blogger who disagrees just based on anecdotes and truthiness".

Yes, most criticism is useless, but ...

No, most research is NOT as sound as the researchers themselves believe.

[guelo]

You have provided no support for the idea that MOST scientists don't understand statistics. You link to criticism made about one reporter. I am much more prepared to believe that reporters don't understand statistics than scientists. Still, you have provided an anecdote in support of broad sweeping statements.