Speaking purely for myself, and having fully read all of A Chemical Hunger, all of your commentary, all of Natália’s, and all of the LessWrong comments, this episode has reinforced one of my contrarian-to-this-subculture priors:
Science done by nontraditional institutions should be assumed to be incorrect.
Science is really, really, really hard to do, because reality is really, really, really complicated. Institutions like universities and research-focused corporations are equipped with the systems necessary to overcome this complexity and publish research that will generally be more correct than incorrect. When groups like SMTM try and Do Science without those systems, they are more likely to be incorrect than they are to be correct.
So in a way that might shock you, I actually agree with most of this, i.e. that the default should be to assume that the science done by non-traditional institutions and individuals should be considered incorrect.
I think this goes beyond mere questions of resources and systems, since even if an individual or non-traditional organization had the resources to do a particular experiment or type of research they might still be subject to bias/dishonesty/whatever.
I think where we might split is that I don't think that default assumption of inaccuracy should flip-flop when we start to look at traditional institutions. I used to work in a field related to nicotine, and saw clearly bad research get a total pass on a regular basis because it was known that the goals of public health were producing desired changes (desired by PH) and not producing accurate information.
During COVID, Fauci was at several points pretty clear that he was lying on some point or another in pursuit of goals he thought were nice. The FDA and CDC both took an opportunity to blame an epidemic of extreme lung damage on nicotine e-cigarettes, knowing from the beginning that the particular ingredient causing the problem was limited to THC e-cigarettes, and so on.
There are honest individuals (and parts of science that are less captured than others) but I think assuming that someone is telling the truth entirely because they are from a traditional institution is a mistake - that ship sailed many years ago.
That said, I don't think that these institutions (or non-institutions) should be entirely disregarded for that reason - both should be potentially believed if their evidence backs them up. It's just that starting from a place of scepticism is about the only option anymore.
Even more than that, I've always felt that the alignment of the outsider-researcher-scientist was best and most beneficially expressed not in creating new science so much as in assessing the old. In this resources are less important, but an outsider view can be a very large advantage.
Anyway, that's sort of my primative viewpoint on that. Basically I don't think anyone should believe anyone wholecloth anymore - we live in a world where lying is fine, which means pre-emptive disbelief is necessary in a lot of cases, and smart-outsider-watchdogs are incredibly important.
It's hard to differentiate verbally, but even lithium could still be possible. But the relevant question is sort of "should I shift my probability that this is caused by any particular thing towards the thing they are advocating".
It's still possible some chemical contaminant is causing obesity. But at least as far as I can tell for myself, they didn't really honestly consider any other explanation for it. That leaves me in a position where they said "we can tell it's probably lithium" with their direct argument, and it looks like it's not. And all their support for it being chemical in nature is saying it can't be other things - but they didn't do a good job showing that.
Overall I think it's very possible, but I just am not shifting my priors at all on this one based on their work.
So I'm not saying - very much not saying - that this is impossible. But note that SMTM (if they are saying what you are saying) is saying "I know, I know, most people say bulemia has a complex suite of psych causes. I'm saying it's chemical X". And in his system, people are juiced up with a chemical that raises the set point, and one that lowers it, and those chemicals agree to totally take turns instead of cancelling each other out.
And the one that causes purging in bulemia doesn't just make you puke - which your body has a mechanism for - but instead makes you induce puking, or overuse laxatives, or exercise a ton. It's interacting with your decisions on an entirely different level than "I, without thinking about it, eat more."
All that is *possible*, but SMTM doesn't get to just claim it, they have to actually provide evidence for it. And I haven't deep-dived this particular element of their claim, but pretty much every time someone has looked into the evidence behind one of their claims it's ended up being dicey in some way or another.
My point is, at this point in the game, having looked at them misrepresent or overrepresent a lot of evidence, I'm not inclined to believe that part at face value.
I mean, I hope you are right; if there's some magic bullet problem we can basically solve with a filter or whatever, great. Or even if we just knew what it was and that we for-sure couldn't do anything about it, great.
The synthetic thinking thing I think is where you lost me - without knowing the exact definition, it sounds an awful lot like you are asking me to believe something just cause SMTM said it pretty well, or something besides them actually having shown evidence what they say is so. I think that's going to be a hard sell for most people.
"If five of their particulars are wrong but fifty others are right, or right *enough,* and you focus on the ones they have wrong, you'll be right on the details but wrong on the big picture."
But the issue is that fifty things are wrong here. None of the major and very few of the minor claims are right and some are 180* wrong.
Speaking purely for myself, and having fully read all of A Chemical Hunger, all of your commentary, all of Natália’s, and all of the LessWrong comments, this episode has reinforced one of my contrarian-to-this-subculture priors:
Science done by nontraditional institutions should be assumed to be incorrect.
Science is really, really, really hard to do, because reality is really, really, really complicated. Institutions like universities and research-focused corporations are equipped with the systems necessary to overcome this complexity and publish research that will generally be more correct than incorrect. When groups like SMTM try and Do Science without those systems, they are more likely to be incorrect than they are to be correct.
So in a way that might shock you, I actually agree with most of this, i.e. that the default should be to assume that the science done by non-traditional institutions and individuals should be considered incorrect.
I think this goes beyond mere questions of resources and systems, since even if an individual or non-traditional organization had the resources to do a particular experiment or type of research they might still be subject to bias/dishonesty/whatever.
I think where we might split is that I don't think that default assumption of inaccuracy should flip-flop when we start to look at traditional institutions. I used to work in a field related to nicotine, and saw clearly bad research get a total pass on a regular basis because it was known that the goals of public health were producing desired changes (desired by PH) and not producing accurate information.
During COVID, Fauci was at several points pretty clear that he was lying on some point or another in pursuit of goals he thought were nice. The FDA and CDC both took an opportunity to blame an epidemic of extreme lung damage on nicotine e-cigarettes, knowing from the beginning that the particular ingredient causing the problem was limited to THC e-cigarettes, and so on.
There are honest individuals (and parts of science that are less captured than others) but I think assuming that someone is telling the truth entirely because they are from a traditional institution is a mistake - that ship sailed many years ago.
That said, I don't think that these institutions (or non-institutions) should be entirely disregarded for that reason - both should be potentially believed if their evidence backs them up. It's just that starting from a place of scepticism is about the only option anymore.
Even more than that, I've always felt that the alignment of the outsider-researcher-scientist was best and most beneficially expressed not in creating new science so much as in assessing the old. In this resources are less important, but an outsider view can be a very large advantage.
Anyway, that's sort of my primative viewpoint on that. Basically I don't think anyone should believe anyone wholecloth anymore - we live in a world where lying is fine, which means pre-emptive disbelief is necessary in a lot of cases, and smart-outsider-watchdogs are incredibly important.
It's hard to differentiate verbally, but even lithium could still be possible. But the relevant question is sort of "should I shift my probability that this is caused by any particular thing towards the thing they are advocating".
It's still possible some chemical contaminant is causing obesity. But at least as far as I can tell for myself, they didn't really honestly consider any other explanation for it. That leaves me in a position where they said "we can tell it's probably lithium" with their direct argument, and it looks like it's not. And all their support for it being chemical in nature is saying it can't be other things - but they didn't do a good job showing that.
Overall I think it's very possible, but I just am not shifting my priors at all on this one based on their work.
So I'm not saying - very much not saying - that this is impossible. But note that SMTM (if they are saying what you are saying) is saying "I know, I know, most people say bulemia has a complex suite of psych causes. I'm saying it's chemical X". And in his system, people are juiced up with a chemical that raises the set point, and one that lowers it, and those chemicals agree to totally take turns instead of cancelling each other out.
And the one that causes purging in bulemia doesn't just make you puke - which your body has a mechanism for - but instead makes you induce puking, or overuse laxatives, or exercise a ton. It's interacting with your decisions on an entirely different level than "I, without thinking about it, eat more."
All that is *possible*, but SMTM doesn't get to just claim it, they have to actually provide evidence for it. And I haven't deep-dived this particular element of their claim, but pretty much every time someone has looked into the evidence behind one of their claims it's ended up being dicey in some way or another.
My point is, at this point in the game, having looked at them misrepresent or overrepresent a lot of evidence, I'm not inclined to believe that part at face value.
I mean, I hope you are right; if there's some magic bullet problem we can basically solve with a filter or whatever, great. Or even if we just knew what it was and that we for-sure couldn't do anything about it, great.
The synthetic thinking thing I think is where you lost me - without knowing the exact definition, it sounds an awful lot like you are asking me to believe something just cause SMTM said it pretty well, or something besides them actually having shown evidence what they say is so. I think that's going to be a hard sell for most people.
"If five of their particulars are wrong but fifty others are right, or right *enough,* and you focus on the ones they have wrong, you'll be right on the details but wrong on the big picture."
But the issue is that fifty things are wrong here. None of the major and very few of the minor claims are right and some are 180* wrong.