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Comment by Ididntdothis | Hacker News Reader

I think people feel the need to add a scientific explanation to things where in my view the pure observation that it seems to work would be enough already. It reminds me a little of Semmelweiss who observed that washing hands reduces infection rates but was ridiculed because he couldn’t explain it.

When I meditate or fast from time to time I can observe that it makes me feel better and I don’t really feel the importance for someone to explain it.

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>I think people feel the need to add a scientific explanation to things where in my view the pure observation that it seems to work would be enough already.

I really could not disagree more, given how much conflicting health information I see talked about seemingly daily.

Agreed. But if you try something and it shows benefits then you don’t necessarily need an explanation. For example exercise and mediation done regularly make me feel better but I don’t really care if it’s endorphins, hormones or any other mechanism that causes this.

For now. But what if it stops working? What if someone else wants the benefit but can't do the same things? What if there are other undesirable consequences that you'd like to avoid? Knowing how something works is generally much more valuable than knowing that it works in the long term.

Sure. It’s good to have people trying to understand things but while they are findings explanations we can take advantage of the benefits already and don’t have to wait. I am thinking the same about placebo effects. As long as it works let’s use it and in parallel make an effort to understand the mechanism.

Pure observation comes from your own experience, not from reading others'.

One way to look at it is that health tips are subjective: they may be useful depending on the person and their lifestyle.

Another way to look at it is that, if we try hard enough, science will offer explanations that take into account all of these differences. But it might be really hard, like multi-billion dollar studies to reach basic conclusions.

>I think people feel the need to add a scientific explanation to things where in my view the pure observation that it seems to work would be enough already.

Thank you, I could not agree with this more.

Observation is the basis of science and yet many still need to be passively hand fed how to live and need constant validation from a constantly changing dynamic field where "experts" get fame, power, and attention for their true gospel [1]

Even after I graduated with a science degree and went onto healthcare, my mother would still lovingly remind me, "Son, you may have book smarts, but you need more common sense" :-)

[1] http://nautil.us/issue/74/networks/the-flawed-reasoning-behi...

If you want to make subjective observations like "fasting makes me feel more alert" that is completely fine by me. I fully agree that it's possible to observe positive changes like this without knowing why the change is happening.

However if you make a specific scientific claim about cell "cleansing" then you need to be able to back it up with evidence; without evidence, such claims are just nonsense. There is no "subjective observation" of what cells are doing.

... and when he tried to explain it, he was wrong, in ways any attentive observer could work out.

We should separate observation from explanation. There are plenty of valuable observations made by people and these observations should stand on their own without the observer also having to explain it.

This is something I've noticed as well. As both a client and as an IT troubleshooter, I try to be keenly aware of this distinction. When I'm at the doctor's office, I relay what I've observed, and try to refrain from any speculation of the cause. Likewise, when asked to fix a problem, I try to ignore the explanation the client is offering and focus solely on the observation.

I think it's very easy to get hung up on refuting or confirming the observer's explanation and ignore the observation. For as much as observations are worth, if someone says they saw a strange animal, I might believe them, if they said they saw Bigfoot, I wouldn't, but that's a very good moment to ask questions.

...and lives were lost because people couldn't accept a correct procedure with an incorrect explanation.

(Would you only take a cancer drug if the oncologist can explain exactly how it works?)

Off topic, but this is seemingly everything in management. So often, "Doing what feels right" can really pay off from a team/individual happiness POV. But, there is no "methodology" that could justify what I need to have a conversation with someone.

Someone once told me the benefit of management theories is that they motivate people to take action, try things, and think.

Or they have to come up with some bullshit metric that justifies things.

How do you differentiate a correct procedure with an incorrect explanation from an incorrect procedure?

It works.

Let’s simplify the question. How do you differentiate an correct procedure from an incorrect procedure? The correct procedure can be observed to work.

The correct procedure has been observed to work, but not everything that is observed to work is correct. This is particularly true when "correct" still comes with a probability of failure in specific cases.

Explanations need to be tested to verify they are correct. Incorrect explanations delivered authoritatively lead to bad extrapolations, which in turn lead to incorrect procedures. So, if something has been observed to work but an explanation has not been verified, the proper response at the practitioner level is "This tends to work, but we aren't sure why".

> The correct procedure has been observed to work, but not everything that is observed to work is correct.

Procedures are neither correct nor incorrect but rather effective or ineffective. Whether the explanation is correct or incorrect is irrelevant if the procedure is effective. Of course we would prefer to have both the effective procedure and the correct explanation but if we insist on only applying procedures with correct explanations we are not doing the best we can.

So, I would extend the proper response to, "This tends to work, we don't know why, but you should try it."

Maxwell's laws continue to work just fine despite Maxwell's explanations for them being complete hookum. If an observation is insufficiently precise the lack of explanation can be a problem. But high quality observation is useful regardless of the explanation for it.

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