Is this the thin end of the wedge?

[Dr Rick]

Looks like I missed a good thread somewhere else...

 

[chrisbell]

Now that sound to me like a scientist's get-out clause for using personal opinion!

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Hardly, I think. Would you apply Ayurvedic principles to driving a car? Or culinary skills to help you decide who to vote for in a general election? Sorry to sound flippant, but we all apply different criteria and ways of thinking to different situations all the time. Scientists apply the scientific method to science, which is what it was developed to do. To apply it to business decisions, religion or art criticism would be ludicrous.

Thin ice!! We can think as we will but making a statement is not prudent sometimes.

I agree it sounded bad, but let me put it this way. If Fido showed me paperwork from his days in Local Government, I wouldn't be able to make head or tail of it. Similarly, if a lawyer showed me written legal arguments I would be completely lost. My point is that most professions and vocations have their own specialised vocabularies and 101 other things that make them difficult or nigh-on impossible for those from outside of that area to understand.

I admit that some specialist papers on medical trials would use terms and concepts that I would struggle with, but the writing style, format and most of the terminology would be familiar and I'd back myself to understand it fairly well. I make that claim not because I'm conceited enough to think I'm some kind of high-IQ genius (I'm probably pretty average in that regard), but because I spent a fair bit of time during the final year of my degree and the whole of the year of my research masters either reading papers or considering how to co-write one on the research I was doing. I'd have been a pretty piss-poor excuse for a student had I not learned how to understand papers in biology and medical research!

 

[IanM]

You know when you walk into a room, and things are happening that you don't wish to see or hear, so you turn around and walk out again? That.

Ian

 

[chrisbell]

Anyway, I haven't heard any suggestions that Palmolive is going to be withdrawing from the European market, so perhaps it's time to let this dog go back to sleep.

 

[Helveticum]

My point is that most professions and vocations have their own specialised vocabularies and 101 other things that make them difficult or nigh-on impossible for those from outside of that area to understand.

So, basically, this means you only smartass about medicine? And to the rest of the topics scientific principles do not apply because you know little about them? Now try to extrapolate this onto the previous situation and give it a little thought.

 

[RB73]

Can't see happening over here.

 

[Fido]

Long live palmolive soap stick.

 

[joe mcclaine]

WAIT !!!

Let me just get the dinner on then I can join you!

Don't start without me!

 

[Dr Rick]

Re: RE: Is this the thin end of the wedge?

Scientists apply the scientific method to science, which is what it was developed to do. To apply it to business decisions, religion or art criticism would be ludicrous.

I can barely begin to express how much I disagree with this. The first line is a tautology: science is that explored through the scientific method. The second is a surrender. Just because many people don't make business or religious choices rationally and defensibly doesn't mean one can't, or shouldn't.

 

[chrisbell]

My point is that most professions and vocations have their own specialised vocabularies and 101 other things that make them difficult or nigh-on impossible for those from outside of that area to understand.

So, basically, this means you only smartass about medicine? And to the rest of the topics scientific principles do not apply because you know little about them? Now try to extrapolate this onto the previous situation and give it a little thought.

No, I'm not saying scientific principles don't apply because I don't understand them. You're conflating two separate points into a single, hybrid point. That comment was in reply to Carl saying that I was skating on thin ice by stating that most members here wouldn't understand the scientific literature. What I meant was that I wasn't skating on thin ice because I was speaking from a position of knowledge and experience as someone who is trained in the scientific method, just as a lawyer would if he or she was describing how precedent is applied to written legal documents, or Fido would if he was discussing Local Government documentation.

Now, as to why the scientific method isn't usually applied to business, or voting in elections, or making a sandwich, or indeed any other activity, I'd have thought that was blindingly obvious. Philosophers, for example, have, over the course of at least 200 years, evolved their own ways of thinking about philosophical problems, their own methodologies and conventions, because they are tools to help them do what they're doing as best they can.

Similarly, scientists evolved the scientific method to help reduce bias, error and false positives as much as possible. Therefore, in the old thread to which Carl was referring, it was appropriate for me to discuss the scientific method as the subject at hand was a scientific one - i.e. why conventional medicine is better-regulated, better-understood and better-supported by evidence than alternative therapies such as Ayurveda, which seems to be Carls' preferred form of treatment. At the time, I took pains to say that, if Carl believes that Ayurveda helps him more than conventional medicine, then it's his choice to eschew the pharmacy. It's a free country, after all. My argument was that the idea that his personal belief constitutes evidence of the efficacy of such treatments is illogical and nonsensical. These things are determined by evidence, gathered by decades and centuries of scientific research. In turn, that research is guided and shaped by the scientific method so that the likelihood of the experiments producing junk results is reduced as far as possible. To suggest that belief of something is evidence for it would require us to accept every god, every creation story and every religion there has ever been just because someone, somewhere, at some point in history believed it!:icon_rolleyes:

I know I sound bitter, but I'm fed-up with society as a whole disregarding or trashing science because it reveals findings they don't like. Science deliberately tries to eliminate as far as possible bias and emotions because they inhibit the whole point of science by clouding judgement and leading to new ideas and discoveries being ostracised. A well-balanced person, who happens to be a scientist, knows when to let the emotions which make us human into the picture; it's when the lab coat is hung up and the laboratory door is closed. To suggest that no-one can determine when this should happen is ridiculous - imagine if our hypothetical philosopher believed that they couldn't determine when to stop philosophising! They'd never be able to choose which sandwich filling to go for in a deli, for example, without holding-up the queue for hours pondering the fundamental difference between BLT and pawn salad.:icon_rolleyes:

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Scientists apply the scientific method to science, which is what it was developed to do. To apply it to business decisions, religion or art criticism would be ludicrous.

I can barely begin to express how much I disagree with this. The first line is a tautology: science is that explored through the scientific method. The second is a surrender. Just because many people don't make business or religious choices rationally and defensibly doesn't mean one can't, or shouldn't.

Good point, Dr - the first line is tautological. Would it be better to say that science is defined by the method by which it is carried-out - i.e. that which is called the "scientific method"?

On my second point, I should have written something along the lines of "To expect everyone to apply it (the scientific method) to business decisions, religion or art criticism would be ludicrous" I would contend that businesses would be a much better-suited to their customers if the managers did apply logic and rational thought to their decision-making processes - sadly, they do not. For this reason, I argue that there should not be a requirement for me to use the scientific method in discussing the topic of the thread as I originally intended it - namely, the concern that Colgate-Palmolive may decide to withdraw these products from the European market as the have in the US. In the case of religion, I tend to think that applying the scientific method to matters of faith is futile and pointless, as these things lie outside of science.

 

[Jeltz]

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was

Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the universe than we do now.

 

[chrisbell]

Perhaps, if everyone agrees, our mods might terminate this thread and delete it? I don't have any evidence to suggest that Palmolive is going to withdraw shaving products from Europe - I should have posted a simple "news" type post mentioning the withdrawal of said products from the US market, and left it at that, without speculating. This thread has been pretty unedifying and has, IMO, cast this forum in a bad light, as well as bringing-out my worst characteristics. In addition, to those sceptical of science, no amount of persuasion or evidence will sway their minds - belief is a powerful thing and will always win out.

 

[Bechet]

Chris - to say, "if Carl believes that Ayurveda helps him more than conventional medicine" is to flip what I said to suit your argument.

Allopathic medicine failed to cure a skin condition from which I suffered for years. Ayurvedic medicine cured it in no time at all. Anecdotal evidence by all means - and absolute irrefutable fact to myself and those around me.

But back to the point - just because an American company withdraws a product from a home market is no basis for concluding/assuming/fearing/believing it will be withdrawn from a foreign market in which it sells well. Very illogical - if there are degrees of illogicality. Not to be expected of a trained mind, I'd have thought! But yes - you hang up your trained mind with your lab coat, if I read you correctly. Unlike philosophers who rarely if ever switch off their trained minds - it's a way of seeing life and the world and universe, not a closeted lab experience.

Btb, I admire your ability and willingness to keep digging. Have you thought to look up from your labours and smile? We believe passionately in science - but does that make science un-scientific?

Damn! You posted before me.

 

[Helveticum]

I'll conclude about Palmolive, specially for you Chris:
No, there's nothing that would suggest that such fate would befall the European version. What most likely happened was - head of US operations was maximising ROI and P/E, and minimising running costs by retiring low-yielding product lines.
Your conclusion is baseless because the ratios on which such decisions are based are different for AMERICAS and EMEA, let alone execs that make them are different people in different entities.

 

[Canuck]

I have two things to say:

1) Palmolive is okay but I wouldn't miss it if it went. The "nice end" niche cream and soap makers will go on making their lovely wares and I'll carry on buying them.

2) Vinny will look really silly wearing his dinner.

 

[Fido]

There will always be Arko.