jyeager said:
I have to apologize for not noticing your quotations. And I'll confess that as I type this I have not gone back to find them, the thread is getting longish and I don't have time.
I placed them in the post you're referring to. If you read it enough to qualify your response, you must have seen them. I'll post them again;
Patch70 said:
"Gee you are a little testy today."
"bogus evidence"
"Sorry to have made it too hard to understand"
"from which orifice did you pull that one?"
"Take a few deep breaths and practise your reading comprehension"
"silly little statements"
And these are all from the post for which you commended Patch70 for demonstrating a knowledge of the scientific method.
jyeager said:
I also did NOT look at the studies you mentioned, but I took Patch's word for it that he did and that his observations are correct.
Based on Patch's complete lack of any kind of reference to anything factual, I believe your assumption here was a poor one. Patch has provided nothing which might indicate that he has any information regarding any of the studies I mentioned other than what I provided which was, out of necessity, fairly slim.
jyeager said:
If they aren't then you should critique his statements on factual grounds rather than emotional ones.
That's exactly what I've done. I'm not sure how anyone could read this thread with any level of objectivity and not realize that Patch continues to post on mere opinion and emotion while I continue to provide information from many different studies/sources. I'm not sure how you've managed to get this so backward.
jyeager said:
So assuming that he was right, my only point here will be that no study should be accepted unless they publish their methodology. Then that methodology must be scrutinized for conceptual errors (selector bias, statistically insignificant duration or sample size, not following the double-blind protocol...etc), they should publish their raw data so that their calculations can be double checked.
Well again, this is a very poor assumption. These studies were published for peer review and I listed the sources.
jyeager said:
There is a peer review process that scientific papers must go through before being published in respectable journals such as Lancet etc.
Perhaps it would help to clear up some misconceptions if you could review my original post, (Post #5, Page 1). But just to save you a little bit of time, here are the references I gave for the original studies I mentioned.
Fisher, I., "The Influence of Flesh Eating on Endurance," Yale Medical Journal, 13(5):205-221, 1907
Ioteyko, J., "Enquete Scientifique sur les Vegetariens de Bruxelles," Henri Lamertin, Brussels, pg 50
Astrand, Per-Olaf, "Nutrition Today," no.2, 9-11, 1968
Schouteden, A., "Ann de Soc. Des Science Med. et Nat. de Bruxelles (Belgium) I
jyeager said:
I am confident in saying that any 'scientific' study that doesn't follow this protocol SHOULD be ignored unless and until these things are verified. EVEN THEN, the conclusions MUST be repeatable in additional studies who's sole goal is to recreate the findings of the previous study. ONLY then should we be dogmatic and consider the findings to be a scientific fact.
There seems to be something about science that has escaped you here. Science doesn't regard research data as providing facts. Science follows the best existing conclusion to explain the available evidence. It must always be prepared to have those conclusions altered or abandoned when new evidence becomes available. That's a very significant part of the scientific method. It's why we still have the
theory of evolution,
theory of gravity and the
theory of relativity. We also have things such as the
law of gravity. Note that gravity is both a law and a theory. But the two are different. The law of gravity, roughly stated; is that bodies of mass are attracted to other bodies of mass. The
theory of gravity is far more involved and includes such hypothetical particles as gravitons, speaks of gravitational mechanics rather than the more simplistic properties of the law of gravity. But none of these are considered scientific fact. There are laws, hypotheses and theories but no scientific facts. This link can probably do a much better job of explaining it than I can.
http://wilstar.com/theories.htm
The rest of this constitutes a straw man argument. Since you don't know the specifics of the studies and Patch, upon whom you're resting your conclusions and assumptions doesn't know the specifics of the studies, no one here is qualified to claim that anything about them is bogus, unscientific, biased or accurate. It is, however, notable that the studies serve to confirm one another. But in the absence of specifics about the methodology, to carelessly sling accusations about improper methods is nothing but building a strawman upon which to place an attack.
jyeager said:
Now notice that nowhere have I declared a vegetarian diet to be inferior. I just don't know. And perhaps there are studies out there that have proven it and I'm unaware of them. I could comment on my 'intuition', or make educated suppositions from other known facts. But that's not entirely 'scientific' (except as the basis for a theory, which then must be tested).
Actually, it would be the basis for a hypothesis which then must be tested. Once the hypothesis has survived the scrutiny of reasonable challenges and peer review, the hypothesis passes to the level of theory.
I would ask that you again look at the opening post, (Post #1). Most specifically the last line which reads,
"if anyone has facts or experience with being a vegetarian please share."
You have certainly done that by posting information about your personal experience. But you keep defending Patch70. So I would ask that you set some time aside to review each of his posts and ask yourself three very simple questions; Does anything he has offered comply with the premise of the thread and the request made by the opening poster? Are his personal attacks other than emotionally based?
If so, what specifically has he contributed out of other than his own personal opinion and conjecture?