Guide to making claims based on experience
Replies
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feed a cold, starve a fever?0
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longtimeterp wrote: »diannethegeek wrote: »I think that science and anecdote can both have a place on these boards. The problem becomes when people confuse one for the other.
yes, or use flawed personal experience as evidence…
Like " i cut all sugar and lost weight; hence, sugar is bad for me and made me gain weight"…no, because you can eat sugar and lose weight …
*shrugs*
if someone experiences something personally, how can it be flawed for them?
It's the mistaking correlation with causation that is the problem. What ends up happening is something like "I switched to diet soda, and got fatter, so clearly the diet soda made me fat".
The person obviously did experience a gain in weight, and did make a correlation to drinking diet soda, but incorrectly attributed the causation of the "getting fat" to "drinking diet soda".
And that made me think of that study that said diet soda leads to weight gain a few years ago, when after reading a little more, i interpreted it as those who drink diet soda are already predisposed to weight gain for other reasons or they wouldn't drink diet soda in the first place, so of course they could be more likely to gain weight, but not necessarily from the diet soda.
Correlation/Causation is always an issue with research and its interpretation. i agree with this 100%
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Well, the big difference between making a "claim" from experience and making a claim from research is that when you say "in my experience," you basically don't need to support your own experience. You are sharing your anecdotal experience.
But when someone says "research shows" then.... they need to back that up.
So, you clearly seem to have not at all understood the point of my OP, which was "if you are going to make a 'research/evidence shows' claim, then back it up properly and don't avoid backing up your claims when someone asks for evidence."-1 -
longtimeterp wrote: »diannethegeek wrote: »I think that science and anecdote can both have a place on these boards. The problem becomes when people confuse one for the other.
yes, or use flawed personal experience as evidence…
Like " i cut all sugar and lost weight; hence, sugar is bad for me and made me gain weight"…no, because you can eat sugar and lose weight …
*shrugs*
if someone experiences something personally, how can it be flawed for them?
Because correlation and causation are often used interchangeably here.0 -
christinev297 wrote: »My eyes glaze over when I get a scientific research link shoved at me.
I'm much more interested in hearing from real life people with real life experiences
it's attitudes like that that make parents not vaccinate their children and listen to Jenny McCarthy instead.0 -
Capt_Apollo wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »My eyes glaze over when I get a scientific research link shoved at me.
I'm much more interested in hearing from real life people with real life experiences
it's attitudes like that that make parents not vaccinate their children and listen to Jenny McCarthy instead.
My blood pressure rises whenever I have to deal with people like this...0 -
Or listen to people like the Food BabeCapt_Apollo wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »My eyes glaze over when I get a scientific research link shoved at me.
I'm much more interested in hearing from real life people with real life experiences
it's attitudes like that that make parents not vaccinate their children and listen to Jenny McCarthy instead.
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longtimeterp wrote: »...and if we all knew the secret none of us would be on this site.
That's exactly backwards - I'm on the site because I know the secret.
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Well, the big difference between making a "claim" from experience and making a claim from research is that when you say "in my experience," you basically don't need to support your own experience. You are sharing your anecdotal experience.
But when someone says "research shows" then.... they need to back that up.
Well, they really don't. You can request they spoon-feed you the info but if someone tells you the titles of five books they read it in, I think the doubter has some responsibility to pursue further reading if interested. And in the meantime, the person who has not researched hasn't really earned the authority to declare the claims are 'false since not proven within this thread with links'.
This isn't a courtroom with burden of proof and there is no right or wrong answer to 'does fasting have health benefits'. Like anything, there is evidence for and against, and it's up to each of us to seek out that evidence and make our own decision.0 -
Capt_Apollo wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »My eyes glaze over when I get a scientific research link shoved at me.
I'm much more interested in hearing from real life people with real life experiences
it's attitudes like that that make parents not vaccinate their children and listen to Jenny McCarthy instead.
I like to have both. I do listen to the research and professionals, but at least on the other (support) forum it is helpful to hear from people what their experience is like.
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WalkingAlong wrote: »Well, the big difference between making a "claim" from experience and making a claim from research is that when you say "in my experience," you basically don't need to support your own experience. You are sharing your anecdotal experience.
But when someone says "research shows" then.... they need to back that up.
Well, they really don't. You can request they spoon-feed you the info but if someone tells you the titles of five books they read it in, I think the doubter has some responsibility to pursue further reading if interested. And in the meantime, the person who has not researched hasn't really earned the authority to declare the claims are 'false since not proven within this thread with links'.
This isn't a courtroom with burden of proof and there is no right or wrong answer to 'does fasting have health benefits'. Like anything, there is evidence for and against, and it's up to each of us to seek out that evidence and make our own decision.
LOL, I think you just need to stop, seriously ….0 -
It is also very important to realize that there are parameters set up for every study and research opportunity that may not be present in the majority of people's lives. Nature itself can prove rather difficult to work with outside of controlled parameters as is what happens when you look at the world's population. Something may look good on paper but has not actual value in practice. I am not saying research is a bad thing, just needs to be taken with consideration it is not the whole picture or will be the same for everyone.0
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WalkingAlong wrote: »Well, the big difference between making a "claim" from experience and making a claim from research is that when you say "in my experience," you basically don't need to support your own experience. You are sharing your anecdotal experience.
But when someone says "research shows" then.... they need to back that up.
Well, they really don't. You can request they spoon-feed you the info but if someone tells you the titles of five books they read it in, I think the doubter has some responsibility to pursue further reading if interested. And in the meantime, the person who has not researched hasn't really earned the authority to declare the claims are 'false since not proven within this thread with links'.
This isn't a courtroom with burden of proof and there is no right or wrong answer to 'does fasting have health benefits'. Like anything, there is evidence for and against, and it's up to each of us to seek out that evidence and make our own decision.
LOL, I think you just need to stop, seriously ….
Ikr. As a researcher/professor I feel that WA should know better. if you want to say that "research shows that eating chocolate gives you brain cancer" then go ahead, just provide the research. And if you are aware of contradictory research ,then you should also share it.
So if it's my responsibility to look for further reading, does that also mean that when I write my papers I can just say "yeah so prof, google it"? Different setting, yes, but in both situations I am making a claim based on research and it literally takes a few minutes to find the specific evidence that I am making my claim on. You don't even need to do anything toher than post the link, others can read it and look through its validity and generalizability and methods etc for themselves.-1 -
Well of course it's not "the whole picture." All research speaks of generalizations. Pretty sure everyone can think of that ONE person who defies the findings of a study, e.g. in cross cultural research there is a buttload of evidence that interdependent (i.e. east asian) and independent (i.e north america) cultures view things differently, such that EA are likely to refer to the entire context whereas NA focus on the central object. But of course, you can find that one Canadian who views things like a Chinese person does, or a Chinese person who has more independent methods of viewing the world. But in general, most people from these cultures will wind up demonstrating the findings.Etherlily1 wrote: »It is also very important to realize that there are parameters set up for every study and research opportunity that may not be present in the majority of people's lives. Nature itself can prove rather difficult to work with outside of controlled parameters as is what happens when you look at the world's population. Something may look good on paper but has not actual value in practice. I am not saying research is a bad thing, just needs to be taken with consideration it is not the whole picture or will be the same for everyone.
*Nisbett, R. E., & Masuda, T. (2003). Culture and point of view. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 100, 11163-11175.
2. *Masuda, T. & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically vs. analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 922-934.
3. 2. *Chua, H. F., Boland, J. E., & Nisbett, R. E. (2005). Cultural Variation in eye-movements during scene perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102, 12629-12633.
*Masuda, T., Russell, M. J., Chen, Y. Y., Hioki, K., Caplan, J. B. (2014). N400 incongruity effect in an episodic memory task reveals different strategies for handling irrelevant contextual information for Japanese than European Canadians. Cognitive Neuroscience, 5, 15-25.
*Masuda, T., Wang, H., Ishii, K., & Ito, K. (2012). Do surrounding figures’ emotions affect the judgment of target figure’s emotion?: Comparing the patterns of eye-movement between European-Canadians, Asian-Canadians, Asian International Students, and Japanese. Frontier in Integrative Neuroscience, 6:72. doi: 10.3389/fnint.2012.00072.
*Imada, T., Carlson, S. M., & Itakura, S. (2013). East-West cultural differences in context-sensitivity are evident in early childhood. Developmental Science, 16, 198-208.
(the papers btw are all pretty interesting, I have been reading them for my cultural psychology methods class)
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longtimeterp wrote: »diannethegeek wrote: »I think that science and anecdote can both have a place on these boards. The problem becomes when people confuse one for the other.
yes, or use flawed personal experience as evidence…
Like " i cut all sugar and lost weight; hence, sugar is bad for me and made me gain weight"…no, because you can eat sugar and lose weight …
*shrugs*
if someone experiences something personally, how can it be flawed for them?
Really? For ages I always drove a blue truck and was overweight, but when I got a new white one I had no problem losing weight. True story.
Conclusion, blue vehicles are worse for weight loss.0 -
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longtimeterp wrote: »diannethegeek wrote: »I think that science and anecdote can both have a place on these boards. The problem becomes when people confuse one for the other.
yes, or use flawed personal experience as evidence…
Like " i cut all sugar and lost weight; hence, sugar is bad for me and made me gain weight"…no, because you can eat sugar and lose weight …
*shrugs*
if someone experiences something personally, how can it be flawed for them?
Really? For ages I always drove a blue truck and was overweight, but when I got a new white one I had no problem losing weight. True story.
Conclusion, blue vehicles are worse for weight loss.
Hmmm...i don't think i've ever owned a blue vehicle, and i've lost weight too..,And i've never owned a white one so i can't comment to their benefits with weight loss...but i have lost weight when i've owned red and black ones, which further supports your claim...
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Capt_Apollo wrote: »christinev297 wrote: »My eyes glaze over when I get a scientific research link shoved at me.
I'm much more interested in hearing from real life people with real life experiences
it's attitudes like that that make parents not vaccinate their children and listen to Jenny McCarthy instead.
but, but, thimerosal and mercury!
Funny thing that Jenny McCarthy, she found it was hurting her brand, and she stepped away from the anti-vaxxing message.0 -
WalkingAlong wrote: »Well, the big difference between making a "claim" from experience and making a claim from research is that when you say "in my experience," you basically don't need to support your own experience. You are sharing your anecdotal experience.
But when someone says "research shows" then.... they need to back that up.
Well, they really don't. You can request they spoon-feed you the info but if someone tells you the titles of five books they read it in, I think the doubter has some responsibility to pursue further reading if interested. And in the meantime, the person who has not researched hasn't really earned the authority to declare the claims are 'false since not proven within this thread with links'.
This isn't a courtroom with burden of proof and there is no right or wrong answer to 'does fasting have health benefits'. Like anything, there is evidence for and against, and it's up to each of us to seek out that evidence and make our own decision.
You two should just break up.
At the end of the day, support or be ignored.0 -
I'm going to follow that advice. The ignore function is gone but I'm going to do my best to bite my tongue.
Though it's going to be hard to not ask some here to cite their sources for the next month.0
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