Dean Esmay wrote:
>
> >Then let's point out that ALL of science is speculative and may not be
> >true. We base our notion of "truth" in science firmly on probability
> >theory.
>
> But Andrew, that wouldn't be true! Theory is one part of science, but its
> siamese twin is empirical fact. Some of the world's prettiest theories
> have been demolished by inconvenient facts, and most every theoretical
> advance has come about due to that annoying need to explain a pesky fact
> that refuses to go away. Nor is any theory deserving of serious respect if
> it can't muster facts in its defense or give answer to facts that appear to
> refute it. This is what separates science from philosophy.
I'm not so sure that the dividing line between science and philosophy is
what Karl Popper called "falsification". Check you history of science
and philosophy of science. In "Against Method" Paul Feyerabend very
convincingly argues that science is not as neat and clean as we would
like to believe. Some of my closest friends (and patients) are
University professors of philosophy (NYU/Columbia U) the one that wrote
her dissertation of methodology would have serious misgivings as to what
you're advancing as science and philosophy. Science borrows quite abit
from philosophy. In the area of methodology (the thinking process of
inquiry) science and philosophy are difficult to distinguish. Any
division may be purely arbitrary.
> Facts do not have an agenda, facts do not care what you think or how you
> wish the universe worked. They don't care about your reputation or your
> career. They don't care whether you ignore them or not. You can cry at
> them, laugh at them, rage against them, and they still don't care. They
> don't even care whether you notice them or not. They simply are. And
> without them you don't have science.
Facts are shaped by your methodologies. Read Heisenberg (sp?) and what
can be understood of quantum physics. A colleague of mine is working on
his PhD in quantum (as he says). In a nut shell, he likes to say, if
you build a device to measure some thing or phenomenon, then that
phenomenon will be there to measure; if not, it won't. I really think
you're thinking of perception. What we perceive to be real, true , et
al. This might be better handled by an epistemologist.
> Speculation is half of science, not all of it.
An over simplification of the process. Science is as speculative as it
ends up being to model reality; and vice versa.
> >> What I can tell you is that when I changed my diet radically, said change
> >> including an ENORMOUS increase in intake of AA, my health improved in every
> >> measurable way. I don't credit this to the AA; perhaps I would be
> >> healthier still without the AA, perhaps the AA made no difference at all,
> >> perhaps the AA helped.
> >
> >Your reasoning here begs the post hoc, ergo propter hoc conclusion.
>
> You seem hellbent on making me take a position on the health benefits or
> lack thereof of arachidonic acid. Andrew, I take NONE. My reasoning begs
> ALL questions except the question of whether or not there is good reason
> for healthy skepticism--which in my opinion there is. My only other
> position would be that it's important when speculating to the general
> public (which is what you're doing on this list; this is NOT a group of
> scientists you're talking to) that you let them know you -are- speculating
> so as to avoid the possibility of frightening people for no good reason.
>
> >I'm fabberghasted at your insistance that dietary (exogenous) AA plays
> >any appreaciable role in a person's health.
>
> I'm confused by this statement in two ways:
>
> First, because I have never insisted that dietary AA plays any appreciable
> role in a person's health. I've tried to make it clear that I take no
> position whatsoever on that matter, that I am merely skeptical. In my very
> last message I openly acknowledge this in as clear English as I can think
> of.
>
> Second, because in general we been talking consstantly about the alleged
> dangers of eating foods with high amounts of arachidonic acid such as beef
> suet, red meat and eggs--in fact it kicked off with a discussion of whether
> or not eating pemmican was healthy for paleodieters. That is how this
> thread started. If at some point the conversation switched from ingested
> AA to AA production within the human metabolism, I missed that and I
> apologize. Then again, you must have missed something yourself, because
> every single message I've posted on this subject has mentioned MY
> consumption of arachidonic acid and how I question the belief that
> ingesting AA is a health hazard to me. EVERY SINGLE MESSAGE I HAVE WRITTEN
> has referred to arachidonic acid in the diet, including all the messages in
> which you have responded to me. In fact just look six paragraphs above,
> and there you are, replying to my message about ingested arachidonic acid
> and telling me that my reasoning "begs the post hoc, ergo propter hoc
> conclusion."
>
> So frankly, I am indeed very confused. When exactly did this turn from a
> discussion of the dangers of EATING AA to the dangers of AA production
> within the body?
When you indicated that I was frightening people about the dangers of
AA. Todd and I were very happily talking about the endogenous virtues
and lack thereof of AA. Probably a closer reading of my posts would
have obviated this whole thang. I was addressed by you in this matter
while I was blissfully BSing with Todd. Hey, whatever!
> >I think it's funny how Americans have been sold a bill of goods that low
> >fat/fat free foods spells low blood fats.
>
> We are completely in agreement here. See
> http://www.syndicomm.com/lowfat.html for a brief essay I wrote on the
> general subject of the valueless nature of popular low-fat diets.
You should have read more closely my posts. Prior to this thang I was
under the impression that we were in agreement.
> I stated, "It seems to me as if there is a lot of generalizing about AA but
> not a lot of strong facts or specific references being offered." You
> responded, "There are many many strong facts. The problem is that these
> facts MUST
> BE INTERPRETED," and then went on to generalize about agendas and politics
> and unspecified things being buried in unspecified journals.
You jumped in rather down line in the causal chain of events that it
required catching up to be in the level of discussion Todd and I were
conducting. I beileve that there was much left unspoken as a common
vernacular grew. OOOOOOPs! That's how language works my linguistics
prof would say.
> I then asked you to please share the facts you claimed existed; after all,
> in my original criticism I was complaining that no one was giving any. You
> responded claiming there were many strong facts... and again, gave none.
> In looking closely at your messages and mine yet again, I don't think I
> misquoted or distorted you at all.
I am writing you from my home. Unfortunately, the 10 binders containing
said articles are at my academic office. I teach this stuff in the
classroom to professional students. To an instructor there is a level
of knowing your subject matter that allows you to internalize, answer
questions and dissertate on a subject which is second nature that does
not require one to have at his side his mountain of evidence. I was not
in defense of an academic thesis I found no need to have my 10 volumes
of references at my side.
> If you feel you've been misquoted I honestly don't understand where.
> HOWEVER, I apologize anyway, since I had no intention of doing so. And I
> now re-iterate my request that you share with us the many strong facts that
> you think must be interpreted in order to reach the conclusion that AA is a
> health hazard.
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooops! An act of omission. What kind of AA are
you talking about? Exogenous or endogenous? Besides, I might not have
been clear, it's the oxygenated products (prostaglandins, lipoxins and
leukotrienes all series two) that I would say are the problem. Building
up large stores of AA, might be like keeping a large number of loaded
guns around the house. Its not the gun that's the problem. Its what
the gun does that's the problem. So, I wonder (what you might call idle
speculation) what the long term effects are of building large stores of
AA (endogenous source) FA in cell membranes. Here's another analogy,
building large stores of endogenously produced AA might be like burying
nerve gas in steel drums. Eventually the drums degrade and the gas
leaks out. Then what?
> If they are too plentiful then some brief highlights will
> do, if you will be so kind as to follow them up with specific references
> the reader may pursue on his own.
I'll be happy to up load what I have on disc which is mainly the
citations and abstracts from the neuroendocrine immune literature.
> You appear to think that if you use words a certain way, everyone else must
> use them that way too.
Language does have its conventions! We agree to adhere to those rules.
I do understand the difference between connotation and denotation.
>
> >From my general perspective on life, I am perfectly capable of asking
> questions which do not advance any particular agenda. I am usually quite
> pleased when I can ask a question which challenges my own perspective on
> any issue. When I find a question I cannot answer or which even suggests
> that I may be completely wrong about everything I believe (or would like to
> believe), then I see an opportunity for further learning, or to appreciate
> the fact that I just don't know everything (a bit of humility that a lot of
> people, including myself, should be reminded of more often).
>
> Of course, one possible perspective on this would be to say that the agenda
> behind most questions I ask is simply the perspective that I wish to
> challenge preconceptions and learn as much as possible.
If you ask a question, are you doing so to learn something? Then your
agenda is to learn something. If other can recognize this as the case
then we can participate in your agenda being fulfilled.
> HOWEVER, an equally valid perspective would be to say that no question ever
> has an agenda, but that SOMETIMES a questionER might have one... or
> sometimes he might not. Or that frequently a questioner may have as his
> only agenda the desire to learn and find truth of as objective a nature as
> possible--which in my view effectively translates to ofen having no
> particular agenda at all when I ask a question.
>
> The reason I prefer this latter perspective is that my experience has been
> that people who assume that every question has an agenda are quite often
> people who are dishonest, paranoid, or are simply afraid to have their own
> preconceptions challenged.
This sounds like a therapy thing ... no offense. I have an agenda. I
recognize that we all have an agenda. It seems that you've been injured
in some relationship(s) by someone's malintent and have chalked that up
to an "agenda" thus defining the therm agenda as something undesirable.
That would be an unfortunate connotation of the word. An agenda isn't a
bad thing. For instance, on my agenda for Thursdays and Saturdays is my
son's baseball games. Your agenda could be to be heard, be loved, to
love, to learn, to teach, ad infinitum. To quote, "You appear to think
that if you use words a certain way, everyone else must use them that
way too." I'll attempt to adhere to the conventions of language as
suggested by Strunk and White in "The Elements of Style" that being use
the denotation of words.
> The simple fact is that assuming that a
> question has an agenda is quite often an easy way to dodge having to answer
> it. In fact the Stalinists and the Nazis used this very technique to
> stunning effect, as do a number of modern day religious cults; I refer you
> to SNAPPING by Flo Conway and Jim Siegleman, and MODERN FASCISM by Gene
> Edward Veith, Jr. for some interesting (and wildly different) perspectives
> on that.
Wow. It does run deep. In a humorus way I've students say, "Just
because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
I'm just not sure how the Stalinists directly factor into this
discussion. George Orwell's 1984 is an evil account of manipulation
which may support your point recognizing of course that it's fiction.
But if we are using fascism as a model for what an agenda would be then
we can say that democracy had the agenda to erradicate fascism in the
1940s. If "agenda" is bad, then it would also make democracy bad for
wanting to put and end to fascism; an agenda nonetheless. I think this
is all an over simplification.
When a patient visits me I know their agenda is to (let's say) get out
of pain. I believe that this is adversarial in any way. My agend is to
help them realize their agenda. Its all very clear.
> >Goetzl EJ. Oxygenation products of arachidonid acid as mediators of
> >hypersensitivity and inflammation. Symposium on Prostaglandins. Medical
> >Clinics of North America 1981; 65(4): 809.
> >
> >Brenner RR. The oxidative desaturation of unsaturated fatty acids in
> >animals. Molecular & Cellular Chemistry 1974; 3(1): 41
> >
> >Smith WL. The eicosanoids and their biochemical mechanisms of action.
> >Biochem J 1989; 259: 315-324
> >
> >Samuelsson B, Dahlen SE, Lindgren JA, Rouzer CA, Serhan CN. Leukotrienes
> >and lipoxins: Biosynthesis, and biological effects. Science 1987; 237:
> >1171-1176.
>
> Ah, thank you. <relieved sigh> I will do my best to consult these and to
> contemplate their significance.
These are only those articles I happened to have at home.
Unfortunately, they represent early works in the area as I am tracing
the historic developments of this research. I want to see how one thing
lead to another thing.
Andrew
--
Andrew S. Bonci, BA, DC, DAAPM
Assistant Professor, Department of Diagnosis
Cleveland Chiropractic College
6401 Rockhill Road
Kansas City, Missouri 64131
(816) 333-7436 ex39
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