In general minimalist predictions are more often true than complex predictions that try to explain everything and the kitchen sink. We have cognitive biases that make us want to prefer the complex predictions.
I’d have to make my hypotheses more complicated in order to explain less. That might make them more believable, and less open to refutation, but I think it makes them less likely.
No. You wrote: Somewhere between a possible palliative for some cases of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and a panacea for most of the remaining unexplained diseases of the world.
If you would simply leave out the bit about most of the remaining unexplained diseases of the world and would focus on CFS and fibromyalgia the thesis would get simpler.
But I need to hypothesise ‘widespread occult hypothyroidism’, and that disease has many more than two presentations. It would have trouble causing CFS/FMS without also causing IBS, for instance, and I think there are many others that are just reshufflings of the same symptoms.
There are 2 schools of chiropractors. (ok, more but for this we can think of 2)
One who say “the body is reeeeaaallly complex but sometimes pushing and pulling the bones/muscles in the back around can help with back pain and sometimes can help with trapped nerves”
This is complex. It treats it as a complex problem where the intervention can help with a small subset of cases.
Then there’s the other group who have a really simple hypothesis that health problems are caused by disruptions to the flow of “life energy” to parts of the body and
Once the interference is gone, your life energy is able to flow to all parts of your body as it is needed.
and claiming that we need to
assure that our life energy is communicating with all the parts of the body, thus continuing to constantly create our bodies in a healthy manner.
They attribute almost all health problems to disruptions to the flow of energy.
This is really simple.
But simple(to say) does not mean correct.
Historically most people who attribute too many health problems to a single cause are quacks so if you want to be taken as a non-quack then you’re better off limiting your claims.
But I only want to be taken seriously if I’m right! If I’m wrong then it’s much better if people think I’m a lunatic.
Both of your chiropractic hypotheses make the same (i.e. no) predictions about back-pain. The simplest chiropractic hypothesis is the second one.
Thus in the absence of any other evidence, consider the second one.
It’s actually not a bad hypothesis. Replace ‘life energy’ with ‘blood’ to see why.
But once you’ve said blood then it makes testable predictions. And can be refuted.
My hypotheses are about real, testable things. I have made several testable predictions. And there are many more, that are obvious if you think about it for a minute.
I argue that they should be tested. That is all I argue.
I will accept as strong relevant evidence anything you can drag up from the medical literature that shows people taking the idea of ‘type 2 hypothyroidism’ seriously, or any evidence about basal metabolic rate in chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia. Or any other good argument that anyone can make.
Where do I err, brother philosopher?
EDIT: changed ‘first’ to ‘second’ below, and vv. Thanks HungryHobo. I am a fool.
As to actual chiropractors, obvs the second school are not paying nearly enough attention to this ‘life energy’ as they claim to think it deserves. That makes them magical thinkers.
And the first school are having a solid pop at empirically working out some helpful techniques.
The first type of chiropractor is in the church of science. St. Feynman would approve.
Endocrinology is not. For all their white coats, and all their pompous arrogance. They are not.
I am so sorry. Where I erred was to get ‘first’ and ‘second’ the wrong way round. I think we agree about most things, and I am going to change my parent comment so that it says what I meant when I wrote it.
But we still disagree about poetic hypotheses. I think that simple explanations are extra-worth looking at because they are simple.
That doesn’t mean they’re right. Explanatory power and prediction and experiment are the only judge of that.
But you should look very carefully at the simple beautiful ideas that seem to explain everything, but that look untrue.
Firstly because Solomonoff induction looks like a good way to think about the world.
Secondly because all the good ideas have turned out to be simple, and could have been spotted, (and often were) by the Ancient Greeks if only they’d really thought about it.
Thirdly because experiments not done with the hypothesis in mind have likely neglected important aspects of the problem. (In this case T3 homeostasis and possible peripheral resistance and the difference between basal metabolic rate and waking rate, and the difference between core and peripheral temperature and the possibility of a common DIO2 mutation causing people’s systems to react differently to T4 monotherapy)
Good ideas should be given extra-benefit of doubt. Not ignored because they prove too much!
Actually I think all that is worth adding to the main post, so thank you very much!
Sorry, I mean, grail as in all the central sensitivity syndromes, not grail as in all sufferers of those syndromes.
Of course, that would be a priori unlikely. Now we need occult hypothyroidism plus a complicated way in which something that’s nothing to do with thyroids causes thyroidy symptoms.
A bit like proposing that one of the twin towers was destroyed by the CIA, while at the same time, terrorists destroyed the other one. Or for that matter, the decisive argument in the Amanda Knox case.
Your advice is sound politically, but the proposed action strikes me as intellectually dishonest.
I am hypothesising what I am hypothesising. It is pretty much grail or nothing. Making myself harder to refute won’t help.
In general minimalist predictions are more often true than complex predictions that try to explain everything and the kitchen sink. We have cognitive biases that make us want to prefer the complex predictions.
I’d have to make my hypotheses more complicated in order to explain less. That might make them more believable, and less open to refutation, but I think it makes them less likely.
No. You wrote:
Somewhere between a possible palliative for some cases of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and a panacea for most of the remaining unexplained diseases of the world.If you would simply leave out the bit about
most of the remaining unexplained diseases of the worldand would focus on CFS and fibromyalgia the thesis would get simpler.But I need to hypothesise ‘widespread occult hypothyroidism’, and that disease has many more than two presentations. It would have trouble causing CFS/FMS without also causing IBS, for instance, and I think there are many others that are just reshufflings of the same symptoms.
Ok, look at chiropractors.
There are 2 schools of chiropractors. (ok, more but for this we can think of 2)
One who say “the body is reeeeaaallly complex but sometimes pushing and pulling the bones/muscles in the back around can help with back pain and sometimes can help with trapped nerves”
This is complex. It treats it as a complex problem where the intervention can help with a small subset of cases.
Then there’s the other group who have a really simple hypothesis that health problems are caused by disruptions to the flow of “life energy” to parts of the body and
and claiming that we need to
They attribute almost all health problems to disruptions to the flow of energy.
This is really simple.
But simple(to say) does not mean correct.
Historically most people who attribute too many health problems to a single cause are quacks so if you want to be taken as a non-quack then you’re better off limiting your claims.
But I only want to be taken seriously if I’m right! If I’m wrong then it’s much better if people think I’m a lunatic.
Both of your chiropractic hypotheses make the same (i.e. no) predictions about back-pain. The simplest chiropractic hypothesis is the second one.
Thus in the absence of any other evidence, consider the second one.
It’s actually not a bad hypothesis. Replace ‘life energy’ with ‘blood’ to see why.
But once you’ve said blood then it makes testable predictions. And can be refuted.
My hypotheses are about real, testable things. I have made several testable predictions. And there are many more, that are obvious if you think about it for a minute.
I argue that they should be tested. That is all I argue.
I will accept as strong relevant evidence anything you can drag up from the medical literature that shows people taking the idea of ‘type 2 hypothyroidism’ seriously, or any evidence about basal metabolic rate in chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia. Or any other good argument that anyone can make.
Where do I err, brother philosopher?
EDIT: changed ‘first’ to ‘second’ below, and vv. Thanks HungryHobo. I am a fool.
As to actual chiropractors, obvs the second school are not paying nearly enough attention to this ‘life energy’ as they claim to think it deserves. That makes them magical thinkers.
And the first school are having a solid pop at empirically working out some helpful techniques.
The first type of chiropractor is in the church of science. St. Feynman would approve.
Endocrinology is not. For all their white coats, and all their pompous arrogance. They are not.
Which would be lovely if they actually claimed that this “life energy” was blood. They do not.
The first group of chiropractor has an evidence base and their limited claims actually work out in the real world and are very close to orthopedics.
The second is nowhere near the “church of science” and have little interest in it.
Science is not about your hypothesis sounding poetic.
I am so sorry. Where I erred was to get ‘first’ and ‘second’ the wrong way round. I think we agree about most things, and I am going to change my parent comment so that it says what I meant when I wrote it.
But we still disagree about poetic hypotheses. I think that simple explanations are extra-worth looking at because they are simple.
That doesn’t mean they’re right. Explanatory power and prediction and experiment are the only judge of that.
But you should look very carefully at the simple beautiful ideas that seem to explain everything, but that look untrue.
Firstly because Solomonoff induction looks like a good way to think about the world.
Secondly because all the good ideas have turned out to be simple, and could have been spotted, (and often were) by the Ancient Greeks if only they’d really thought about it.
Thirdly because experiments not done with the hypothesis in mind have likely neglected important aspects of the problem. (In this case T3 homeostasis and possible peripheral resistance and the difference between basal metabolic rate and waking rate, and the difference between core and peripheral temperature and the possibility of a common DIO2 mutation causing people’s systems to react differently to T4 monotherapy)
Good ideas should be given extra-benefit of doubt. Not ignored because they prove too much!
Actually I think all that is worth adding to the main post, so thank you very much!
Why? The situations where mechanism X works for some people some of the time are very common.
Sorry, I mean, grail as in all the central sensitivity syndromes, not grail as in all sufferers of those syndromes.
Of course, that would be a priori unlikely. Now we need occult hypothyroidism plus a complicated way in which something that’s nothing to do with thyroids causes thyroidy symptoms.
A bit like proposing that one of the twin towers was destroyed by the CIA, while at the same time, terrorists destroyed the other one. Or for that matter, the decisive argument in the Amanda Knox case.