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Comment by Asparagirl | Hacker News Reader

Forget the part about chugging olive oil, how about that entire sub-category of his blog dedicated to the belief that pre-natal ultrasounds somehow cause autism? Or the hand-waving away the multiple studies that show that GFCF diets have no proven positive effect on autism symptoms? Or using the word "cure" offhand, based on an n=1 self-report of another diet?

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I don't even care about the weight loss and cardiac shit, I think I've seen enough here.

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The incidence of miscalibrated/misoperated ultrasound is high enough that people should hesitate to perform frivolous scans, even though it's probably safe enough when done properly. Cause autism? Doubtful. Cause damage? Sure. Why not be careful?

Seth did report a lot of N=very-small anecdotes uncritically. You might say he was encouraging people to do their own N=1.

It's common for innovators to be mocked for their unconventional ideas.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Galileo_gambit

"They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." - Carl Sagan

It's not "innovation" if it's just crap you spew on a blog.

Double-blind peer-reviewed replicable studies or GTFO.

Yep, those double blind peer-reviewed studies sure worked out for the Wright Brothers.

You appear to be confused as to the difference between science and engineering.

You seem to be confused about the point I'm making, about innovation through self-experimentation.

No, you're still not grasping the difference between those situations. Double-blind trials are required in situations where the results are subtle enough to be colored by personal expectations and biases. Large-scale trials are required when reasonably different conditions (e.g., different human test subjects) could produce radically different results, when it's impossible to tell whether a single test subject is an average or an outlier.

Neither of these conditions apply to the question "Can this airplane fly or not?" There is no subtlety there, no biochemical variations. The plane either flies or it doesn't, and either result is perfectly clear to even the most ignorant layman.

As for peer review, the Wright Brothers had plenty of it: their peers showed up, looked at the plane in flight, and said "Yep, uh-huh, that's flying all right."

Oh tell us please, wise one. About the difference.

"calories without smell cause weight loss"

I knew it would be a laugh and a half after that.

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