Science versus dogma, there is no middle ground.

[Guest guest]

> Beautifully put . Elegant and precise.

but still very confused.

> Ways to proceed:

>

> A. Listen to theories and pay no attention to thousands of anecdotes

> about kids' improvements.

the system of dogma that religion and many other endeavors are based

on.

> B. Pay some attention to theories and pay even more attention to

> anecdotes from parents who've tried a healing protocol, eg, JMmd's:

That is to say, pay attention to 's favorite dogma, not anyone

else's.

Or C. be scientific, not dogmatic, and understand that observation is

truth and theories are only clever poetry to summarize them. To be

scientific a theory must be simple and consistent with ALL known facts,

not just the ones the proponents find convenient.

That is, a proper theory must accoiunt for the responses of all the

children, not just the ones who get better, it must accoiunt for the

known chemical properties of the agents and tozins, and it must

accoiunt for the variation in rate and extent of response experienced

by people on different regimens.

Which in this case is very straightforward: the best results ever

reported by DAN! doctors were with 3-4 hour chelation when Amy Holmes

and a few others started doing it early on, and no other protocol has

been half as good by their own reports. Thus the only scientifically

correct theory is that this is the correct protocol and everything DAN!

has said since is inferior and not worth paying any attention to.

People hate science because we all get proven wrong time and again when

we advance theories that are demolished by further observations. That

is why so many people resort to dogma (e. g. DAN!, ) and try to

use some bastardized version of " science " to explain it.

To be scientific, you have to go all the way to ignoring all dogma, and

understanding that no theory is ever proven true (including the theory

that your favorite doctor accurately reports on their results when

patient reports differ) but observations are the only truth we can

know. Any half way measure is still dogma, and simply reduces things

to fashion and fad - a popularity contest rather than a rigorous

technical pursuit of truth.

Andy . . . .. . . . . . .

[Guest guest]

Andy,

I really don't think that was trying to push just her dogma and

discount science. I feel that what she was trying to say was that we do

need to listen to the anecdotal evidence more than the traditional

dogmatic medicoreligious system in place does. Now I may be wrong here

but that is what my perception of the comments were.

Science is something that is discounted by those who " already know

everything " . The post I made a few minutes ago was an example of an

argument I had with someone touting a toxic sludge multivitamin and that

I was wrong for using science in my disagreement. I see this quite

often when I listen to lectures touting other supplements without and

real scientific background, just anecdotal material. I think a balance

of the two is necessary. Real honest to goodness science combined with

clinical results is what I read into 's comments.

Mark

[ ] Science versus dogma, there is no middle

ground.

> Beautifully put . Elegant and precise.

but still very confused.

> Ways to proceed:

>

> A. Listen to theories and pay no attention to thousands of anecdotes

> about kids' improvements.

the system of dogma that religion and many other endeavors are based

on.

> B. Pay some attention to theories and pay even more attention to

> anecdotes from parents who've tried a healing protocol, eg, JMmd's:

That is to say, pay attention to 's favorite dogma, not anyone

else's.

Or C. be scientific, not dogmatic, and understand that observation is

truth and theories are only clever poetry to summarize them. To be

scientific a theory must be simple and consistent with ALL known facts,

not just the ones the proponents find convenient.

That is, a proper theory must accoiunt for the responses of all the

children, not just the ones who get better, it must accoiunt for the

known chemical properties of the agents and tozins, and it must

accoiunt for the variation in rate and extent of response experienced

by people on different regimens.

Which in this case is very straightforward: the best results ever

reported by DAN! doctors were with 3-4 hour chelation when Amy Holmes

and a few others started doing it early on, and no other protocol has

been half as good by their own reports. Thus the only scientifically

correct theory is that this is the correct protocol and everything DAN!

has said since is inferior and not worth paying any attention to.

People hate science because we all get proven wrong time and again when

we advance theories that are demolished by further observations. That

is why so many people resort to dogma (e. g. DAN!, ) and try to

use some bastardized version of " science " to explain it.

To be scientific, you have to go all the way to ignoring all dogma, and

understanding that no theory is ever proven true (including the theory

that your favorite doctor accurately reports on their results when

patient reports differ) but observations are the only truth we can

know. Any half way measure is still dogma, and simply reduces things

to fashion and fad - a popularity contest rather than a rigorous

technical pursuit of truth.

Andy . . . .. . . . . . .

=======================================================

[Guest guest]

> Andy,

>

> I really don't think that was trying to push just her dogma and

> discount science.

I agree. She was trying to push her dogma a bit and push science a bit.

A mixed message, I just helped clarify it.

>I feel that what she was trying to say was that we do

> need to listen to the anecdotal evidence more than the traditional

> dogmatic medicoreligious system in place does.

Kinda sorta. She was rather biased in wanting the anecdotal evidence

she likes to be listened to, not the anecdotal evidence she doesn't

like. Which is a natural tendency, I simply clarified this and

commented on it.

It is actually quite hard to keep a clear view of what is evidence,

theory, observation, etc. so as to apply scientific principles

properly.

>Now I may be wrong here

> but that is what my perception of the comments were.

>

> Science is something that is discounted by those who " already know

> everything " .

No, they almost always chant that they know science and so everyone

else should take their word for it that whatever politically incorrect

observation was made must not have happened.

That is, the most common use of the word science is in the " Big Lie "

theory wherein people who are taking an antithetical position to what

science says claim to be speaking for it.

> The post I made a few minutes ago was an example of an

> argument I had with someone touting a toxic sludge multivitamin and that

> I was wrong for using science in my disagreement.

This is the " all known facts " bit. People become enamored of what they

choose to see (e. g. the few cures on psychotically inapprorpaite

chelation protocols versus the many brain damaged people who are

ignored) and wish to base their theories on only some portion of the

facts (observations) that they like. This is of course not scientific

since it is putting the theory first.

The confusion comes in with people like who honestly don't have

a clue and get very confused about what is and is not science, so they

rely on their sense of friendship or esthetics in resolving conflicts

between what they want to believe (DAN! doctors are better than mercury

injecting mainstream doc's blindly following protocols that hurt a lot

of people without any thought) as opposed to what observation

demonstrates to be the present scientifically correct theory (DAN!

doctors just follow a different cookbook, the recipes aren't

necessarily better or safer).

> I see this quite

> often when I listen to lectures touting other supplements without and

> real scientific background, just anecdotal material. I think a balance

> of the two is necessary.

This is part of the confusion.

Anecdotes are scientific material. They are nonstatistical (usually, a

few people bother to try to count) observations. Observations are the

only reality in science. However they need to be combined with other

observations which have often been turned into simpler to wrap your

head around theories of pharmacology, kinetics, mechanism, metabolism,

etc. E. g. it is far easier to memorize the Krebs cycle than the

myriad papers and experiments that led to it being understood - the

Krebs cycle is simply a shorthand way to keep those observations in

mind so that new theories can be tested for consistency with them.

It isn't anecdote versus science, it is raw data/observation versus

more well understood observations codified into a theory.

> Real honest to goodness science combined with

> clinical results is what I read into 's comments.

Again, the lack of clarity as to what science is causes much confusion

here. Clincal results are data or observation (to the extent you

personally observed them) or testimony (if reported by the patient or

parent), or hearsay (if reported by the doctor).

The requirement that valid scientific theories account for all known

facts necessitates that these clincal observations (putative facts) be

compared to and considered in light of other observations codified as

theories - what you are calling " science. " Both are science, they are

just memorialized in different ways for intellectual convenience.

I know this sounds really nit picky to most here, but it is crucial to

keep these distinctions in mind in order for scientific habits of

thought to be useful in drawing correct conclusions from anecdotal

evidence and journal papers.

> Mark

>

[Guest guest]

> Note that I said " eg " for JMmd's, thus explicity inviting listmates to

> consider modalitites other than JM's.

If you had a clue what science was, you wouldn't be inviting

consideration of other modalities, but requiring it and taking care to

do it yourself before opining.

Remember, scientific theories must be consistent with ALL OBSERVATIONS,

not just the ones your buddies made, and even if someone is your buddy,

when they tell you what their observations were, those are allegations,

not observations, unless you were there yourself.

> For the last several months, you seem to have been amidst a major

> regression wherein pathology is becoming psychopathology (eg, your

> irrational rant against Owens).

I think this one qualifies as an ad hominem attack, for those

interested in distinguishing between different forms of debate.

Andy . . . . .. . . . . ..