The most uninteresting internet talking points

[Travis Retriever]

And here I thought the Golden Mean Fallacy was actually about the Golden Mean (i.e., ≈1.618), that's been applied to all sorts of things it has nothing to do with (like most of numerology does).

Ha!  Actually, according to Google that's called the "Golden Ratio" Though I have heard it called the golden mean too, I suppose.
I know it's not good form to link to Wikipedia, but:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_mean_fallacy Apparently it has more...appropriate names to distinguish itself from that 1.6 number thingie you mentioned.  And yeah, numerology blows. Such a shame so many in the financial industry are into it.   I hope Harry Browne's investment strategies didn't use that kind of stuff.

[MrBogosity]

Ha!  Actually, according to Google that's called the "Golden Ratio" Though I have heard it called the golden mean too, I suppose.
I know it's not good form to link to Wikipedia, but:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_mean_fallacy Apparently it has more...appropriate names to distinguish itself from that 1.6 number thingie you mentioned.  And yeah, numerology blows. Such a shame so many in the financial industry are into it.   I hope Harry Browne's investment strategies didn't use that kind of stuff.

They were built on the explicit basis of AVOIDING that kind of stuff. Fail Safe Investing goes into it quite a bit, and his Investment radio show attacked it quite a lot.

[Dallas Wildman]

I just read this:

definition of "libertarian": somebody who stopped paying attention in economics classes right before they described what "externalities" are and why they pretty much demolish naive free market ideas.

Definition of statist: somebody who doesn't pay attention to the unintended consequences of public policy.

[Travis Retriever]

I just read this:

Definition of statist: somebody who doesn't pay attention to the unintended consequences of public policy.

>>Externalities
Because war, unintended consequences, and bullshit resulting from a lack of good restitution in our so called 'justice' system is the fault of the free market? Um...what?

Statist:  Someone who can't take 3 seconds to check a fucking dictionary.

[Travis Retriever]

Continuing from those ones:

ORGANIC FOOD IS BETTER FOR HEALTH/ENVIRONMENT!!!1
If we went all organic over 3 billion people would die from starvation caused by shortages.  Also, you're 8x more likely to get e. coli because of the poop they use to fertilize it; which will probably undo any of the alleged health benefits (that I've yet to get evidence for anyways) for the stuff in the first place.  And yeah, because of how inefficient it is, it actually is even worse for the environment.  Deal with it.
And the best part? The people selling this stuff know that it is a scam:  http://academicsreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/AR_Organic-Marketing-Report_Print.pdf  Now stop wasting your money on hippy voodoo bullshit and snake oil and start listening to REAL scientists like the late and great Norman Borlaug whose work saved over a billion lives from starvation via GMOs.  Sorry, folks, but you cannot bash and defame someone who saved over a billion lives and claim the moral and scientific high ground.

GLUTEN FREE FOODS ARE BEST!!!!11
Only if you have Celiac disease and maybe allergies.  If not, you do more harm than good by going gluten free.  Just chill.

ALL NATURAL IS BEST!!111
You say while typing on your blatantly artificial computer.  Also, naturalistic fallacy:  arsenic & copperhead venom are "all natural" but they'll still kill you regardless.

THE FOOD COMPANIES TRY TO KILL US WITH THEIR CHEMICALS!
So they'll get rich by murdering their consumer base?  What possible sense does that make?  Think before you speak.

NUCLEAR IS TERRIBAD! JUST LOOK AT CHERNOBYL FUKUSHIMA AND THREE MILE ISLAND!
Nuclear power--even taking into account all of those things is the safest and cleanest (and one of the most efficient) energy sources we have.  A single perfectly functioning coal plant produces about 50 tons of nuclear/radioactive waste per year.  More than the initial blast at Chernobyl (15 tons), Fukushima (5 tons) and Three Mile Island (zilch) combined.  Also, the other sources of clean power like wind and solar are too inefficient (no 3 phase power) and unreliable (no power on demand) to be of widespread use.  Stop listening to the hippies and go nuclear already.

MEAT IS INEFFICIENT!
I'll quote a bit from Hawkeye on this one:  "Some land is good for raising livestock but not good for growing grain. (try raising grain up in the mountains, doesn't work) livestock eat plants that we can't eat (humans can't eat grass for example) and turn it into something that we can.
It's simple. For most of human history, farming efficiency was literally a matter of life and death. So if farming animals for their meat, milk, eggs, etc were inefficient, there is 100% NO conceivable way we'd have done it for thousands of years. Stop getting your info from hippies who don't know what they're talking about."

And continuing from this post, I have my mom spewing crap about how
"RAW HONEY IS BEST! IF IT'S BEEN HEATED IT LOSES ALL MEDICINAL BENEFITS AND MIGHT AS WELL BE PURE WHITE SUGAR!111"
Jesus, would it kill her to learn how to back up a claim?  Sorry, but "repeat the assertion until everyone caves and runs of energy to keep asking what the hell?" is NOT how you convince me.  It just makes you look like a fucking infant who doesn't know what the fuck its talking about.  STFU.  Either provide evidence or STFU.  I am sick to death of these fucking hippy failure shit-for-brains who couldn't tell a credible source (the Bible doesn't count, nor do your naturopathic leaning sites). Just once I'd like to see one of these shit-for-brains actually know how burden of proof works and see them do this rationally.  Just one! Is that too much to ask?

And yes, she's given similar sentiments on raw milk as well, all while providing exactly bugger all to back it up and denying the risks of it as if it was a evil food company conspiracy.../facepalms

[Travis Retriever]

Liberals/Democrats are the pro-science/rationalist party!
Whenever someone says this, I laugh.  Pro raw food & raw food veganism, anti-nuclear power, anti-GMO, anti-vaxxers, anti-Science Based Medicine, pro-homeopathic/alt med/crystal healing and other hippy woo bullshit, anti-irradiation of our food, thinking meat/sugar/whatever culinary bogeyman is currently in vogue is teh ebil and will kill you dead, anti-economics, and pro-feminism/SJW horseshit...hell, that's just to name the few I can think of off the top of my head.

Posted because I am sick to *death* of hearing that stupid bogus talking point.  Liberals.  You are NOT pro-science.  That hippy voodoo bullshit started with YOU, not us. Own it.

[Travis Retriever]

4) If a doctor really did that, he'd very quickly get a bad reputation and wouldn't have that many patients to pad his pocket with.

5) Even if it *does* happen, that's still an argument against government involvement in medicine.  With the possible exception of finance/banking, medicine/healthcare is the most heavily regulated sector of the entire economy.  So if they are able to do this, government is either helping them get away with it, or at the very least not stopping it. So even if it's true, it's still not an argument in their favor.  I mean, come on, they can't even catch the obvious con artists, like Doctor Oz, or the huge alt medicine scam artists, but they're supposed to be doing good here? Oh, those naive state worshipping infants.

[Travis Retriever]

"Science changes with evidence; that's a feature, not a bug."
Not a bad talking point per se, but I think it misunderstands what the people talking about "science changes its mind" tend to be angry with.  Let me give an example.
When the academic and lay press cry bloody murder about fats (like they did in the "fat free 80s") despite the fact that fats were known to be of different varieties and different levels of benefit/detriment to health at least since the 1950s.  Or when one year we see reports of egg yolk being teh ebil, and another it being the best thing ever.  Crap like this.  When there is no explanation of controls, contexts, who the study is meant to apply to, etc.  THIS is the kind of overselling and "let's lie because it's for a good cause!" bullshit is what irks me, and to ignore this kind of crap is NOT helping your cause, like I said in my reply to Menno Henselmans.  Like I said, it's *not* a bad talking point, but it's still one I'm sick of hearing nonetheless.

Granted, my mom talking about how "scientists lied to her!" when it was discovered that Pluto wasn't really a planet aren't exactly helping my case here. >.<*
It's a shame science eduction (THANKS GOVCO) is such shit.  For example, talking about controls, statistical significance and power, Bayesian inference, how to comb a study for questionable results and bad methodology, how to view the results in context with the overall literature (e.g. how to do a meta-analysis of the studies on the top), how to spot financial bias, to name but a few  But as someone with at least a half decent scientific background here is a big and easy first step:
STOP LISTENING TO THE FUCKING NEWS!  Listening to those overdressed & overpaid meat puppets about science is like getting financial advice from a drug tripping hobo.  You take his advice at your own risk, and the odds are hedged against him being right.

[MrBogosity]

"Science changes with evidence; that's a feature, not a bug."
Not a bad talking point per se, but I think it misunderstands what the people talking about "science changes its mind" tend to be angry with.  Let me give an example.
When the academic and lay press cry bloody murder about fats (like they did in the "fat free 80s") despite the fact that fats were known to be of different varieties and different levels of benefit/detriment to health at least since the 1950s.  Or when one year we see reports of egg yolk being teh ebil, and another it being the best thing ever.  Crap like this.  When there is no explanation of controls, contexts, who the study is meant to apply to, etc.  THIS is the kind of overselling and "let's lie because it's for a good cause!" bullshit is what irks me, and to ignore this kind of crap is NOT helping your cause, like I said in my reply to Menno Henselmans.  Like I said, it's *not* a bad talking point, but it's still one I'm sick of hearing nontheless.

I see your point, but what you're talking about isn't actual science; it's people in the media not understanding the science and just going with whatever they think, which usually ends up agreeing with whatever agenda they were supporting beforehand (and how many times have we seen that?). I mean, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine might say something like, "Meta-study of murine embryos suggests strong correlation between increased milk consumption and osteoperosis in celiac patients," and they jump in with, "ZOMG MILK IZ BAD 4 U!!!!111eleventy-one"

STOP LISTENING TO THE FUCKING NEWS!  Listening to those overdressed & overpaid meat puppets about science is like getting financial advice from a drug tripping hobo.  You take his advice at your own risk, and the bets are hedged him being right.

And yet, they'll count the hits and ignore the misses, and just like Sylvia Browne that'll PROVE that they were right!

[Ibrahim90]

Granted, my mom talking about how "scientists lied to her!" when it was discovered that Pluto wasn't really a planet aren't exactly helping my case here. >.<*

That makes no sense: no one lied to anyone: the definition of a Planet simply changed in such a way that Pluto is no longer considered a planet. It's still there, it hasn't disappeared, it even has more satellites known for it, it just is no longer considered a planet.

besides, scientists owe her nothing. they don't owe it to her to keep saying Pluto is a planet.

[Travis Retriever]

I see your point, but what you're talking about isn't actual science; it's people in the media not understanding the science and just going with whatever they think, which usually ends up agreeing with whatever agenda they were supporting beforehand (and how many times have we seen that?).

Being clueless of people understandably being skeptical of science (like in the strength community) after a lifetime of fear-mongering from doctors and public officials and news media about foods, esp. saturated fat and cholesterol shouldn't surprise anyone, hence the example I picked.  I picked it because, near as I can tell, it also involved the academic press as well as the lay press.  To the folks in academia who pull that shit?  Shame on you.  It's why I like Menno Henselmans, Alan Aragon, Casey Butt, and Armi Legge.  They're not afraid to call bullshit on bogus studies and other nonsense and show what's up.  Hell, Alan Aragon's article on Clean Eating was where I got the example of the fat free 80s.  But yeah, to the all the scientists confused at public skepticism of science--start calling out these bastards who pull that shit and remember your study results in the context of the overall literature.  And really, I always thought this talking point, when from a scientist to be a bold admission of their failure to teach the scientific method to students.  One more reason we need govco out of this fucking education system, and indeed out of public health too.  It's been involved at least since the 1980s and people are now fatter than ever before.

And yeah, in retrospect, it's not *science* so much as shoddy and/or misrepresented research.  Derp.

As for another example, there's the stuff from Menno noting about the only bit where Nutrient timing seems to have any relevance would be CRPT (and maybe getting some protein before a workout as he noted in the comments:
http://bayesianbodybuilding.com/nutrient-timing-endures-circadian-rhythm-protein-timing/
Further discussed in the comments on his site and between him and Big Cat here:  http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=157130393&p=1138757743&viewfull=1#post1138757743
Note the studies and metaanlyasis Menno does in the first post, and how it would seem to contradict the ones presented on dynamicduotraining.com/ask-the-experts-round-table-discussions/18-nutrition-myths-want-know-allow-experts-tell/ by JACOB M. WILSON that I discussed somewhat here: https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=291.msg26575#msg26575
With no attempt to reconsile or explain what's up.  Maybe the studies Jacob presented had a better sample size, better controls, or better design, or maybe they applied to different people? Hell if I know.

I mean, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine might say something like, "Meta-study of murine embryos suggests strong correlation between increased milk consumption and osteoperosis in celiac patients," and they jump in with, "ZOMG MILK IZ BAD 4 U!!!!111eleventy-one"And yet, they'll count the hits and ignore the misses, and just like Sylvia Browne that'll PROVE that they were right!

Oy, reminds me of a bit from cracked.com here: http://www.cracked.com/article_20669_6-ridiculous-science-myths-you-learned-in-kindergarten_p2.html (#1 on that list).
I had to repost Alan Aragon's response to that nonsense here:  http://www.simplyshredded.com/qa-with-nutrition-expert-alan-aragon-milk.html
Also, note how the anti-milk people NEVER say, "and this is why we shouldn't have government funding of milk and other industries as it tends to let them get away with anti-scientific crap like this!" when they talk about political bias?  As usual, what's not said says far more than what is said...

[evensgrey]

That makes no sense: no one lied to anyone: the definition of a Planet simply changed in such a way that Pluto is no longer considered a planet. It's still there, it hasn't disappeared, it even has more satellites known for it, it just is no longer considered a planet.

besides, scientists owe her nothing. they don't owe it to her to keep saying Pluto is a planet.

It wasn't that the definition of 'planet' changed, it was that an actual definition for the term 'planet' was finally developed.  This wasn't really about Pluto at all, but about the fact that we know about far more planets in other star systems than in this one now, so we needed to get ourselves a proper definition of 'planet'.

[MrBogosity]

It wasn't that the definition of 'planet' changed, it was that an actual definition for the term 'planet' was finally developed.  This wasn't really about Pluto at all, but about the fact that we know about far more planets in other star systems than in this one now, so we needed to get ourselves a proper definition of 'planet'.

And because we were faced with adding dozens if not hundreds of plants to the roster if we kept Pluto as a planet.

This has happened before: Ceres was considered a planet until the discovery of other asteroids. Then they figured out that they weren't discovering more planets; they had discovered a new class of objects entirely. Same with Pluto.

Also, a lot of what we knew about Pluto had changed since its discovery. It was once though to be much larger and more massive than it is because of its brightness; now, we know that's because Pluto's surface is very reflective. The better they measured it, Pluto's mass and size got lower and lower. One paper jokingly suggested that at this rate, by the 1980s Pluto will have disappeared entirely!

[AnCap Dave]

With the recent passing of Robin Williams, I'm going to bring up the usual smug douchebags who can't help but shit on everyone else for mourning a celebrity's death.

Usually this kind of thing is followed by "WELL WHY AREN'T YOU MOURNING THE THOUSANDS KILLED IN SOME THIRD WORLD COUNTRY THAT WERE KILLED BY BOMBS (or some other variety of mass killer.)"

I mean, I get it, yeah, those deaths are just as tragic, the simple matter is, human beings tend to show more emotion for people they are actually aware of and have had some kind of effect on their life, even if it's something as small as entertaining them for an hour. I also notice that half the time these people only bring up these other deaths when people mourn celebrity deaths. Stop acting like you're some kind of super humanitarian who cares a lot more than the rest of us when half the time you don't even bring it up unless you're trying to make a point.

[MrBogosity]

With the recent passing of Robin Williams, I'm going to bring up the usual smug douchebags who can't help but shit on everyone else for mourning a celebrity's death.

Usually this kind of thing is followed by "WELL WHY AREN'T YOU MOURNING THE THOUSANDS KILLED IN SOME THIRD WORLD COUNTRY THAT WERE KILLED BY BOMBS (or some other variety of mass killer.)"

I mean, I get it, yeah, those deaths are just as tragic, the simple matter is, human beings tend to show more emotion for people they are actually aware of and have had some kind of effect on their life, even if it's something as small as entertaining them for an hour. I also notice that half the time these people only bring up these other deaths when people mourn celebrity deaths. Stop acting like you're some kind of super humanitarian who cares a lot more than the rest of us when half the time you don't even bring it up unless you're trying to make a point.

Or the ones who shout, "HOW DARE YOU MOURN HIM HE WAS FOR BIG GOVERNMENT!!!" So, we can only mourn people we agree with? Whose views happen to coincide with ours? We're not allowed to miss them for the contributions they made to our lives, because they did other things that you find unsavory? Then we can never mourn any human being, ever. Because NONE of us are perfect.