If this year's flu virus...

[Random User]

@Solaris

"A good rule of thumb on how effective a remedy is, is to look at who's promoting it. If it's the woo-woos, quacks, con artists and salesmen wholesome alt-med practitioners, you're probably better off skipping it. At best, it's a waste of money."

Since I am the woo-woo-whacko that wrote the original post, I'd say that you've pretty much made my case for me... I said,

"If this years flu virus... ... is the same across North America, eating 2 large cloves of garlic every 24 hours knocks the hell out if it... or so I've found anyway."

...so, my alt-med-con-artist-salesmanship might cause reasonable people to race out to the grocery store (which I don't benefit from), to buy a bulb of garlic (I bought 3 for .88 cents CDN), which might be in their diet and refrigerator anyway, for the sake of what?...

I understand your point about unproven science and there are two things that must be kept in mind. 1.) Ill studied science does neither prove, nor disprove, the efficacy of any treatment 2.) IMHO, it's a reasonable argument that if a person ate garlic to battle the flu and it didn't have any effect at all, the first thing that is going to be etched on their brain is "I'm never going to do that again."

I am not promoting any kind of "cancer cure" that costs tens of thousands of dollars (that I benefit from) in a country that is largely unregulated. And while I am a believer in scientific fact, I do get a little annoyed when scientists try to disprove any argument on the basis that there has been no scientific fact to support the claim. I'd submit that if you can't find a journal that disproves the efficacy of any treatment, then your opinion bears the same weight as the person or persons making the claim.

There is a point to where (some) scientists get locked into the same rhetoric as the hard-core religious zealots... "Oh, I understand that you're just a simpleton minion my son, but believe me, he or she (or it) is out there... yep and some day it will all come to light and I'll be right, but in the mean time I'm right anyway."

I hope the vast majority of the people who viewed this thread got a chuckle from it, that was the intent. I find, arguing for the sake of arguing speaks volumes about peoples reasonableness, and have always followed the though that "what comes to mind, doesn't always have to come to mouth"... in the context of this thread, has arguing the point either one way or the other, put you in a better light with others, better spirits, or contributed to the harmony "of the group"?

Now, for me, I'm done with it... I'm off to study the health benefits of sucking a stagnant puddle dry to prevent heat-stroke.

 

[davetree]

The problem with 2) is that if you eat garlic and don’t get the flu you think that it works.

 

[Random User]

Well, in my case, I add garlic to some dishes but not many... a bulb often dries out before I use it all up. I only smack back 2 cloves each day once I'm off work and bedridden.

Funny thing yesterday, I was trying to stay away from people in line up at the check out because I knew that I stunk from garlic... but two women moved closer and closer to me (one on each side) in the line up... I started to think, "hey, maybe these chicks dig the smell of me in this aromatic state"... then, I happened to look down and realized I'd dropped one of the three $20.00 bills I'd had in my hand... they quickly found fresher air-space, once I'd retrieved the cash.

 

[Solaris]

Permit me to preface this with me saying that I'm still arguing in good faith, and not trying to mock or disparage either of you. I'm a scientist; the way science advances is by discourse and facts, not insulting one another.

@Solaris

"A good rule of thumb on how effective a remedy is, is to look at who's promoting it. If it's the woo-woos, quacks, con artists and salesmen wholesome alt-med practitioners, you're probably better off skipping it. At best, it's a waste of money."

Since I am the woo-woo-whacko that wrote the original post, I'd say that you've pretty much made my case for me... I said,

"If this years flu virus... ... is the same across North America, eating 2 large cloves of garlic every 24 hours knocks the hell out if it... or so I've found anyway."

...so, my alt-med-con-artist-salesmanship might cause reasonable people to race out to the grocery store (which I don't benefit from), to buy a bulb of garlic (I bought 3 for .88 cents CDN), which might be in their diet and refrigerator anyway, for the sake of what?...

I understand your point about unproven science and there are two things that must be kept in mind. 1.) Ill studied science does neither prove, nor disprove, the efficacy of any treatment 2.) IMHO, it's a reasonable argument that if a person ate garlic to battle the flu and it didn't have any effect at all, the first thing that is going to be etched on their brain is "I'm never going to do that again."

I am not promoting any kind of "cancer cure" that costs tens of thousands of dollars (that I benefit from) in a country that is largely unregulated. And while I am a believer in scientific fact, I do get a little annoyed when scientists try to disprove any argument on the basis that there has been no scientific fact to support the claim. I'd submit that if you can't find a journal that disproves the efficacy of any treatment, then your opinion bears the same weight as the person or persons making the claim.

I was warning against that thinking, actually. The problem with your point #2 is that the way our cognitive biases work is that we tend to remember more the things that work than the things that don't work; if they didn't, we'd never have thought homeopathy or bleeding worked. You're (apparently) neither a salesman nor a con artist, just someone who's fallen into the same traps of thinking that human beings have for probably as long as there have been human beings. There's no shame in it, it's just a sign and symptom of being human. Most of the time it's harmless, like the myriad of superstitions you'll find associated with athletics. You won't find me railing against that, because even I know there are some hills not worth dying on. When we're talking medical treatments for potentially life-threatening diseases (because yes, untreated influenza infection can kill), it's not harmless. Sure, you're right - the degree of harm is a lot less than a certain should-be-in-jail doctor in Texas taking mountains of cash from desperate cancer patients for his unproven treatments, but that doesn't make it a good thing.

Oh, and re-examine my posts. I put a hypertext link to an examination of the research on garlic a couple of posts back. They cite their sources. I don't normally indulge demands for easily-search links (I used the search terms "evidence for the medical efficacy of garlic", it was the top result on Bing), but I'm willing to post them while I'm still arguing in good faith if they're going more in-depth than I'm willing to go. Do note that I didn't ask for any links or citations to support garlic as a curative agent. I'm more than capable of finding them on my own. Had I found any that made a compelling case (and this is not the first time I've looked into it; I'm a bit interested in pop pharmacognosy), we would not be having this discussion right now.

Basically, there's been no clinically significant antimicrobial effects found. Seemingly significant results have not been replicated by better-quality research. If you're wanting to use it to treat high cholesterol, you can make a decent argument for that. Not very good, but decent. The argument of "We don't know it doesn't work" is... not good, especially when you're arguing that a self-limiting ailment was cured by any given treatment based on a sample size of one.

Permit me to use an example: We don't know that drinking a gallon of bleach doesn't work as a cure for cancer. Science is, after all, incapable of proving a negative. It kills cancer cells in vitro. Using the same sort of logic as we're applying with the hypothesis that garlic cures viral diseases, drinking bleach ought to cure cancer.

There is a point to where (some) scientists get locked into the same rhetoric as the hard-core religious zealots... "Oh, I understand that you're just a simpleton minion my son, but believe me, he or she (or it) is out there... yep and some day it will all come to light and I'll be right, but in the mean time I'm right anyway."

If you don't believe that those types are at least as common in the alt-med circles, you haven't argued them about their favorite brand of woo. Don't get me wrong, there's a reason Planck said that science advances with the funerals, but the existence of a walking strawman does nothing to discredit the underlying premise that we ought to seek to be as science-based as possible when dealing with medicine - or any other aspect of reality, for that matter.

If you rustle up a better argument than "We don't know it doesn't work," you may find more scientists are willing to engage you; the argument is an old and tired one, and rarely is someone genuinely open-minded using it. Most of the science-types I've known have been more than happy to discuss their specialty with someone who's open-minded, willing to listen, and not an insufferable specimen of the Dunning-Kruger effect. The trick is getting the nerds to stop talking, really; we do tend to go on. I'm still young, dumb, and naive enough to think that people can be dissuaded from mistaken beliefs (I know, I know, I've seen that research that says it doesn't work that way, but I hold out hope nonetheless). More experienced types tend not to be.

I hope the vast majority of the people who viewed this thread got a chuckle from it, that was the intent. I find, arguing for the sake of arguing speaks volumes about peoples reasonableness, and have always followed the though that "what comes to mind, doesn't always have to come to mouth"... in the context of this thread, has arguing the point either one way or the other, put you in a better light with others, better spirits, or contributed to the harmony "of the group"?

So I'm a bad person for pointing out when someone's wrong? Not just slightly wrong, maybe wrong, or arguably wrong, but demonstrably wrong?
I mean, yeah, I'm a bad person, but that's not why.

Harmony gained by sacrificing good sense is not worth having. If anyone thinks worse of me for trying to point out that garlic doesn't work as well as you think it does, then their good opinion is not worth having. It is nothing less than I expect when I post something on a forum - would you expect a statement as wrongheaded as claiming that mallsai are excellent specimens of bonsai or that Miller Lite is excellent beer to go unchallenged?

 

[Anthony]

@Solaris ,

the initiation, and being baited.
Good Day
Anthony

 

[Random User]

A scientist locked into their own confirmation bias is no scientist at all.

More than any other professional, these types of scientists should go directly to the nearest corner and jam their face in there nose-first and not come out until they re-remember that a scientist is and what their role is within that community.

Re-read my original post: "If this years flu virus... ... is the same across North America, eating 2 large cloves of garlic every 24 hours knocks the hell out if it... or so I've found anyway."

There isn't a person on this entire site (given the right definition) who wouldn't agree that what I wrote was purely anecdotal evidence. And anecdotal evidence IS what begins the scientific process. You've put the cart before the horse, and like all situations where confirmation bias exists, there won't be any way that you are going to change your train of thought now that you've committed yourself to it... if that doesn't change, I suspect you're going to find your life's work unfulfilling.

As an example; Most recently, it has been (in Canada) anecdotal evidence that has had a significant impact on the Canadian Government's decision to legalize cannabis... there is little "scientific proof" what it can be used to treat, how effective it is, or how the cannabinoids are interacting with the human body. There ARE mountains of anecdotal evidence that suggest cannabis can be widely used for a variety of ailments however. A "scientist" and the scientific community can now research and study this plant on it's efficacy... but only a poor scientist would draw a conclusion one way or the other until all the facts and figures are in, quantified by double blind studies and duplicated by peers.

YOU, have discovered a plethora of fanciful jargon that you think your going to impress the masses with, and ultimately abandon the title that you so willingly adorn yourself with, scientist. You're no scientist, your a word monger...

... and THAT, IS all I'll say about that.

 

[Random User]

... I'll add one more thing.

The "bounty" of jargon that you've seemly recently discovered and adopted, is commonplace for someone who is familiar with the skeptical movement. I wouldn't lean on it as a way to try to impress anyone, in short (and politely) it makes you look foolish.

 

[Solaris]

A scientist locked into their own confirmation bias is no scientist at all.

More than any other professional, these types of scientists should go directly to the nearest corner and jam their face in there nose-first and not come out until they re-remember that a scientist is and what their role is within that community.

A scientist who doesn't immediately embrace quackery and embrace pseudoscience is, in fact, a good scientist. I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you. As I alluded to before, I have looked into this. Do you know why?
It's because I once thought the same thing!
I used to think that consuming garlic would work as an antimicrobial agent. Even used it more heavily in dishes during the winter for treatment, and thought it worked because I got better (in my defense, I was younger and dumber; I hadn't yet grokked that particular cognitive trick our brains play on us). Instead of relying solely on my personal experience, though, I went in and boned up on the research. It exists, so therefore I have no excuse to not look into it. I, you see, feel a certain responsibility to be truthful. Not just honest, but to ensure that what I'm saying is as accurate as possible. My acquaintances tend to take my word for it when I say one thing or another, and I didn't want to accidentally spread misinformation. Turns out, I was wrong. Instead of getting buttmangled over it and insisting that those eeeevil scientists were wrongheaded shills for Big Pharma, I adjusted my thinking.

In case you're curious, I've also recently changed my mind about cannabis. Although nowhere near the miracle cure the potheads think it is, and over-use can result in some interesting psychological damage (the key phrase is "biphasic effect"), it does appear to have some beneficial properties in treating psychological ailments (other than the obvious about anxiety) and seizures.
You may think this a case of anecdotes winning out, but that's skipping over all of the other anecdotes that have shown themselves far less reliable when it comes to marijuana's purported medicinal properties. A broken clock is not suddenly a good clock twice a day.

One of us is locked in their biases. Fortunately, the only thing holding you back is you. Hell, all of the information you need is freely available on the internet. Start with looking up why anecdotes aren't better than even preliminary blinded studies. For all the words you parrot off, you seem to have missed that one.

The rest of your comments are garbage unworthy of even a token counterpoint. You should feel ashamed of yourself for thinking them intelligent points.