I disregarded everything from him after I read two of his books. It’s not perfect, but my rule of thumb is simple: If a scientific story feels sexy, cinematic, and narratively perfect, it’s likely fabrication.

Same reason I have been skeptical towards dark energy, EMDR, and the blue light destroys sleep craze. And many other stupid stuff. If you like a story or a finding, that’s a clue to double the critical sceptisism.

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duskdozer 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

EMDR has obvious problems, but I'm curious why you're putting blue light in the same category? It has clear and plausible physical MOA eg https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-022-04054-9

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jtrn 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Because no study can find any clinical improvement in sleep quality and duration, I tried with many patients with no effect (I'm a clinical psychologist). So, it's not proven to work practically or anecdotally, only theoretically. But people LOOOOVE to explain why blue wavelengths hit different receptors and glutamate-sensitive cells...

And a note: EMDR works MUCH better than blue-light-reducing therapy. It's just that the theory for WHY it works is insane (integration of memories/thoughts across brain hemispheres is facilitated by moving eyes back and forth). It's just exposure therapy, and the "follow the light" stuff is just structuring the exposure setting. You get the same effect while doing exposure therapy while driving a car.

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squeefers 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

im similarly dubious about this.... only works by blue light hitting your retina, which meant your eye was open, which meant you were awake ie not even trying to sleep. also, circadian rhythms were proven to be unaffected even when living in a cave with no natural sunlight - so theres more to sleepiness than just light hitting your eyebaws

	▲	duskdozer 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		>only works by blue light hitting your retina, which meant your eye was open, which meant you were awake ie not even trying to sleep. not necessarily - your eyelids aren't perfectly opaque >also, circadian rhythms were proven to be unaffected even when living in a cave with no natural sunlight - so theres more to sleepiness than just light hitting your eyebaws yeah, not disputing this. Blue light doesn't have to be the sole determinant to have an effect though

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Veen 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I'd always assumed that the patients in Sacks' books were lightly fictionalized composites that combined interesting features from multiple cases. The purpose being to illustrate conditions and aspects of human psychology for a general readership. Since they weren't presented as rigorous case studies, I didn't take them to be that. I find what Sacks did much less irksome than more recent psychological and social studies books that pretend to be presenting rigorous scientific fact when they are, in fact, tendentious bullshit.

	▲	jtrn 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I apply the same criteria to any scientific assent. What is the actual practical / clinical relevance? And is it properly studied without p-hacking, correlation/causation confusion and without signs of bias. Following these criteria, 95% of studies are useless, and strangely these overlap massively with the ones that fail to replicate. Yet I get constantly shit on for having too high standards for scientific rigor.