How do you know what you think you know?

Acg67
Acg67 Posts: 12,142 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
This is a serious question.

Many people swear that X supplement works, that skipping breakfast made them fat, that X food is the debbil and has all sorts of deleterious effects etc etc.

But how do you really know that? Using personal experiences (post hoc fallacies)? You heard it from Dr Oz (appeal to authority)? You googled it and found evidence to support your original thought on the matter (confirmation bias)? Or did you do actual objective research leading you to your current opinion on the matter? I'm guessing not too many are falling into the latter category.

So before all the bold proclamations that something works or should be avoided, try doing a little objective research my special snowflake friends, you might be surprised that what you think you know, is just a bunch of nonsense
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Replies

  • silvergurl518
    silvergurl518 Posts: 4,123 Member
    :huh:
  • FoxyMcDeadlift
    FoxyMcDeadlift Posts: 771 Member
    I DONT WANT TO THINK
  • DixiedoesMFP
    DixiedoesMFP Posts: 935 Member
    I just think what other people tell me to think.
  • LindseyAlyssa
    LindseyAlyssa Posts: 156
    But if I stray from our shepherds, the wolves might get me!
    ;)
  • WhoTheHellIsBen
    WhoTheHellIsBen Posts: 1,238 Member
    Dr. Oz told me.....duh
  • natesangel
    natesangel Posts: 210 Member
    my fitness pal elite told me so it had to be true!
  • pastryari
    pastryari Posts: 8,646 Member
    Relevant: http://shelf3d.com/AduH3WIdq8g#State Farms commercial 2012 "On the internet" (french model)
  • taso42
    taso42 Posts: 8,980 Member
    I was quite drawn to epistemology in college.
  • myofibril
    myofibril Posts: 4,500 Member
    http://www.myosynthesis.com/cliques-certainties
  • chimp517
    chimp517 Posts: 185 Member
    I know that rest days make you weak because people on here told me so.
  • SVCat
    SVCat Posts: 1,483 Member
    I know what I know by trial and error during these past five years. I took a simple plan and have tweaked it to where I know what works for my body and what best sustains it. I may not be where I want to be, but i know what is most effective for me.
  • sewerchick93
    sewerchick93 Posts: 1,438 Member
    for starters, I don't THINK I know anything, I KNOW what I know because I am an omniscient being
  • CorvusCorax77
    CorvusCorax77 Posts: 2,536 Member
    well. i guess i will try anything that doesn't sound too outrageous, and whatever works is worth sharing.

    i also like to use those critical thinking skills, and my background in science, to make some educated guesses about what's worth trying.

    ETA: this answer only applies to MFP related discussions.
  • katrwal
    katrwal Posts: 336 Member
    me - i'm a huge fan of the "debbil" :drinker:

    and i am not a special snowflake. i simply blindly follow whatever pearls of wisdom that drip from OP's...


    mouth.

    yeah, mouth. :tongue:
  • UsedToBeHusky
    UsedToBeHusky Posts: 15,228 Member
    :heart: :love:

    You know... brains AND abs makes you trouble, you know that right?
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    I heard it from a Beachbody coach. I mean, hey, they're "coaches" so they gotta know their stuff, right?????









    :bigsmile:
  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
    I just ask around at the gym. Those guys seem to know what they're talking about.
  • Richie2shoes
    Richie2shoes Posts: 411 Member
    I know that I know what works for me. The rest of you are on your own!
  • Muddy_Yogi
    Muddy_Yogi Posts: 1,459 Member
    Wait what? Not everything on the internet is true! WHAT THE !!!!!!!!!!!
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    I just ask around at the gym. Those guys seem to know what they're talking about.
    Especially if they can fit "Zyzz" and "dat dere CellTech" into the same sentence. :tongue:
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
    Many things for me. 30+ years working in healthcare, personal experience, research (personal and professional), reading a lot of medical and nutrition journals, along with a little common sense led me to believe most of what I currently believe. A close relative who is the proverbial special snowflake taught me to temper what I thought I knew.

    When it comes to nutrition, what I believe to be true today is not what I have always believed. And it may well not be what I always believe. There is still so much to be learned. Sometimes I think the only thing I really 'know' is that, since I am still healthy, I haven't totally got it wrong.
  • UsedToBeHusky
    UsedToBeHusky Posts: 15,228 Member
    Wait what? Not everything on the internet is true! WHAT THE !!!!!!!!!!!

    Bon jour!
  • JUDDDing
    JUDDDing Posts: 1,367 Member
    I'm guessing not too many are falling into the latter category.

    It is interesting that people who are so cautious about the quality of what they put into their bodies are often so cavalier about the quality of the information that they put into their minds.
  • UsedToBeHusky
    UsedToBeHusky Posts: 15,228 Member
    I'm guessing not too many are falling into the latter category.

    It is interesting that people who are so cautious about the quality of what they put into their bodies are often so cavalier about the quality of the information that they put into their minds.

    :heart: :heart: :drinker:
  • CorvusCorax77
    CorvusCorax77 Posts: 2,536 Member
    dare i go where I always want to go???

    yes!

    I must!

    "What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are...."


    could not help myself.

    ETA: this applies to everything else.
  • NotRailMeat
    NotRailMeat Posts: 509 Member
    I follow whatever the chicken bones and ouija board tell me too.
  • rm7161
    rm7161 Posts: 505
    Or did you do actual objective research leading you to your current opinion on the matter? I'm guessing not too many are falling into the latter category.

    Me either, because most people are incapable of doing it, no lab facilities or training.

    Google is just as effective used as a search tool trying to find evidence to disprove your original thought on a subject.

    As for me, I know I'm a celiac, the biopsy and blood tests made sure of that, and thus anything wheat or related to it is something I personally cannot consume. I don't think it's evil however, and if there is another treatment aside a gluten free diet, I would certainly take it.

    There would be a fallacy if I extrapolated that issue to include everyone else, because it clearly doesn't affect everyone, not even everyone who has the genetic capacity to get the disease but hasn't got it.
  • brokenjawedmuse
    brokenjawedmuse Posts: 132
    I don't really "listen" to people here. If something sounds reasonable, I test it out. If my body doesn't like it, then I stop doing it. If my body DOES like it, then I continue doing so.

    I am my own human guinea pig.
  • skinnyiverson
    skinnyiverson Posts: 80
    The internet. Everything you read on the internet is true right!?!
  • Cait_Sidhe
    Cait_Sidhe Posts: 3,150 Member
    Just tell me what to think goddamnit!




    (But yes, I do my own research and come to my own conclusions)

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