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Comment by pisteoff | Hacker News Reader

"The enthusiastic replies on this thread are understandable, but disappointing to see: we all need to be less credulous regarding the lay science press, and especially the lay medical press."

So fucking what? I suffered a moderate (GCS 8) TBI 6 years ago and it has been the most impactful thing to ever happen in my life, more so than even the births of my children. This article is a small glimmer of hope in an otherwise depressing and difficult subject.

I am beyond glad people such as yourself exist in this world, are skeptical, and do the hard work of helping people and making lives better. But please remember that us lay people need these bits of hope and glimmers of light. I don't particularly care about the science, as a parent and TBI patient I'm simply glad she's ok. This article made me tear up.

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I am really sorry to hear that you've had such a terrible thing happen to you. I think the scientific community is moving in the right direction in recognizing the insidious nature but ultimate impact that these injuries can have. But by skepticism helps us protect the already-scarce resources we have to study what treatments actually work. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the autism community that spent millions and decades on trying to blame vaccines. The science will eventually come out, but we can literally spend as much money as we want to to reach the same conclusions.

You deserve to have hope, but for me personally, hope comes from the fact that science works. This article is not real progress (even though the child had a good outcome, and that's awesome), but there are a dozen places where real progress is occurring, even if it's less visible.

We have to separate the points here.

"Hope" is a real, tangible thing, crucial in our lives, and provably effective.

The question is do we need to accept quackery to have it? Is that sometimes the only way? I suspect the answer is, rarely.

There is so much legit and exciting work being done w.r.t. TBIs that it seems we should not have to rely on it in this area. But that's a guess. Until you've walked in someone's shoes...

Sorry to hear of your suffering.

Well, this is the basis for religion.

I am an atheist, scientist (physics) and I used to actively discourage people from religion (which is pure quackery).

This until I realized that religion helps people who do not want to otherwise think about the world around them. One of the people I managed to move away from religion and change his beliefs ended up deeply depressive. Another one was deeply unhappy with the change. I lost these two friends.

So, while I profoundly belive that people who do science must be atheists (otherwise they have some mental disorders, trying to combine fire and ice), I do not think anymore that everyone is a good candidate for enlightenment. The hope you get from religion vs. the hope you do not have in science (in the religious sense) must be carefully weighted.

I am not religious but I believe that some form of religion has been fundamental to the human species historically. Humans wouldn't have become humans without it. So it is a hard thing to give up.

I think that there is an inherent need in people to explain a way or another what they experience.

Some time ago religion was the only way to go, now science has taken over. Science also gave people the right to say "I do not know".

    I profoundly belive that people who do science must be atheists

That is simply false. Just look at the history of science - just a few examples being Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Newton, Kepler, Leibniz, Euler, Faraday, Maxwell, etc. who were all Christian. A far greater proportion of scientists are religious than one might think (see http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/).

A contemporary scientist (hard science, say physics) who belives in god is a fraud. One cannot from 9 to 5 think scientifically and then in the afternoon just push this aside and state that god is behind everything anyway. This is pure hypocrisy, fraud and betrayal of science.

What was "god" yesterday is science today.

Science and religion have exactly zero common points, they function in fundamentally different ways. One way is to invent our of the blue some kind of superior entity (because why not), the other is to take the risk to say "this is how it works, and this is how you can prove it does not".

I have a PhD in physics and attended a fair share of "discussions between physicists and priests" - complete loss of time. Our world works on science, if someone does not agree I purpose to move back to middle age comfort, propelled by religion and not science. This until winter comes, when suddenly electricity is no longer the effect of the wrath of Zeus but something explained by science.

Hey, I don't mind - you can believe what ever you want. I'm just pointing out that the surveys showing a decent proportion of contemporary scientists (including physicists) have deistic or theistic beliefs renders much of what you are saying empirically incorrect.

You mentioned people who lived in times she religion was the basis of the society. I am talking about contemporary physicists (or other hard science scientists).

And this is not a matter of belief : if someone states that he is a scientist, it is not possible to be religious. Simply because these two postures are not compatible. You can be one of the other but not both.

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