Comment by kelipso
21 days ago
So what? Asking “What is the best evidence in favor of this” is equivalent to saying I don’t want to google this, so google this for me. Literally all researchers at all levels in all fields use google for this stuff. I was in academia for years.
Yeah finding some random links through google that one does not go through to -to some degree- verify/vouch for is identically bad practice. Researchers do not cite studies that just happen to come up in their google searches, they actually try to assess the quality of the research, understand the methods/results etc. Nothing like this happened here. Giving such a wall of links as an argument to a discussion without checking their quality or relevance is more akin to trolling behaviour than academic research.
I agree with you and think you should reread. My response was not an argument, it was a response of requested information that I had compiled.
> Asking “What is the best evidence in favor of this” is equivalent to saying I don’t want to google this, so google this for me.
Perhaps I should note that I had indeed (believe it or not) already Googled this before asking the question. I asked not because I was too lazy to search but because I didn't know if my search was turning up the best studies from anyone's perspective.
So, no, this wasn't equivalent to saying "I don’t want to google this, so google this for me."
> So what?
Put simply, it's a wall of links. No quotes. No claims. Its valid to ask if the person posting the links has actually read those articles, or if there is a primary source recommending them. (Or no source if it's LLM copypasta.)
It was a direct response to a question with the answer they were looking for. It was provided in good faith, previously researched and sourced by me within the last 12 months.
I am the OP and someone asked for evidence and the only answer after an hour, falsely stated there was no evidence. I didn't want to challenge anyone directly so I posted what I thought were the top few more convincing links I have compiled out of 30+.
I am disappointed that I am getting downvoted and this is somehow being made into something political when people deserve to see the evidence for and against supplementing fluoride the drinking water of every living thing because the government wants to improve the health of our teeth. It is a fair question to ask.
The main problem with your wall of links from a professional medical PoV is it utterly lacks any context.
The very famous meta studies with all the negative correlations get all the bad associations with flouride from regions where water naturally has extremely high (relative to most other parts of the world) levels of fluoride in addition to high levels of many other uncommon concentrations.
Some of these regions also have additional problems with industry waste.
Put simply, negative correlations about unattended children in swimming pools cannot be extrapolated to infer negative correlations about young children and sippy cups of water.
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> I am disappointed that I am getting downvoted and this is somehow being made into something political when people deserve to see the evidence
I didn’t downvote. (I don’t think.) But as a non-expert, I also didn’t see value in a wall of links. (Particularly when you wouldn’t confirm it wasn’t AI generated.)
A better presentation would pull quotes or make an argument, in your voice, with the citations as scaffolding for your arguments.
To illustrate the issue, I believe I could construct a context-free wall of links justifying just about anything.
Honestly, I think people downvoted it because it sounded a lot like LLM output.
If you could explain the process that led to the production of the list & what led you to the belief that those are the best studies/evidence so far, that would probably help people view it more favorably.