Comment on Rational Health Optimization

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 19:48:01 GMT

Did I state the vitamin D/autism link as fact? I used the word 'may' to indicate uncertainty - and I find it interesting but I myself am skeptical. Nothing on this website is peer-reviewed either, do you take that to automatically indicate that every post is riddled with errors?

What errors specifically? Is posting a link to a paper in Medical Hypotheses an error?

I was not very knowledgeable about the journal beforehand, and after investigating after your post, I have updated and see that as it's entire purpose is to publish wild conjectures more or less, we should take everything there with a grain of salt. That being said, from at least the little I have read about it, it seems to me that there should be a place for conjectures outside of the mainstream. We have plenty of journals that follow the normal process of full review by senior scientists. We should question whether having only that system is optimal for generating knowledge.

Please consider that much of the highly valued material on this website would be considered by outsiders to be wild conjecture far outside of the scientific mainstream. Does that stop you from reading here?

And finally, I suspect you may be somewhat misrepresenting Medical Hypotheses in one attribution, at least in comparison to it's Wikipedia entry.

In 2009, the journal's publisher, Elsevier, withdrew two articles written by AIDS denialists that had been accepted for publication. One of the withdrawn[26] articles,[27] written by Peter Duesberg and David Rasnick, claimed that there is "yet no proof that HIV causes AIDS" and was not responsible for deaths in South Africa that another paper had attributed to it and misrepresented the results of medical research on antiretroviral drugs.

A paper intending to show there is "yet no proof that HIV causes AIDS" seems to me different than your notion of "AIDS does not exist or is not related to HIV". You also fail to mention that Medical Hypotheses withdrew the articles.

You are accusing me of erring in areas in which you are non ignorant. Where? Could you please clarify?

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