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What is an equivalent product to HiFi snake oil?

lemnoc

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Well, I do not think I can persuade you. I will point you to this Wikipedia entry on "appeal to nature", which shows that "natural cures" being superior are a logical fallacy. Good luck.
Nothing to do with logical fallacies at all. What you practice is no different than alchemy except it can kill people !! Because I'm a doctor and I went to University to become a big pharma schill so I know better than anyone else :(. Next time you have a patient you have written off try suggesting an alternative to them and see what the AMA does to you ? Don't tell me about your science mate . There is no science in this at all. It's all about the $$$$ :(
 
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ahofer

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This is an audio forum. We care about sound reproduction equipment. It’s in the title.
 

Keith_W

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Nothing to do with logical fallacies at all. What you practice is no different than alchemy except it can kill people !! Because I'm a doctor and I went to University to become a big pharma schill so I know better than anyone else :(. Next time you have a patient you have written off try suggesting an alternative to them and see what the AMA does to you ? Don't tell me about your science mate . There is no science in this at all. It's all about the $$$$ :(

Please don't stop. Your abuse is quite entertaining and I can't wait to find out what other branches of science you can dismiss from a layman's point of view :D:D:D

Do you have a comment on this paper? Link Or perhaps this one Link. If you do, I invite you to write in to the authors or the editors of the paper to tell them that they are all big pharma shills and you should suggest an alternative to them.

When I was a young doctor, the only treatment for Melanoma was Interferon. This was not proven to extend life, and some papers suggested it improved progression free survival, but in exchange for its lack of efficacy it was common to have a lot of side effects. While I was under supervision, I discussed a patient with Melanoma with the senior doctor (you call them Attendings in the USA). He asked me how I felt about prescribing this drug. My response was, "for better or for worse, it is the only drug we have with an albeit small effect. Whether I recommend this medication or not depends on the patient's attitude towards the balance of chance of survival vs. side effects, but I will not be pushing hard for this treatment because I do not feel that the benefit to the patient is clear".

You would find that most doctors evaluate the needs of the patient before recommending treatment. And I do not mean just evaluating the disease in isolation - for sure every cancer needs treatment if there is treatment available and if it can be tolerated - but you also have to consider whether the patient has a desire for treatment, has realistic goals, and so on. Oncologists and doctors in general are not medication dispensing automatons, we are trained in the human aspect as well, and patients are not a disease, but a person. People have other illnesses, social factors, and unique circumstances which all contribute to suffering and also whether they will respond to treatment. So, there have been many times where I have to shake my head and acknowledge that there is nothing scientifically possible that can be done to reverse the outcome.

Where I was coming from in my previous post was against those charlatans who prey on the vulnerable to sell them unproven treatments that will likely shorten their lives. In my previous role as a public hospital doctor (I am now semi-retired), I was NOT paid by the number of patients I saw, or how many times I prescribed a drug. I was paid by how many sessions I contributed to the system at a fixed hourly rate. There was no financial motivation to put patients on unnecessary treatment, which is one of the most beautiful aspects of the free and public medical system in Australia. Patients get what they need - nothing more and nothing less. Anything unscientific is not publicly funded. You can see me twice a year, or maybe 24 times a year or more often (which is what would happen if you need it), and it would not cost you a cent, nor increase my pay by any degree. And I would only provide you with scientific advice which has been tailored to your unique circumstances at no cost to you.

Of course, you could choose to pay for an expensive charlatan who will recommend hocus-pocus treatment which will likely shorten your life, as opposed to the scientific treatment which you would receive for nothing. Compare this to a decision to purchase a $25,000 power cable which is no doubt a waste of money. The power cable will not cost you your life. Furthermore, that decision to purchase an expensive power cable was not made by a desperate person clutching at anything to keep him alive. It was made by a person who was comfortable with his life and wanted a luxury purchase. Whilst the purveyor of hi-fi snake oil is no doubt unethical lying scum, it is on a completely different level to opportunistic scum who will willingly sell medical snake oil at the cost of life and health of his victim in search of profit.
 

fpitas

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It is an audio forum of course, but the thread title threw the door wide open. No idea why someone got so uhm excited about stuff.
 

ahofer

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Guys, can we get back to what's REALLY important, which is people selling fraudulent hopes and dreams to monied hobbyists?
 

noiseangel

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I really did not want to get dragged into this.

But I have been.

My Dad said to me no matter what you do in life never compromise your INTEGRITY. As I have learned there is no compromise when it comes to your integrity. Any "conflict of interests" is a compromise of your integrity and I was bitten once very unwittingly. We see this everyday in Hi-Fi reviews and you don't need me to tell about any of that. Could you imagine the outrage on this forum if Ted Denney reviewed his own cables? How good they are and how the soundstage increased BS BS BS. This is why we have peer reviewed papers, those that review them have NO financial gain what so ever. If we don't accept that in the audio world are we prepared to accept that in other areas of our life?

As we can see the Hi-Fi audio snake oil world is full of people with compromised integrity. We know who they are we know what they and they do it for MONEY. WE ALL KNOW THIS. SO what about Whitegoods, Automobiles, Restaurants, the list goes on. So what about medicines? How would like the efficacy tested of what you ingest to get you better? How would you like to know the medicine you are taking is safe? Would you like that information to be reviewed in a manner that the author has ZERO FINANCIAL GAIN in the outcome and sales of that medicine?

Check out who wrote that paper in one of those links? Talk about the Fox running it's own trial for killing the chickens. These guys are never going to say anything bad about the drugs they review. GAME OVER. ZERO INTEGRITY.
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Scrappy

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Actually, there is another type of snake oil which I forgot to include: academic snake oil. Entire academic fields are nothing but pure snake oil. Examples: gender studies, fat studies, and parts of other humanities seem to be infested with these. Not to mention groupthink within certain academic circles (of which humanities is the most egregious example) - there was recently a lawsuit in Australia where an academic was fired from his job for questioning the existing dogma from his own University about published studies on the Great Barrier Reef (he won that lawsuit). Australians on this forum would be familiar with regular pronouncements in the newspapers that "The Great Barrier Reef is dead" because of a new study. This has been going on for more than 20 years. This exposed collusion between academics and journals to push a certain narrative.

As a scientist myself, I am only able to question journals within my own academic field with any authority. I can tell you that 90% of published papers in my own field are worthless, especially anything published in certain journals like the MJA (Medical Journal of Australia). Most of these are really entertaining to read because in the end most of the papers are about cash grabs.
Hell, I have a (pricey) audio degree, BM in Music Recording Technology, that I think was way over-sold. Now, college was f ckin awesome, so much fun. But the promise of a studio gig was DOA in the ~2010 days. Luckily I gravitated toward live sound, which is my career of 12 years now.

The snake oil: “4 years makes you a proper audio engineer/ producer.” Well, students would squeak by nearly unable to do aural theory (transcribe by listening) and totally failing audio ear-training exams. Don’t care, thanks for the money and here’s your degree. Forget about signal flow or troubleshooting or knowledge of practical electric… Ahh I may be exaggerating a bit, we did have coursework on all these things. Anyhow, still…
 

fpitas

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Hell, I have a (pricey) audio degree, BM in Music Recording Technology, that I think was way over-sold. Now, college was f ckin awesome, so much fun. But the promise of a studio gig was DOA in the ~2010 days. Luckily I gravitated toward live sound, which is my career of 12 years now.

The snake oil: “4 years makes you a proper audio engineer/ producer.” Well, students would squeak by nearly unable to do aural theory (transcribe by listening) and totally failing audio ear-training exams. Don’t care, thanks for the money and here’s your degree. Forget about signal flow or troubleshooting or knowledge of practical electric… Ahh I may be exaggerating a bit, we did have coursework on all these things. Anyhow, still…
Honestly, that could describe a lot of technical programs for engineering. Unfortunately, most colleges exist to make money, not star students.
 

Scrappy

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Honestly, that could describe a lot of technical programs for engineering. Unfortunately, most colleges exist to make money, not star students.
Was thinking about that when posting, but I have little empirical evidence. Can’t say I didn’t take a dumb career route outta school- sound guy for regional cover band. But all the musicals, live shows, maintenance work-study.. tight
 

Keith_W

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Check out who wrote that paper in one of those links? Talk about the Fox running it's own trial for killing the chickens. These guys are never going to say anything bad about the drugs they review. GAME OVER. ZERO INTEGRITY.

If you think there is a conflict of interest, please demonstrate how and where in the paper you think corruption has occurred, and you can write a letter to the editor of that journal. Academic journals take their reputation very seriously, they publish refutations and criticisms and retract articles if they published an article that is subsequently demonstrated to be false. So I am sure they would be very interested in your feedback.

That paper that you referred to can be found here. It is a study of a drug called Bevacizumab, trade name Avastin. It is manufactured by Roche. The conflict of interest declared by the author indicates that he has received funding in the past from Pfizer, Lilly, and Regeneron - all competitors of Roche. Why do you think that an author who has received funding from the competitors of that drug in question should write a favourable review? In any case, review articles are an overview of currently published data, which the author collates and presents, points out what we know and don't know, and where further research should be undertaken. An academic review is NOT "I tried this drug and it made the soundstage wider" or "it lifted veils" although it may be possible that drugs exist that can do that.

All published papers have a section where potential conflict of interest from the authors is published to help the reader determine to what extent they should trust the paper. For sure many of the results published are given a positive spin by the authors regardless of whether they have a conflict of interest or not, which is why anybody who has training in reading academic journals always reads the methodology and results sections very carefully to make sure that the data was collected in a way such as to not interfere with the result, and that it was analysed properly. You then draw your own conclusion from the result, and then read the conclusion/discussion to see what the authors thought of their own results. Usually in the same journal or the next edition there will be expert commentary of the paper, and sometimes "letters to the editor" critiquing the study.

You will find a declaration of conflict of interest in almost any publication in any academic journal you read. Compare this to the hifi world where glowing reviews with no data are published and no conflict of interest has been declared even though you suspect that the reviewer may have been a flown and accommodated at the expense of the manufacturer, or given a piece of equipment to keep after review. Even in objectivist circles it is not mandatory to declare conflict of interest unless you publish in an academic journal like JAES.

Far from "zero integrity", a public declaration of potential conflict of interest is a sign of integrity.

Also, even with the care that Amir takes in his measurements, what he reports is a single data point from which one should interpret with caution unless corroborated by multiple authors repeating the same experiment because of potential errors in his equipment, or his technique, or the product, and so on. This is not in any way a criticism of Amir, it's just how scientists should think and I am sure he would be the first to agree with this. Even then, if you read some other review sites in other hobbies (such as the lens rentals blog, you will find that many products have variability in manufacturing (because tolerances add up) which is why they repeat measurements over many lenses and publish graphs showing variability which demonstrate QC. It is the same in any academic field - you do not read one study in isolation because there is always the possibility of a spurious result. In Medicine, any study that finds something interesting will be replicated. If there are none now, you can bet there will be in a few years. In this way, spurious results are weeded out and we can be very confident of what we know works and what doesn't, because we have a solid body of data, collected by multiple experimenters, with studies funded by different groups, across a larger body of population, with different observers, and so on.

For sure there are low quality studies published by people with conflicts of interest, and some have even been caught fudging the data or even outright lying (see Andrew Wakefield) but it is a career terminating move which will lead to loss of tenureship and fines or revocation of licenses from professional licensing boards.

Because I have a lot of experience reading academic papers and weighing up data, I know what I can be confident about and what is supported by less data. For example, ASR members support for manufacturers like Topping or JDS Atom comes from a very tiny few data points when compared to the massive thousands of case-control studies published across hundreds of articles in dozens of peer-reviewed journals by professional scientists. But that is okay, because the stakes are not high and I am grateful that somebody is willing to take the trouble to do experiments and publish them as a service to the community.

I can see why you don't want to get "dragged into this" but you started it by attacking an entire branch of science when you have no qualifications, let alone even the most basic education or training, and you picked someone with years of experience in this field to have an argument with. I can't see why you thought this was a good idea apart from the Dunning-Kruger effect, but there you go.
 
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lemnoc

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I can see why you don't want to get "dragged into this" but you started it by attacking an entire branch of science when you have no qualifications, let alone even the most basic education or training, and you picked someone with years of experience in this field to have an argument with. I can't see why you thought this was a good idea apart from the Dunning-Kruger effect, but there you go.
That's assuming it is a science which is highly debatable. Anyway you were the one who brought up medical quakery not anyone else. At least if people are stupid enough to pay 27k for a speaker or mains cable then at the very least you know it is still going to work like any other cable but just not in the way the manufacturer claims it does. However the stuff you prescribe is not only expensive but highly ineffective and has massive side effects including death !!
 

Keith_W

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That's assuming it is a science which is highly debatable. Anyway you were the one who brought up medical quakery not anyone else. At least if people are stupid enough to pay 27k for a speaker or mains cable then at the very least you know it is still going to work like any other cable but just not in the way the manufacturer claims it does. However the stuff you prescribe is not only expensive but highly ineffective and has massive side effects including death !!

The beauty of academic journals is that they invite criticism and publish responses. In which case I invite you to submit papers to academic journals to refute the entire scientific discipline. Dunning Kruger effect.
 

lemnoc

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The beauty of academic journals is that they invite criticism and publish responses. In which case I invite you to submit papers to academic journals to refute the entire scientific discipline. Dunning Kruger effect.
Listen Keithy old boy, don't waste your time with me son because I know where the skeletons are in your closet. I know all about the secret handbook you oncologists read from. You all read from the same script book designed to con the unsuspecting punters into taking your poisons and getting chopped up and blasted with your ray gun. You just have three blunt instruments that you use all of the time. Nothing has changed in 100 years but they always want more money for cancer research for yet another chemo concoction. All of these psychological tricks you use to coax people is a field in itself ;)

And reading those so called "peer reviewed" documents that you sited is no different than reading something Dracula would write about donating blood to a blood bank. When it comes to Oncologists it's caveat-emptor or buyer beware. Don't be fooled by them - they have nothing to offer you except hollow promises :(
 

fpitas

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This thread has taken an unexpected direction.
 

Keith_W

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Listen Keithy old boy, don't waste your time with me son because I know where the skeletons are in your closet. I know all about the secret handbook you oncologists read from. You all read from the same script book designed to con the unsuspecting punters into taking your poisons and getting chopped up and blasted with your ray gun. You just have three blunt instruments that you use all of the time. Nothing has changed in 100 years but they always want more money for cancer research for yet another chemo concoction. All of these psychological tricks you use to coax people is a field in itself ;)

And reading those so called "peer reviewed" documents that you sited is no different than reading something Dracula would write about donating blood to a blood bank. When it comes to Oncologists it's caveat-emptor or buyer beware. Don't be fooled by them - they have nothing to offer you except hollow promises :(

F1.large.jpg


I'll just leave this here. I assume that with all your expertise, you know how to read a PET scan. Even if you don't, it's quite obvious what you can see.
As for "no progress in 100 years", that is more a statement of ideology and science denial than fact. The LNH-98.5 study showed the effect of the addition of Rituximab, which at the time was a new class of drug called a monoclonal antibody, to standard chemotherapy. I assume you know how to read this result given your undoubted expertise:

nejmoa011795_f2.jpeg

The LNH 98.5 study of 2010 was followed up in 2018 showing that the effect of addition of Rituximab was even greater than realized in the initial study:

ol-15-03-3602-g01.jpg


Look at that, 80% survival at 10 years after initial diagnosis with cancer with the addition of Rituximab in patients <60 years old. There are no figures at 10 years for the "no treatment" group (which I assume you would choose to belong to, given your beliefs) because with this type of lymphoma the rate of mortality is pretty high.

So you are talking pure bunk. This is but one example, there are many others.
 

Dan

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Listen Keithy old boy, don't waste your time with me son because I know where the skeletons are in your closet. I know all about the secret handbook you oncologists read from. You all read from the same script book designed to con the unsuspecting punters into taking your poisons and getting chopped up and blasted with your ray gun. You just have three blunt instruments that you use all of the time. Nothing has changed in 100 years but they always want more money for cancer research for yet another chemo concoction. All of these psychological tricks you use to coax people is a field in itself ;)

And reading those so called "peer reviewed" documents that you sited is no different than reading something Dracula would write about donating blood to a blood bank. When it comes to Oncologists it's caveat-emptor or buyer beware. Don't be fooled by them - they have nothing to offer you except hollow promises :(
Like I said, bizarre.
 
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