Here is what I want to tell people who might be misled into believing the opposite of what the world-renowned British medical skeptic Ben Goldacre is saying in the article linked in the post appended below.
Ben Goldacre is a medical scientist who has made his life's work to debunk quackery and pseudoscience of the type that is promoted on Goanet from various bogus websites. Please see for example the following link to the recently concluded symposium at McGill University in which he gave a talk on the threat posed by pseudoscience, alternative medicine and quackery on the internet and elsewere: http://tinyurl.com/DebunkingGoanetQuackery1 Here is the actual webcast of his talk along with those of Michael Shermer and David Gorski. Gorski is a man who has also refuted the garbage from Huffington Post that was recently recycled several times on Goanet. http://tinyurl.com/DebunkingGoanetQuackery2 I would encourage people to read the writings of Ben Goldacre and others. They explode the myths perpetuated on Goanet and the various pseudoscientific websites circulated by various people in this forum much better than me. Cheers, Santosh --- On Sun, 12/5/10, Dr. Ferdinando dos Reis Falcão <[email protected]> wrote: > > If some did not understand why I posted this site under > this thread, > here’s why. > Some excerpts from the site: > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/03/bad-science-manipulate-mind-causality > > > 1- …(this is one reason why, in evidence-based medicine, > "expert opinion" is ranked as the least helpful form of > information…. > > > > 2- …This is just the latest in a whole raft of research > showing how > we can be manipulated into believing that we have control > over chance outcomes, > simply by presenting information differently, or giving > cues which imply that > skill had a role to play… > > > > 3-… One series of studies has shown that if you > manipulate someone > to make them feel powerful (through memories of a situation > in which they were > powerful, for example), they imagine themselves to have > even greater control > over outcomes that are still purely determined by chance, > which perhaps goes > some way to explaining the hubris of the great …. > > COMMENT : It is so obvious from the above excerpts that > “expert > opinion” is not at all helpful on Goanet. The posts > presented on Goanet by some > “expert opinion”, by claims of some internet sites are > bogus and the ones they cite are genuine is pure > manipulation. And lastly, when we have some handful of > adulators it goes some way to explaining the hubris of > the “expert opinion”. > > Dr. Ferdinando dos Reis Falcão. >
