“…“Do your own research”, means don’t follow the science, because “scientific research can’t be trusted”, go and find the answers in blogs, videos and podcasts. Where they’re sure they’ll find the kind of misinformation they’re promoting”
“I mean these sources must be true, because there are people wearing white coats and Doctor in their name …”
“[You’ll find videos that convince you], and the Google Algorithm [knows] you like that stuff, so here’s more of it. It’s not doing your own research that’s the problem, it’s where you do your own research and whether you’re skeptical enough to fact check what you find there”
…the term ‘Do your own research’ started to be employed over a decade ago by conspiracy theorists who thought there was a worldwide conspiracy of scientists, so they told their followers not to trust scientific research but to ‘Do your own research.’ And for many people – as I showed in the video – that means going to pseudoscientific blogs and videos and believing whatever they say without questioning or fact-checking.
“…The Dunning-Kruger effect describes the overconfidence of people who gain a small amount of knowledge and think they now know better than the experts.”
This is the problem with a lot of content nowadays, everywhere on the internet. We have a copious amount of people explained by the Dunning-Kruger effect, who’ve gained some small amounts of knowledge about a subject (like cholesterol, statins), but are overconfident and think they know more than the experts.
They’ll “do their own research”, which was told by them by people who don’t follow the science, and who themselves are DIY researchers, in blogs, videos and podcasts. It’s welcome to be able to call these DIY researchers what they are, just people who can be described by the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Well… we’re all kinda “doing our own research” about rapa, right? We’ve read a lot of articles, listened to podcasts, watched the videos, and we are confident we “found the answer”.
I congratulate RFK for winning the Dummkopf-Cretin Award, an honor given yearly to the man or woman who displays the greatest gap between their confidence and competence in any branch of medicine or science.
For a while now.I’ve had an issue with unqualified people who claim to “do their own research”
I’m unqualified in many areas of science, probably all areas but I recognize my basic lack of understanding and seek out real people who can keep me between the ditches.
I’ve seen and participated in real research being conducted by qualified people, people with the education and experience doing the hard work. I’ve hired Phd’s, Technologists, Technicians, Nurses and Doctors and have seen and experienced what educated people can do that I can’t do.
And over the years I’ve done and lead a lot of product dev work and the only reason any of my ideas ever came to fruition was due to working with people more educated and way smarter than I, in their areas of expertise.
The only advantage I’ve had in this, is that I’m not too educated and ask the “stupid” questions that have sparked others to think a bit harder and offer better solutions. Even the educated, smart people I’ve worked with can get a bit trapped in dogma.
So when I see people on social media say “I did my research” it makes me laugh. They have no idea what “research” is and because of that they are easily lead astray and seek out echo chambers to ease their minds.
The good ones put themselves in uncomfortable places and sail on the uncharted waters of science.
Exactly… when well regarded Mikhail Blagosklonny kept saying in articles take rapamycin as high as possible in dose until you get side effects… seemed plausible.
When I did a higher 10 to 12 mg dose every 7 - 10 days for 7 months… I wrecked my biological markers by a decade plus. Went back to 6 mg weekly and luckily regained mostly my good biological markers numbers after 8 months… biological age… back to numbers before the higher dosing. About to do both tests agin this week… GlycanAge and TruMe.
Pretty convinced the range of 6mg to 8 mg weekly is my dosing sweet spot. I assume it would be similar to most guys my age 66 + and body type toned 185 pounds. Still a guess… but my N=1 on dose based on my self assessment… aka research.
I suppose different people have different levels of confidence. I mean yes, the studies for rapamycin in everything from yeast to marmosets are compelling, but I wouldn’t say I’m “confident”.
I think the probability is pretty high the results will transfer to humans (or at least some percent of humans), but I would rate my confidence as very moderate for transferring to me personally, thus I feel I need to frequently do blood tests and track results, to make sure results are trending in the right direction.
It seems that to avoid running into the Dunning-Kruger effect you need to:
read some of the key research papers and work to understand why a given paper is better than another,
Look for papers that go against the papers you like (i.e. try to falsify the theory you’ve built up and believe)
Don’t get too confident, and be on the lookout for negative data as you move forward.
That’s just one of those Dunning-Kruger guys who wanted to do a ‘gotcha’…
“You say we shouldn’t “do our own research”, but what about Rapamycin? Aren’t you really hypocritical? Huh? I can’t deny cholesterol, statins, saturated fat causing ill health, or vaccines, and not follow the science, and be confident with my low amount of knowledge, that I know better than the experts, but you dare to “do your own research” for rapamycin? I thought so…”
‘Do your own research’ started to be employed over a decade ago by conspiracy theorists who thought there was a worldwide conspiracy of scientists, so they told their followers not to trust scientific research but to ‘Do your own research.’ And for many people – as I showed in the video – that means going to pseudoscientific blogs and videos and believing whatever they say without questioning or fact-checking.
Disconfirming evidence. This is the key for everything in life where you want to avoid fooling yourself. It is the rare person who actively seeks disconfirming evidence to undermine the source of their confidence” in their current actions.
I’ve heard the health influencers complain that most people just want to know that what they are doing already is the right thing. And those people will fight to the death against weak evidence to the contrary. Whatever weak ass evidence started them down a path, they want perfect infallible evidence to get them off of it.
The empiricist only believes what he sees but he is better at believing than at seeing.
This is why you do your own research. You have skin in the game for your own outcomes. You suffer the consequences. The experts and doctors get all the upside (money, respect, prestige, etc), while you get the downside of their expertise…
but I recognize my basic lack of understanding and seek out real people who can keep me between the ditches.