"HN doing HN things" over someone saying "good discussion, however, one point about the conclusion" and having that point be very rational and still open to debate.

Is discussing such secondary but still highly relevant aspects verboten? Must every comment here be by a lead researcher in the specific field? Would a biomedical science researcher necessarily have any more expertise on these important secondary aspects?

"Trust me, I'm a scientitian". No thanks.

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switchbak 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

They're not saying "one point" about the conclusion, they're saying that their statement isn't nearly confident enough, and that they would prefer that they say with strong confidence that there is unequivocally NO positive effect on cognition.

It is a hell of a thing for a random person on an internet forum to be so unilateral, without providing some kind of strong evidence (aside from statements about "the industry", which is kind of beside the point). I would also suggest if you want to be so unequivocal, that the burden of proof is especially high for you.

This "point" isn't actually all that rational - it's knee jerk skepticism. It's a fine default for yourself, but it's not something you get to force on others because they admit there's room for the potential of benefit.

Again: You're perfectly fine to hold that opinion yourself, but when you start trying to force that on others - you now have an especially high bar to reach, and yes - being a lead researcher in the field is exactly what I'm looking for when someone says "X has been proven to not have a benefit for Y".

"Trust me, I'm a scientitian" - Not sure the point of that juvenile wordplay, but Ok: we do have these things called scientists, some are good, some are terrible. You still need to back up your statements - that's the key part, this isn't a blind appeal to authority. And it's a hell of a lot better than "Trust me, I'm a nerd with very strong beliefs about a topic I know very little about".

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colechristensen 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The top of HN threads is generally nitpicking minutiae which are more likely technically correct than not but also highly irrelevant. It's done by non-experts and drowns out any more valuable discussion.

It'll be people arguing about exact language not being someone's preferred level, or overloading the importance and exact definition of a technical term that experts don't really care about, or blowing up some edge case or another.

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dundarious 3 days ago | parent [-]

It wasn't a point about exact language in and of itself. It was a point about the conclusion, and how it doesn't account for highly relevant aspects of the publication record and industry. This was not "a better word would be" or similar. This was "the meaning was wrong, the thinking was wrong, and here's why".

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colechristensen 3 days ago | parent [-]

Exactly my point. You are making an essentially meaningless distinction in attempts to "correct" what I said to be more precise in a way that does not matter at all with regards to what I was trying to say.

	▲	dundarious 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		My understanding from this exchange is that for you, large distinctions of meaning and reason are reducible and accurately described as meaningless language nitpicks, but regardless, you dress up the last post as if it's the opposite, so I will not respond further.