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Comment by Pucilowski | Hacker News Reader

Disclosing your (potentially conflicting) interests does not automatically mean you've not been biased/incentivized to discover particular findings, pharmaceutical research is full of examples

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Of course, but if you have a specific interest, and then a study comes out that backs it up, you can write about it and promote it, can't you? Show everyone, look at this, we liked this idea, and now this study gives it more backing.

If the study had said eating meat was essential for our pre-historic development they probably just wouldn’t publish it. Impartiality is hard.

Sure. But there are plenty of "Carnivore", or "Keto" sites that do not publish studies showing the benefits of fiber or vegetables. It goes both ways, the plant people aren't more biased.

If a study comes out saying meat is great, "keto" sites promote it.

If a study comes out saying plants are great, "plant" sites promote it.

I don't think a site called 'plantbasednews' is hiding their bias.

Yes that’s why I would prefer studies done by some history department which at least theoretically is only biased towards finding out the truth

I think the point is, that the study itself was fine, you can't discount it because you don't like the sites that report on it. The site that is 'biased' is reporting on a study that backs up what they want to promote, but that doesn't invalidate the underlying study. They didn't fund this study, and put pressure on skewing the results, they are just writing an article about it.

Sure you can, but the thing about ideologies is that they are almost always pseudo-religious philosophies, and those entities that make them their foremost identity typically seek out supporting facts while ignoring contravening facts. Expecting this behavior is reasonable, almost all ideologues engage in it to some degree. Thus additional skepticism/verification is warranted when the source is an ideologue and the purported argument contains facts that supposedly validate their ideology.

Even Trump says something correct about the border every once in a while, but you'd be a fool to take him at face value.

By contrast a more neutral source that lacked said motivation could be taken more at face value. By putting your agenda out in front, you're implying that you prioritize that agenda over everything else, including most likely the actual truth, because agendas become less and less politically attractive the more nuance they try to convey.

It was an article in 'plantbasednews', about a totally separately funded study that had a positive result for 'plants'.

This is a site to report 'plant based news', reporting on a study about 'plants'.

The site does not label itself as : "Completely un-biased news site weighing the thousands of studies dealing with all food types and providing equal 50-50 coverage of both plants and meat studies so people on the internet don't cry about bias".

When "plant-based" is used as a euphemism for "vegan," I find that annoying and borderline dishonest.

We all eat plants. Even lots of plants. But most of us are not vegan.

So if these people are vegan and pushing a vegan agenda ... I wish they'd make it more clear than "plant based."

Incidentally, kimchi is easy to make, delicious, and healthy. AND most kimchi recipes are not vegan - they include one or two fishy ingredients.

Totally separate. I do think as opposing arguments get more extreme, it skews each side. Then someone in the middle can look extreme.

There is just as strong an ideology and religious fervor around 'carnivore', and 'keto' communities.

Then when someone suggests eating some plants, they yell 'vegan'. And the more someone in the middle tries to argue 'no, really, you need some fiber', the more they yell back 'your vegan'.

If the person in the middle starts arguing back, and siting studies, the extreme side starts viewing them as extreme, even if they are in the middle.

Think the effect is called Overton Window.

I would hope no vegan would argue against Kimchi. Kimchi is great.

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