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Comment by xhkkffbf | Hacker News Reader

I think it's wrong to think of MAHA as "anti-science" because science is all about questioning. Something as important as medicine should be questioned and questioned again and again. Simply dismissing them out-of-hand with such a term is more anti-science than what they're doing.

Now having said that, it's perfectly fair to criticize some of their assumptions and methods. The article, for instance, talks about raw milk. Pasteurization seems like a smart idea to me, but to assert that anyone who drinks raw milk is "anti science" is wrong. They're just approaching science differently.

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Asking questions doesn't mean making policy changes or public health announcements before you have any answers.

It's important to understand that some people use "healthy skepticism" and "I'm just asking questions" as a cover screen to promote their desired policy. That isn't the scientific method.

I hear you and I once cringed at a "believe in science" sign at a liberal protest.

But science is about questions demanding proof and rigor, verification, reproducible results. It's not about blindly saying "Yeah my questioning makes a bunch of unsupported claims equally valid".

>But science is about questions demanding proof and rigor, verification, reproducible results. It's not about blindly saying "Yeah my questioning makes a bunch of unsupported claims equally valid".

Asimov's take[0] on stuff like this is just as relevant as ever:

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” ― Isaac Asimov

Although it seems to concisely describe more and more (and far too much, IMHO) of our public discourse these days. And more's the pity.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/84250-anti-intellectualism-...

Questioning is great, but to generate scientific knowledge, we need a few more steps, roughly speaking:

1. Ask a question 2. Form a hypothesis 3. Experiment to test it 4. Analyze results 5. Draw conclusions 6. Repeat

The MAHA folks essentially disregard this as a valid process for gathering knowledge. They occasionally talk about experiments and studies, but they are selectively chosen to support their conclusions in a posthoc way, ignoring both evidence to the contrary and basic methodological issues. When people describe them as "anti-science," I believe this is the kind of thing they have in mind.

> I think it's wrong to think of MAHA as "anti-science" because science is all about questioning.

There's a lot more to science than just questioning, and the MAHA folks have little interest in questioning their own unfounded beliefs.

Questioning your own beliefs isn't a requirement to science. Just sayin'

You question mine, and I'll question yours completes the cycle but if you don't let me question yours because you already did that, where's the science in that?

It is absolutely a requirement.

How so? Don't get me wrong, I do think it should absolutely be practiced, but where's the requirement?

If, during the scientific process, the evidence disproves your existing beliefs, you are left with a choice between the two.

I see that and I'm not trying to pick a fight but that argument only covers 50%: am I allowed to not question my beliefs when they are held true by my experiments and observations? (Rhetorical)

Beliefs become religion when you have that choice to make and then you should absolutely not publish against your better judgment for any sum of money but work on your belief system. What I'm saying is that it still is not a requirement to science to challenge your beliefs because when you miss or omit that part your experiments and observations are still of scientific nature ergo challenging your beliefs is not a requirement to science [my original claim]. You're free to challenge them down the line with your own experiments and observations for me, giving me a chance to reevaluate my beliefs.

> am I allowed to not question my beliefs when they are held true by my experiments and observations?

You should at least be open to the possibility that further experiments and observations may come down the pipe.

Newtonian physics was great, until we invented better tech to spot things where it breaks down… and thus, Einstein was needed.

An experiment is essentially a way to question ones own beliefs by probing how well they align with reality. There are some theoretical scientists, who don't experiment, but I think they also benefit from counterfactual reasoning to do their work.

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