[glenstein]

>But the anecdotes are piled up into giant mountains at this point

This is disorganized thinking. Anecdotes about what? Does my uncle having an argument with his doctor over needing more painkillers, combine with an anecdote about my sister disagreeing with a midwife over how big her baby would be, combined with my friend outliving their stage 4 cancer prognosis all add up to "therefore I'm going to disregard nutrition recommendations"? Even if they were all right and the doctors were all wrong, they still wouldn't aggregate in a particular direction the way that a study on processed foods does.

And frankly it overlooks psychological and sociological dynamics that drive this kind of anecdotal reporting, which I think are more about tribal group emotional support in response to information complexity.

In fact, reasoning from separate instances that are importantly factually different is a signature line of reasoning used by alien abduction conspiracy theorists. They treat the cultural phenomenon of "millions" of people reporting UFOs or abduction experiences over decades as "proof" of aliens writ large, when the truth is they are helplessly incompetent interpreters of social data.

[jtbayly]

You can tell me that I'm as crazy as people who believe they've been abducted, but I'm still going to be my own health advocate. :)

[BobaFloutist]

As of course you should be. Doctors, who are generally pretty caring and empathetic humans, try to invoke the mantra "You can't care about your patient's health more than they do" due to how deeply frustrating it is to try to treat someone who's not invested in the outcome.

It's when "being your own health advocate" turns into "being your own doctor" that the system starts to break down.

[uncletaco]

They’re not saying you’re crazy they’re saying you may be helplessly incompetent when it comes to interpreting social data. You probably aren’t a good reader either if crazy was your takeaway.

[demosito666]

> Does my uncle having an argument with his doctor over needing more painkillers, combine with an anecdote about my sister disagreeing with a midwife over how big her baby would be, combined with my friend outliving their stage 4 cancer prognosis all add up to "therefore I'm going to disregard nutrition recommendations"?

Not sure about your sister and uncle, but from my observations the anecdotes combine into “doctor does not have time and/or doesn’t care”. People rightfully give exactly zero fucks about Bayes theorem, national health policy, insurance companies, social dynamics or whatever when the doctor prescribes Alvedon after 5 minutes of listening to indistinct story of a patient with a complicated condition which would likely be solved with additional tests and dedicated time. ChatGPT is at least not in a hurry.