Some issues when discussed can cause a range of reactions. Sometimes they can lead to an awakening, the beginning of a journey to discovering something new, or they can can cause a certain type of reaction in a person who may not like what they hear. I think that it's all about how we choose to deal with the info we're hearing and how we process it.
Take the issues of let's say .... fluoride and mobile phone tower radiation. The government has allowed the fluoridation of our water and they have allowed the construction of mobile phone towers in residential areas. Does that mean the water is safe to drink and it causes no ill affect? Does that mean that the mobile phone towers are safe? What about the handsets. Are they safe for children to use and hold against their heads?
Well, we discuss these things and some people do react angrily to the people discussing these issues. Does this mean that we have to stop discussion that challenges the supposed official stance or challenges what we are told is the mainstream belief? Do we have to self-censor or have this in a [private group? I have noticed that in discussion forums or the media that racist beliefs are a;allowed a platform and yet issues that many folk feel that need to be addressed because of health concerns are not given the same platform. To me racism is abhorrent and yet in the media, it gets the pass ticket while issues that some call important to health freedom do not! Why is that? Could it be political? What are your thoughts?
This is a discussion that some people here would be interested in while others may not be. Folks with opposing views are welcome as always. Please, if someone has an issue with these topics being discussed or another member, could they refrain from any attacks on others or deliberately flooding this thread with off topic filler.
I would like to start out by saying that I agree in principle to exercising individual judgement over information. In principle, challenging entrenched or accepted ideas is not bad. Almost every scientific advance has occurred when an accepted piece of scientific belief that is considered unquestionable is seen in a new light - perhaps a more all-encompassing light - after further study or research. Newton's theory was subsumed in Einstein's, for example.
However, bear in mind that in order to challenge such a cornerstone, one needs to understand it. I don't mean the glib superficial understanding that comes from reading a shared piece of social media summary. The sort of knowledge required is professional, specific, qualified. The arguments used to challenge the cornerstone must be understandable by the wider scientific community - or at least that portion of the scientific community who has expert knowledge about the issue at hand.
A paediatrician, for instance, is not likely to have the specific knowledge to challenge an astronomer about a minuscule alteration in red shift with regard to a particular astronomical body. A physicist is not likely to have the specific knowledge to challenge a neurosurgeon about a section of brain retraining itself after a severe injury to the brain. And so on.
The person in the street can be swayed by arguments that are specious, when it comes to specialist subjects. Many human beings can be manipulated to believe a particular view so strongly that challenging it will only make the person believe it more rigidly than ever. (It's a process I call "mental castling".)
The majority of people who challenge the consensus of epidemiologists and vaccine specialists about vaccines know only what they've been told by other believers and what they have read on the internet or received from non-official sources. Certain use of language can convey a powerful sense of expertise and arcane information. The sense of being one of those special people "in the know" reinforces the information they have. That in itself doesn't mean that these people are wrong in everything they believe. There HAVE been huge leaps forward in the body of scientific knowledge that contradict what was previously held to be true, and there HAVE been dreadful mistakes. I don't think that can be denied.
I'm happy to see challenges.
However, some facts are indisputable because the search has burrowed down right to the most essential particle. When proceeding on the basis of those things being fact, the results - consistently, time after time, in every currently conceivable circumstance - can only have come about because of the base assumption being true. If a, then b. Sometimes the base assumption becomes part of a bigger truth expressed mathematically, so that the equation for a, it is realised, is part of a larger subset, but that does not negate a.
If a challenge to a base assumption is made in ignorance that masquerades as knowledge, I don't want to condemn the very human desire to make sure, to not be fooled by an authority's lies, and so on. I do want to condemn the spreading of a false challenge whose building blocks have already been debunked, even though I understand - I truly do - that the spreading of such misinformation is not perceived as the spreading of misinformation by the people concerned. They believe that they are courageously speaking up against a controlling falsity-enforcing authority.
I note too that those who have a thorough scepticism towards "authority" and a scientific consensus - people who are predisposed towards conspiracy theories or who have, for whatever reason, gone down that rabbit hole - will frequently cite their own very small coterie of experts to justify their challenging views. That is to say, it's all right to believe the words of experts who are agreeing with the non-mainstream, but not all right to believe the words of experts who are representative of the mainstream.
Something is not true simply because it's mainstream. It's also not untrue simply because it's mainstream.
If we are to challenge mainstream beliefs and officially accepted stances, of course we can do so. But agreeing with mainstream beliefs (with some or with all of them) does not make one a sheep or an unthinking person. That is bunkum. Agreeing with the mainstream to a significant (if not total) extent may well be the result of a well-honed sense of critical thinking, a good background in certain streams of science, an awareness that any error or example of egregious behaviour may not be representative of the entire scientific body, and a largely unbiased exercise of scepticism that is not restricted to being sceptical of the mainstream, but also is in good functioning order against the many different sorts of un-mainstream views.
If I am critical of authority, I will be equally critical of anti-authority. I will not re-test every single experiment or piece of research in my wonderfully equipped Laboratory of Everything; who on earth would have the time, the equipment, the funds, the raw materials, the minionsassistants, or the knowledge? I will accept certain conclusions because the raw data is available for me to assess if I wish to do so, and because I can see that if a, then b.
If/when I'm proven wrong on the basis of evidence, I hope I will always reassess on that basis. But let no person deride or despise my stance on the basis of what I hold to be true. We should probably examine ourselves regularly to consider why we believe what we believe. A glib "I will never believe big pharma" is not good enough. Pharmaceutical companies are sometimes wrong or practising bad behaviour. That is inarguable. It does not follow that all pharmaceutical companies are always wrong and always pursuing profit above the health and lives of human beings.
That's my view, subject to the usual terms and conditions.
What's your problem - you only drink bottled water - or so it has been said.
I shouldn't have to be forced to purchase chlorine free water.or do that. However, I buy 10 litre cartons of fluoride and chlorine free water. The problem is that any food that has had water as an ingredient usually contains traces of fluoride. Also when showering and washing, the toxin is absorbed through the skin.
Don't you think that it is disrespectful for authorities to dump an industrial waste (because that's what it is) in our water without our permission?
I once remember hearing joke about strange creatures and how they usually live under bridges where water flows by. They are more prevalent in countries that fluoridate their water for some reason. They've somehow migrated from the damp spot under the bridge to popping up on the Internet.. I think the joke is them. Sadly they don't get it even when they look in the mirror.
Not according to the post last night, think he had a few before he met the amigo and had more LOL
It's just a joke 4chan
Yes, guilty as charged. I had some ale. Being older now I appreciate a nice ale more than I did in my younger days when it was mostly about the effect.
What's your problem - you only drink bottled water - or so it has been said.
I shouldn't have to be forced to purchase chlorine free water.or do that. However, I buy 10 litre cartons of fluoride and chlorine free water. The problem is that any food that has had water as an ingredient usually contains traces of fluoride. Also when showering and washing, the toxin is absorbed through the skin.
Don't you think that it is disrespectful for authorities to dump an industrial waste (because that's what it is) in our water without our permission?
What's your problem - you only drink bottled water - or so it has been said.
I shouldn't have to be forced to purchase chlorine free water.or do that. However, I buy 10 litre cartons of fluoride and chlorine free water. The problem is that any food that has had water as an ingredient usually contains traces of fluoride. Also when showering and washing, the toxin is absorbed through the skin.
Don't you think that it is disrespectful for authorities to dump an industrial waste (because that's what it is) in our water without our permission?
What stops the water running out of the cartons - hello - placky.
