Re: RC: Reply from an educated derelict

[David LeBlanc <dleblanc@mindspring.com>]

At 03:45 PM 12/27/99 EST, Tivers@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 12/27/99 11:43:55 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
>dleblanc@mindspring.com writes:

><< This isn't a religeous issue.  The problem I have is that the state of
> science when it comes to what we're doing is woefully inadequate.  There
> isn't much being done. >

>Yes, but the need exists, nonetheless. It seems to me that you have the 
>choice to snooze along until some grand poohbah makes an announcement, that 
>is sure to be proven half wrong in another decade, or you can start trying 
>thengs and if you find something that works, you pass on the information.

Sure, but when you start getting into recommending supplement X, then you
ought to be to a point where you can substantiate your claims of benefit
with some solid numbers.  "My horse did better" isn't adequate.

> >The people doing it usually aren't from a technical
> background, and there are a lot of old wives tales that somehow become
> truth.  You ask someone why they do something, and they tell you "it just
> works for me".  No way to tell if it works for you or anyone else.  Worse
> yet, there isn't millions of dollars in prize money for endurance races, so
> there isn't a financial motive to spend millions studying it.>

>The thing that's good about a group like this is the rapid exchange of such 
>information--if a few more were willing to exchange rather than sit back and 
>whimper about the niceities of public discourse. 

I could be wrong, but based on your choice of internet service providers,
I'd surmise that you haven't been interacting on the internet for very
long.  I've been on newsgroups and mailing lists before AOL was even
connected to the internet for much of anything (or existed, actually).  One
of the pieces of information I'm trying to share is how to avoid common
mistakes using this communication form.

There's a number of subtle issues with discussing things via e-mail that
make this form of communication a lot more difficult than sitting face to
face.  You pretty consistently throw loaded phrases into your writing
(e.g., "whimper").  If you're really interested in exchanging information,
you'd try to avoid making people angry, instead of using a lot of words and
phrases with negative connotations.  When people get angry, they don't
listen as well, and they don't communicate as well.  There's good reasons
to be polite when dealing with people on mailing lists if you're really
interested in information exchange.  When I piss people off, they're
usually more involved in telling me that I'm an idiot and a jerk than they
are with exchanging useful information.

>Then, a lot of the old wives 
>tales could be eliminated from consideration while others could be 
>incorporated into useful protocols--despite what the pronouncements from on 
>high happen to be at the time. Just look at the story of Vitamin C as an 
>example of this kind of underground discovery.

Sure, and one of the things that we do is study what aboriginal people do
to treat various things - lots of medicines have been found that way.  If
the medical and academic community can confirm what we find works in the
field, then that's always nice.


David LeBlanc
dleblanc@mindspring.com


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