Shocked by dogma

[digital goldfish]

I've been engaging in a number of conversations on another forum, and have been, for the first time, seriously challenging people's points of view. However, i'm shocked by how ingrained some people's beliefs are. It's impossible to reason with these people. Someone was claiming that there was a large health conspiracy, and that Vitamin B17 cured cancer; claims that are easily refuted. However, they were also making claims against quackwatch, that again, could easily be refuted.

I was told that i was incredibly ignorant and that my support of conventional medicine would ultimately be my demise. Although i have the courage of convictions, i feel slightly shaken by this experience,and find it hard not to let doubt crawl in. I'm satisfied with the research i've done, but it does make me think that it's becoming very much a 'them and us' situation, and regardless of the fact that i represent a rational majority(?), it does sometimes feel like we are being no better than them.

What experiences have people had?

 

[Rolfe]

I really don't think there are as many of these people as you might imagine. They tend to congregate on strange internet forums and give the impression of a big movement, but out there in the real world they're really not that thick on the ground.

Rolfe.

 

[The Don]

Rolfe's right but...

There's an awful lot of people with individual foibles (belief in accupuncture but not homeoepathy; belief in faith healing but not in an overall conspiracy from "big medicine"). I would estimate that the great majority of people I work with (in IT with degrees though not medical ones) believe in homoeopathy and are about 50/50 in terms of MMR and innoculation. There are very few like Rouser2 (what a pleasing couplet)

"We" ARE better than them on the grounds that "our" studies are well executed (in the main) involving protocols which limit the opportunity for the experimenters to tamper with the results. "They" resort to anecdote, selective parsing, bland assertion and misdirection.

Hooray for "Us"

 

[pupdog]

Then you get a very determined minority like the ID-Wedge people, who preach to large audiences of people that may be unable to see that they're being fed horsetwaddle. And these people figure it's okay to present "the other theory" and we get school boards bringing creationism into the classroom. Hey, there's lots of superstitious and gullible people out there, and they vote.

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

It's probably as much a simple human trait as anything else.

Some of the people you mention are grasping at straws and some want the EZ out. Don't do chemo , it hurts your hair falls out , we can help . Just eat 6 grapefruit...bla..bla.

Why do you think that weight watchers and nutritional products are so popular? Because taking a pill of following a weird diet is much easier then watching what you eat and exercising.

Which is more pleasant to believe, that when you die you will go to a Disney world and hang with your long dead father or mother and meet your maker OR you will cease to exist, you are gone forever , your body will rot and you will never see anyone again?
aw , crap /rant off

 

[(S)]

Is Weight Watchers actually non-functional? It seemed kosher to me, being essentially a system for tracking calories and eating less, which is roughly the right idea.

I'll agree that 9 out of 10, or more, diet programs are fluff designed to prey on people's need for a quick fix to their problems, but I'd thought Weight Watchers was one of the working ones.

 

[Yahweh]

What experiences have people had?

2nd Period Physics, I sit next to a guy who has made a few unusual comments about the 2nd Coming of Christ and the Rapture...

I know some people dont like to have their beliefs challenged, so I dont say anything to upset him. He's a normal fella, very much a nice character, I would never fault him for anything, he just has a few idiosyncracies...

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

My ex-wife thought she was the second coming of Christ for about two months. Nothing much surprises me, unless it's that weird and lasts longer than two months.

~~ Paul

 

[Eos of the Eons]

I've been engaging in a number of conversations on another forum, and have been, for the first time, seriously challenging people's points of view. However, i'm shocked by how ingrained some people's beliefs are. It's impossible to reason with these people. Someone was claiming that there was a large health conspiracy, and that Vitamin B17 cured cancer; claims that are easily refuted. However, they were also making claims against quackwatch, that again, could easily be refuted.

I was told that i was incredibly ignorant and that my support of conventional medicine would ultimately be my demise. Although i have the courage of convictions, i feel slightly shaken by this experience,and find it hard not to let doubt crawl in. I'm satisfied with the research i've done, but it does make me think that it's becoming very much a 'them and us' situation, and regardless of the fact that i represent a rational majority(?), it does sometimes feel like we are being no better than them.

What experiences have people had?

Geez, where do I begin? Well, sidestepping most things, I and many others here have had similar experiences.

I tried to jump on the 'natural'/"healthy living" bandwagon until I saw how ridiculous all their little theories were-to the point where their beliefs would lead to more bad than good, and even harm people.

[sarcasm]Of course, I'm the brainwashed gullible 'mainstreamer'. I just follow modern medicine blindly and am too retarded to understand how they are fleecing the rest of the population and killing us all for profit.[/sarcasm]

Yes, they are irrational. They listen to nutballs and quacks and reject common sense.

I don't get it. I never will.

Why do I stand my ground? Because they are so aggressive in their stance, and I feel mowed over if I don't stand firm and trounce the insanity as it tries to bash me in the head.

Refer to my sig. I've been bashed much harder than I have bashed, so I don't care to think we are just as bad as them.

It's not a fight. Just a wall to hold back the ever threatening flood of quackery.

If we don't build a dam, we'll drown. I can't just stand around and watch people I care about get fleeced and conned and lied to. The CAMs are voiceferous and chant the freedom of speech angle. I can just as rightly voice my concerns and the reasons why beliefs aren't more beneficial than facts.

Take homeopath water and 'believe' you will get well from cancer, or take chemo and kill the cancer?

They are the ones claiming that modern medicine is a big lie. We can say why that is not true. They can whine all they want to about how I don't believe them over the fact that chemo does save lives and isn't just a toxin that makes the cancer win all the more.

If you can't stand the heat, then stay out of kitchen. Especially when you are destroying good food by not following recipes because you believe just going by taste is more natural than bothering with all those measuring cups. Measuring is scientific afterall, and science is bad.

My experience has lost me friends. Do I care? No, it's their choice to hate me if I vaccinate my kids and won't help Yurko get out of jail free. I'm not going to pat them on the head and tell them they are right 'just to get along'.

To each their own, but stop hating me because I don't believe there is a god, and I don't believe deoderant causes breast cancer.

I don't hate my friends back. I'd still chum around, but I'm the one that is harming my kids, so I'm a heathen.

Some people are making it "us against them". I just simply won't go along with nonsense just to 'avoid making waves'.

 

[El Greco]

Is Weight Watchers actually non-functional? It seemed kosher to me, being essentially a system for tracking calories and eating less, which is roughly the right idea.

AFAIK there's more to it. Nutrition guidelines couldn't justify the ridiculous prices. There are also machines for "lipolysis", electronic muscle stimulators, massage, several optional "beauty" services etc. Basically the ads I see show a happy, slim woman lying on a machine with some pads on her, reading her favorite magazine and getting even thinner without even sweating.

 

[Prester John]

Its not easy, you are made to feel wrong for trying to bring reality into peoples lives. The problem is their version of reality can and does damage other peoples health. Its easy to get sidetracked, they will often say something along the lines of "all medicine is bad", you reply "no its not", they say "thalidomide, na na na" and procede as if they have won the argument. The sheer variety of lunacies posted means it is hard to know everything and its easy to be caught out by someone with some selective specialist knowledge. Note that its selective, digging around usually finds wholes, but the conversation may have moved on by then.

Perhaps most importantly, the majoritory of forum users lurk, especially the newcommers and unsure ones. These are the people you are really talking to, anyone convinced enough to post on a forum, probably has made their mind up already.

You also learn a lot as well.

PJ

 

[digital goldfish]

I think one of the things that erks me at the moment, and forgive me if this has been discussed elsewhere, but the public perception of science, and the fact that scientists themselves aren't contributing positively. I mean look at the furore with Susan Blackmore, being banned membership from one of the most prestigious sciene institutions, because she's a woman, and has done some controversial research (good research, not even quack research).

I was watching a commercial the other day for some face cream, and the advert said that it was scientifically proven to reduce wrinkles. Then in smaller text at the bottom, it said 'Based on a self study of 50 women over a 3 week period'. Now a) how is that a big enough sample, b) was it randomised, even c) It's defintiely not blind, or placebo controlled, let alone double blind. In fact heck, it's not even objective...!

Why is it that these companies are allowed to invoke science in this way? Don't even get me started ton the MMR debacle.. Dr Wakefield and the collective media should be shot!

 

[Psi Baba]

I really don't think there are as many of these people as you might imagine. They tend to congregate on strange internet forums and give the impression of a big movement, but out there in the real world they're really not that thick on the ground.

Rolfe.

I get the weird feeling that there is someone on a woo-woo board somewhere saying this exact same thing about skeptics.

 

[Rolfe]

I get the weird feeling that there is someone on a woo-woo board somewhere saying this exact same thing about skeptics.

That may very well be true (what they're saying, as well as that they're saying it - if you get my drift).

It doesn't alter the fact that most ordinary people go reasonably confidently to the doctor when they're ill, don't believe that the doctor is trying to murder them (well, now that Shipman is no more, anyway), and don't believe that there is a global conspiracy to suppress all effective treatments for cancer.

I was at a dinner a couple of weeks ago and the woman beside me (she was French, though that may not be relevant) mentioned that her daughter was going to start training in iridology. Everyone at the table denounced it as hopeless delusional quackery, in quite ribald terms. It was quite embarrassing. I was actually surprised that so many people know what it was, but they did. Even the person whose guest the Frenchwoman was, mocked the whole thing in no uncertain terms.

I come across this time and time again. Ordinary people with no known interest in quackery or its exposure have little hesitation in expressing extreme scepticism when it comes to notoriously bogus medical claims.

Rolfe.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Rolfe said:
I was at a dinner a couple of weeks ago and the woman beside me (she was French, though that may not be relevant) mentioned that her daughter was going to start training in iridology. Everyone at the table denounced it as hopeless delusional quackery, in quite ribald terms. It was quite embarrassing. I was actually surprised that so many people know what it was, but they did. Even the person whose guest the Frenchwoman was, mocked the whole thing in no uncertain terms.

And people say we aren't polite!

~~ Paul

 

[Rolfe]

And people say we aren't polite!

Well, most of the company were Scottish.

When the French woman first mentioned iridology (saying something about her daughter believing that the old ways were the best), I tried to change the subject. In fact, I said "I think we'd better not speak about this any more." However, the lady who had brought the French lady asked me straight out if I thought it was bogus, and I had to say yes (well, actually I said, "no, I know it's bogus" - but tried again to change the subject). However, I think the French lady's companion was just waiting for her chance, and support for her opinion, and she pursued it relentlessly, with the rest of the table happily joining in.

Rolfe.

 

[Psi Baba]

Well, most of the company were Scottish.

When the French woman first mentioned iridology (saying something about her daughter believing that the old ways were the best), I tried to change the subject. In fact, I said "I think we'd better not speak about this any more." However, the lady who had brought the French lady asked me straight out if I thought it was bogus, and I had to say yes (well, actually I said, "no, I know it's bogus" - but tried again to change the subject). However, I think the French lady's companion was just waiting for her chance, and support for her opinion, and she pursued it relentlessly, with the rest of the table happily joining in.

That's sounds like it was an interesting dinner party! How did the rest of it go?

 

[El Greco]

That's sounds like it was an interesting dinner party! How did the rest of it go?

You mean before or after the seance ?

 

[Rolfe]

You mean before or after the seance ?

I don't suppose that conversation went on for much more than 15 minutes. There was a singer, and speeches, and in fact I snuck off well before the end because I had quite a long way to go.

I was just struck that the minute any quackery was mentioned, everyone within earshot started to scoff. Whether the French lady went off to tell her daughter to give it up and enrol in physiotherapy instead, though, I couldn't say!

Rolfe.

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

If you want the quintessential take of the various idiosyncrasies of the Americans, British and the French, look at Monty Python's "Meaning of Life". Where death excoriates the Brits and Yanks and Eric Idle does a superb French waiter routine.