My estimate of the quality of the evidence is based on daily discussions with people who work in that field and reading summary articles in major journals. I typically don't read raw scientific articles directly- those are aimed at people in the field. Instead, my understanding comes from a synthesis of expert opinions weighted by my own priors (based on 30+ years in the field). Derek's opinion is now the prevailing one that I hear from a wide range of researchers.
replyI've seen this happen before, btw- overturning establishment paradigms, especially ones where the underlying etiology is complex- is extremely hard and often takes decades of experimental results.
What started as an argument to ignore arguments and evidence and instead rely on authority, seems now to have morphed into an argument that we should ignore the authority of the establishment, because of your own personal assessment of the evidence (which you have not yourself read) and your own personal synthesis of conversations you've had with researchers you've personally come into contact with (despite this being apparently unrepresentative of objective measures of typical researcher opinions).
replyArguing from authority really only takes you so far when it ends up as an appeal to your personal experience. I'd rather you either address the arguments directly, or drop the dubious appeal to authority.
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