There is no such thing as a scientific 'proof'

[Brunneria]

Hi,

We have had a couple of threads recently in which some members have been arguing that certain scientific theories are rock solid and PROVE that their argument is RIGHT and that other people are WRONG.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of both science, and proof (and how to try and persuade other people around to your point of view).

With our current capacity to measure, investigate and analyse the universe around us, the belief in a scientific 'proof' is simply not certain.

Here are a few things which explain things better than I ever could.

Here is Einstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_evidence#Concept_of_scientific_proof:
The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an inexorable and not very friendly judge of his work. It never says "Yes" to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says "Maybe", and in the great majority of cases simply "No". If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter "Maybe", and if it does not agree it means "No". Probably every theory will someday experience its "No" - most theories, soon after conception.

and some other links:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/11/22/scientific-proof-is-a-myth/#344677a22fb1

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/...sconceptions-about-science-i-scientific-proof

So why start this thread? And what relevance to Diabetes?

Well, salt dissolves in water, doesn't it? Every school child KNOWS that.
- except when it doesn't (when the water is already saturated with salt, or when water is very low temperature solid ice, or in some strange circumstance in another corner of the universe, where different factors are present)

And insulin lowers blood glucose, doesn't it?
- well, except where blood glucose is rising faster than the insulin can lower it, or when there is sufficient insulin resistance to prevent the insulin lowering that blood glucose, or when the insulin is out of date or rendered inactive by heat...

And calories are a universal unit of energy
- please define 'universal'... and appreciate the different factors in play when assessing the difference between combusting foods in a lab, and the human body's myriad different processes may not result in that 'universal unit' having a consistent effect on the body.

And so on...

Anyway, this is basically a plea for people to stop arguing in absolutes, and to open their mind to the possibility that the FACTS that they hold so close to their hearts may work well as current working theories allowing for the specific circumstances in which the experiment was conducted, but they ain't by any stretch of the imagination universal PROOFS.

 

[ickihun]

Medicine is science. Always has been.

 

[copilost]

Medicine is science. Always has been

oh that's a whole other debate, you really wouldn't want to get me started on that

 

[Muneeb]

Hi,

We have had a couple of threads recently in which some members have been arguing that certain scientific theories are rock solid and PROVE that their argument is RIGHT and that other people are WRONG.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of both science, and proof (and how to try and persuade other people around to your point of view).

With our current capacity to measure, investigate and analyse the universe around us, the belief in a scientific 'proof' is simply not certain.

Here are a few things which explain things better than I ever could.

Here is Einstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_evidence#Concept_of_scientific_proof:
The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an inexorable and not very friendly judge of his work. It never says "Yes" to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says "Maybe", and in the great majority of cases simply "No". If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter "Maybe", and if it does not agree it means "No". Probably every theory will someday experience its "No" - most theories, soon after conception.

and some other links:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/11/22/scientific-proof-is-a-myth/#344677a22fb1

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/...sconceptions-about-science-i-scientific-proof

So why start this thread? And what relevance to Diabetes?

Well, salt dissolves in water, doesn't it? Every school child KNOWS that.
- except when it doesn't (when the water is already saturated with salt, or when water is very low temperature solid ice, or in some strange circumstance in another corner of the universe, where different factors are present)

And insulin lowers blood glucose, doesn't it?
- well, except where blood glucose is rising faster than the insulin can lower it, or when there is sufficient insulin resistance to prevent the insulin lowering that blood glucose, or when the insulin is out of date or rendered inactive by heat...

And calories are a universal unit of energy
- please define 'universal'... and appreciate the different factors in play when assessing the difference between combusting foods in a lab, and the human body's myriad different processes may not result in that 'universal unit' having a consistent effect on the body.

And so on...

Anyway, this is basically a plea for people to stop arguing in absolutes, and to open their mind to the possibility that the FACTS that they hold so close to their hearts may work well as current working theories allowing for the specific circumstances in which the experiment was conducted, but they ain't by any stretch of the imagination universal PROOFS.

I agree with some points, yes science in itself is not proof, but its theories or hypothesis backed up by some form of evidence, which outweighs the contrary. This stands until there is sufficient evidence to say otherwise.

In regards to some of the evidences:
Water does dissolve in water, until point of saturation. The fact it doesn't after that point is a separate discussion, That's a thermodynamics law, and theoretically at that saturation point you can dissolve more water by further increasing the temperature of the fluid.

The insulin point - it does lower BS, the fact it may be slower than the rise, doesn't mean it is not lowering levels, its just not doing it in relation to what the rise is.

A calorie is a universal unit of energy, it releases x amount of energy per y amount of material. How the body deals with that or copes with it may be different, but that doesn't change the energy content of the material.

But I do agree, nothing is certain, because we live in uncertainty and correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation. But we have to base our thoughts and ideas on what is the most probable cause/effect.

 

[bulkbiker]

A calorie is a universal unit of energy,

100% correct but that is all it is..
We after all eat food and not "calories" and different foods would appear to have drastically different impacts on our bodies when we ingest them.
Thus when people say a "calorie is a calorie" we should all agree but make sure that is qualified with "but I don't eat calories I eat food".

 

[Brunneria]

I agree with some points, yes science in itself is not proof, but its theories or hypothesis backed up by some form of evidence, which outweighs the contrary. This stands until there is sufficient evidence to say otherwise.

In regards to some of the evidences:
Water does dissolve in water, until point of saturation. The fact it doesn't after that point is a separate discussion, That's a thermodynamics law, and theoretically at that saturation point you can dissolve more water by further increasing the temperature of the fluid.

The insulin point - it does lower BS, the fact it may be slower than the rise, doesn't mean it is not lowering levels, its just not doing it in relation to what the rise is.

A calorie is a universal unit of energy, it releases x amount of energy per y amount of material. How the body deals with that or copes with it may be different, but that doesn't change the energy content of the material.

But I do agree, nothing is certain, because we live in uncertainty and correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation. But we have to base our thoughts and ideas on what is the most probable cause/effect.

Thank you for commenting Muneeb.
Your post is a perfect example of what else has been happening so often on the forum.
Instead of posting 'yeah, I take your point, and mainly agree, and it is worth bearing this in mind' you do a point by point dissection while still agreeing with me.

Basically, instead of looking at the subject, and the intention of my post, you focused down on the minutiae and nit-picked.

If I had been feeling prickly, I could easily have responded with a niggle about what you had written, and this thread could have been derailed, and sent into a bickering disagreement.

However, I won't be doing that.
Instead I will smile and say 'Thank you Muneeb, I am glad that we (broadly speaking) agree, and hope that you and others find this thread useful to bear in mind when discussing ideas both on and off the forum'

 

[ickihun]

Common sense however is a different ball game.
Surgeons use more anotomy facts but you ask any surgeon even they get surprises.
Mine found no old adhesions from an old operation. My scar is huge but to my delight no effect to my inners. A miracle some would claim. Some very clever surgery and some not the right way to see/discover the effects.
We are all scientists and some let their beliefs muddy the waters.
Ultimately you know your body better than most and we are all human tissue trying to mentally accept, fight and change any negative effects on it.
Alone, with friends, with family or sometimes with complete strangers.
We are all searching for the best we can be. Some need little effort but some need huge or exceptional effort to convince our body to receded it's negative effect.

I say "I wish everyone the best of luck in their own personal task or tasks to turn any negative into a positive".

And remember happiness is a state of mind. Not mechanical but science.

 

[Muneeb]

100% correct but that is all it is..
We after all eat food and not "calories" and different foods would appear to have drastically different impacts on our bodies when we ingest them.
Thus when people say a "calorie is a calorie" we should all agree but make sure that is qualified with "but I don't eat calories I eat food".

I agree, as eating 100 calories of salmon is not the same as 100 calories of chocolate. It is processed differently by our bodies.

 

[Muneeb]

Thank you for commenting Muneeb.
Your post is a perfect example of what else has been happening so often on the forum.
Instead of posting 'yeah, I take your point, and mainly agree, and it is worth bearing this in mind' you do a point by point dissection while still agreeing with me.

Basically, instead of looking at the subject, and the intention of my post, you focused down on the minutiae and nit-picked.

If I had been feeling prickly, I could easily have responded with a niggle about what you had written, and this thread could have been derailed, and sent into a bickering disagreement.

However, I won't be doing that.
Instead I will smile and say 'Thank you Muneeb, I am glad that we (broadly speaking) agree, and hope that you and others find this thread useful to bear in mind when discussing ideas both on and off the forum'

I agree with your principle not so much the content, but discussions like this happen for exactly that reason. People say something, which isn't true or backed up by the most probable cause/effect. Then other people base their decisions on this, and that is dangerous path to follow. We have to make decisions based on what we know to be most probable as of now, its no good saying its all different and neglecting what we know.

But feel free to dissect, what I have put. That's how we learn and evolve.

And to add to this, - I didn't mean to cause any offence to you, if taken.

 

[Brunneria]

But feel free to dissect, what I have put.

No thank you, that would be a derailment of this thread, and we have had far too many of those lately.

 

[ickihun]

Anyone finding the heat making us more susceptible to expressing over emotion?

See, we are all different.

Emotion is part of being human..... and that is why I feel more attached to this forum more than most.
It's jam packed with it.

I wouldn't like this forum a carbon copy of another.
This is why this forum is so successful. We care.

 

[ert]

In terms of diabetes, it's important to acknowledge response variability. Over time, I eat the same food and get wildly different results on my glucometer - the variability in my own system is immense, let alone trying to compare my results to others. My biggest frustration, when I started all of this was trying to obtain repeatable results. Now I just look for trends.

 

[Tophat1900]

Personally, I don't have a problem with robust debate. Disagreement is a part of that, just as agreement is. It's a part of learning imo. And I'd hope that continues.

The problem as I see it is posts that no longer focus on the subject and become insulting to others, this often happens when someone's position on a subject falls apart. Fact is, no one knows everything. That's just how it is.

This forum has always been great for information and viewing other people's own experiences.

 

[mike@work]

I agree

A calorie is a calorie as long as we talk physics.
A "processed" in your body calorie, is a calorie that we don't have any fully covering universal theory for yet, as far as I see it...

Edited to add: scientific proof - naah, we build models that seem to correspond to our surroundings.

 

[LooperCat]

A calorie is a calorie as long as we talk physics.

And bodies don't work in straight lines...

 

[mike@work]

And bodies don't work in straight lines...

And that statement in itself is full of possibilities, so...fully agree with what you probably mean

 

[Redshank]

Science is a process, not a body of facts. Ideas change over time. Some universal certainties are later shown to be wrong.
I have a theory
"All theories are wrong, but the best ones are useful"

 

[Mbaker]

What we "know" is very dangerous, take the eggs debacle, one minute it is good for you the next.....I listen to a lot of debates where the phrase "we know" is used, this drives me nuts when "they" say this. This is just junk science and or propaganda. We know what should be the best human biomechanical running motions, would anyone care to tell Michael Johnson that his upright posture and chopping running motion was wrong when he smashed both 200 and 400 metres, and let's not even go there with Usain Bolt.

From what we "know" I should be deceased, have Keto crotch, atribular fibrillation, extreme fat mass, cancer, higher blood pressure, rampant heart disease, worse diabetes etc. All complete rubbish, yet I can find article after article, and stacks of videos quoting the science. If mine and others condition is chronic and progressive, could someone tell our bodies, or if the only way to reverse has to be low calorie or plant based, again someone needs to explain why meat based works also.

Even when sources of scientific nonsense can see case after case before their very eyes, pictures, blood panels years on a protocol, repeated and repeated 100,000's times over, they would still not even flinch or acknowledge another way, as witnessed in a debate I saw between Dr Eric Westman and Dr Colin Campbell (one acknowledged another way can work, the other didn't despite there being clinical evidence).

@WuTwo kindly posted details of her husbands diet and lifestyle which enables non-diabetic HbA1c levels; although this is different to mine,I could understand exactly why this would work for some, even though it was devoid of meat. We have got to learn to accept that there are multiple roots to thriving which can be tuned to the individual.

I believe 1 add 1 is scientific as it is absolute in our earthly context. The science on soil quality I do not think is settled in the same manner. I will never just accept anything a human being says again health wise, e.g. do we need fibre, vitamin C etc; science is only relevant contextually and I believe especially in mathematics, physics and possible chemistry as you can repeat whatever experiment and will get the same result if the known variables remain consistent....but the caution is even for this, if you repeat the same experiment at altitude, or underwater or space then the absolute results will be different, as shown by the impact the heat had on trains yesterday.

 

[Muneeb]

What we "know" is very dangerous, take the eggs debacle, one minute it is good for you the next.....I listen to a lot of debates where the phrase "we know" is used, this drives me nuts when "they" say this. This is just junk science and or propaganda. We know what should be the best human biomechanical running motions, would anyone care to tell Michael Johnson that his upright posture and chopping running motion was wrong when he smashed both 200 and 400 metres, and let's not even go there with Usain Bolt.

From what we "know" I should be deceased, have Keto crotch, atribular fibrillation, extreme fat mass, cancer, higher blood pressure, rampant heart disease, worse diabetes etc. All complete rubbish, yet I can find article after article, and stacks of videos quoting the science. If mine and others condition is chronic and progressive, could someone tell our bodies, or if the only way to reverse has to be low calorie or plant based, again someone needs to explain why meat based works also.

Even when sources of scientific nonsense can see case after case before their very eyes, pictures, blood panels years on a protocol, repeated and repeated 100,000's times over, they would still not even flinch or acknowledge another way, as witnessed in a debate I saw between Dr Eric Westman and Dr Colin Campbell (one acknowledged another way can work, the other didn't despite there being clinical evidence).

@WuTwo kindly posted details of her husbands diet and lifestyle which enables non-diabetic HbA1c levels; although this is different to mine,I could understand exactly why this would work for some, even though it was devoid of meat. We have got to learn to accept that there are multiple roots to thriving which can be tuned to the individual.

I believe 1 add 1 is scientific as it is absolute in our earthly context. The science on soil quality I do not think is settled in the same manner. I will never just accept anything a human being says again health wise, e.g. do we need fibre, vitamin C etc; science is only relevant contextually and I believe especially in mathematics, physics and possible chemistry as you can repeat whatever experiment and will get the same result if the known variables remain consistent....but the caution is even for this, if you repeat the same experiment at altitude, or underwater or space then the absolute results will be different, as shown by the impact the heat had on trains yesterday.

What is your suggestion, on what is beneficial and what is not? And how we distinguish between them?

 

[Juicyj]

Anyway, this is basically a plea for people to stop arguing in absolutes, and to open their mind to the possibility that the FACTS that they hold so close to their hearts may work well as current working theories allowing for the specific circumstances in which the experiment was conducted, but they ain't by any stretch of the imagination universal PROOFS.

My scientific calculation for the day..

Open minds + open hearts = a happier forum