Friends, let us build a list of historical cases of "scientistic sucker problems"

[bananas]

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10151830273883375&id=13012333374

Nassim Nicholas Taleb · November 9 at 7:50am ·

Friends, let us build a list of historical cases of "scientistic sucker problems" (similar to, say, transfat, thalidomide) that satisfy the following:

A - DENIAL OF COMPLEXITY: Something foreign to the human body or nature-as-a-complex-system was introduced (in the sense of not being part of the long term history of the process),

B - Benefits (though small) were visible and trumpeted,

C - MISTAKING ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE FOR EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE: "Scientific" *evidence of absence* of harm was presented. (Consider tobacco).

D - SCIENTISM: Arguments against skeptics were presented a la Michael Shermer as being "against science".

E - MORAL HAZARD: consider tobacco's lobbying to show safety on "scientific" grounds.

These cases of small visible benefits and large hidden harm (particularly delayed) are prime cases of fragility (thick left tail, thin right tail).

The aim is to integrate these human sucker problems into the general *precautionary principle*. In the complex domain, one cannot predict adverse consequences beyond small steps, hence the idea of countering history (Bar Yam).

Please do not stray from the topic, which is to build a historical list, in the physical/health (not socioeconomic) domain. This is not a debate: rather a catalogue.

Taleb is the author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

[bananas]

1. There are 387 replies on his facebook page. nt

[bemildred]

2. Wow. He hit a nerve.

Or maybe a lot of them.

[intaglio]

3. Well trying to draw sense from that post seems impossible

WTF does it mean?

"Scientistic ...?" is not a word generally recognised and, where it is used, seems to be derogatory of science in general.

"...sucker problems?" as far as I am aware is refers to gardening and unwanted shoots coming from roots.

Transfats were pushed by a particular section of the food industry and certain unsound science as healthier but the research was always dubious.

Thalidomide was marketed as a "safe" soporific and anti-emetic because the view at the time was that the "placental barrier" stopped drugs taken by the mother from harming the child hence there was no special test of this. There was some evidence from rats that pregnant rats re-absorbed their fetuses and that they were having higher than normal birth defects - but this was seemingly suppressed by the company, Grünenthal GmbH.

"Denial of complexity" I know of no biologist, physiologist or biochemist who denies the complexity of the systems they study, this is why scientists like to get ideas tested and why some scientists and companies suppress or fabricate data. On the other hand it is the woo-meisters who sell simple undefined solutions to complex problems; solutions like "crystal energies" or "like curing like" or "vibrations in the quantum fields caused by prayer".

"Benefits (though small) etc." so there were benefits that could be identified to a process or substance. Well, most benefits are small because big benefits tend to be damaging. OTOH woo-science offers only benefits too small to be measured.

"Mistaking absence of evidence for evidence of absence" well sorry but absence of evidence is often precisely evidence of absence. There is a complete absence of evidence for Higgs Bosons with energies of less than 125 GeV. Equally there is a complete absence of evidence that water has a "memory" of substances dissolved in it at some time in the past.

"Scientism," even the definition here makes no sense. I take it that the reference to Shermer is publication by P Z Myers of the anonymous to us (but later supported by similar stories from others) case that Shermer had sexually assaulted or raped his initial accuser. This has nothing to do with "science" and everything to do with an ethical and moral problem that has no good solution.

"Moral Hazard" well firstly the fault with that "moral hazard" lies with the companies and the advertising arms. Science has been trumpeting the dangers of smoking and tobacco products for at least 60 years.

If the first part of this foolish post by Taleb is not incomprehensible enough then the last part descends into a woo-word salad so obscure I can see no way of parsing it.

[JoeyT]

4. The original FB post may have been word salad, but the comments are hilarious.

Don't eat wheat! Don't wear shoes! Beat your kids! Vaccines are poison! Science is evil! Modern razors are inferior! My big penis doesn't make me dumb!