You missed that she explained what immunocompetence is in her original post, among other things.
I am sure you know how to search a page for words. I just did so and received only those posted that either I or yourself posted. I could not find it in any link placed on the page. That was not my point, it was an example, as I was trying to show that some words do require a simple definition in brackets, would greatly increase the readability of sources CE uses.
I may have missed where she gave the definitions, but it was an
example. I was not pointing out an error, it was the first word I found. No offense to either of you.
Personally I find CE's post very readable, and thats without even a college degree.
It is readable for myself, incredibly readable. Yourself as well. Unfortunately, some people here do not understand some of the points she is pushing forward. Long paragraphs do not make for easy reading, simply because many people here do not have the drive to read all the posts, if each post is over 9000 characters. I simply have not read the thread as I did not have the time. It is the one reason why I only posted 4 times last night, even though there were questions that I may have been able to answer. Even reading how this thread has evolved has taken me longer than it would have taken me to read a good part of a pub thread. I don't have the time. Neither do a lot of people.
In regards to the rest of your post, Dottie, even a simple clarification can make huge leaps in understanding in this thread. I understand it, you understand it, so many people here can understand it. Some parts integral o the understanding of all are obscure. That is the problem, in my opinion, for some people here.
Hill, I'd recommend you to read the whole thread, and also the threads I linked to, in order to get a picture of the topics for this discussion.
Most people have jobs. As I have mentioned, this took me almost all of my time last night to post in. Anyways, I mentioned that I thought this topic was evolving from it's original purpose. Readability of scientific texts for actual use is something I find very interesting, considering the ties it has to the original topic.
Precisely. And this is the reason why I criticize the idea that "laymen and experts are equally competent in interpreting scientific data". When you don't even know what the word oligodendrite means, how can you then claim to be qualified to judge and interpret oligodedrite-data as well as a microbiologist or neuroscientist?
Damn. I knew I had at least one spelling error somewhere... we both spelled it wrong. Oligodendrocyte.
At least, that's the word I was going for...
This thread isn't on that topic anyways, and it will never pop up. Obesity has many niches including social intricacies which, as far to my knowledge are random and unmapped. It may have some basis in fact, but it would be useful if everyone could understand it immediately instead of just reading terms they do not understand, and must use a dictionary to translate.
All I am asking is that you take some work, cite it, post it, take some of the big words and add a little sentence in brackets, that's all, CE. It is something you do anyways, if you are writing an email involving work, am I right?
Anecdotal evidence and personal experience are very limited and highly insecure use for knowledge that is aimed to be generally applicable. For that, human beings are far too different. One person may be obese for completely different reasons than another. Thus, your personal and anecdotal evidence does not assure that we can distinguish between mechanisms that are relevant for obesity in general, and mechanisms that are unique to that individual and his/her context. So, my point is simply that whereas anecdotal evidence and personal experience may provide nice and interesting conversation, they cannot fill the function of knowledge gained from controlled studies and it is irrelevant as refusal of scientific evidence. The aim of medical science is to find cures for diseases, not to entertain, and thus I find anecdotal evidence irrelevant to scientific questions, although I of course enjoy social discussions including all sorts of personal and anecdotal stuff.
Yes, but many people get toothaches. This was an example that I decided to tear on, so I am sorry, but as I said many people get them, and often in the same way- either you have bad hygiene or you have a problem with your mouth that is easily fixed. Obesity is a much wider topic, with many facets and variables. Toothaches are much simpler.
The problem as I see it, is when people confuse the two. Scientific studies can be criticized in many ways. Scientific conclusions and scientific knowledge can and should be questioned and tested. But "I don't believe in this science because I know somebody who was different from what they say in the study/the bible says otherwise/it does not fit my ideology/I think it's immoral" is not valid criticism from a scientific point, especially not so when the statements are based on information taken from popular media.
I agree. Some statements are still open to interpretation. The point that some people say they have gained weight, while others say, along myself, that they have lost it, say that there is room for debate. Am I right?
Educating yourself in a scientific discipline takes many years. Educating yourself enough to assess the quality of information and read scientific with a decent understanding, takes much shorter time. Obviously it will depend very much on how motivated the person is and how much time s/he is prepared to invest, but if we take the average SYM:er who claims interest in scientific questions, it would probably take a few weeks or at the most a couple of months if the person spends as much time and energy on learning as s/he does on reading my posts, getting annoyed, and replying
Nematode! Of course I have fun reading your annoying and long winded posts!
Seriously, I enjoy reading all posts in theads like these, even if I rarely post in them.
Still, to educate yourself for a small thread like this is hardly exciting, nor worth it. These people are trying to reach a common ground on what they know to be true, to compile there thoughts and see if the original post was indeed true or not. They decided that it is not all true, and spam ensued.
Reading up to debate something that they thought they had finished on, which really only changes one or two thoughts in what they were discussing, is hardly interesting to them, unless they have the chance to learn something. Using scientific lingo can lead to difficulties in them learning and being able not only to debate, but to answer questions, and above all else, to learn. Then we have made headway. Then they can debate points of interest from those articles that appear open to interpretation, however small they may be.
I take no claims to being able to tell what happens... this is merely one course that this thread could take. Reading through scientific papers is not going to help overmuch if it will take them two or three weeks to learn some of the terms and how they work on us, now is it?
I teach university students, you teach graduates, so we both have no idea how to teach someone who did not at least start taking the prerequisites for the topics we are in. We know how to teach students using wording far beyond what we use on here.
Brynn (an example) would teach students with terms I would not be able to understand. I will not give a month of my time to a thread that may or may not be on the first five pages a month later. However, if she can teach me even the most basic, just adding some small brackets to what they mean, then I may be able to interpret the rest into something I understand in less than three days, as that topic will most likely be a small part of her job.
