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You should definitely follow your instincts here, but wanting researchers to show you how to raise your kids is a fools errand IMO. Put those highly tuned parental instincts to use!

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Isn’t this the exact sentiment used by those who oppose vaccinations?

different advice is appropriate in different situations, believe it or not

Believe it or not, that's a useless fact when there's no obvious specific difference between the situations to make it relevant.

If you don't see a clear difference between the hard sciences of biology/chemistry/medicine and the opinionated "science" of parenting (prescriptive, no less), then you should check your eyes.

I see your point about different qualities of science, but the wording of "highly tuned parental instincts" is still bad. The instincts are the same in both situations, and they're highly flawed. Science should override instincts in lots of situations.

And if you ask basically any kind of science "how do I best accomplish x?", that science will have a "presciptive" answer, so I don't see how parenting science is any more prescriptive then chemistry.

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