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A comment on Current guidelines for sun exposure are unhealthy and unscientific – research (2019). Parent comment

Re:Current guidelines for sun exposure are unhealthy and uns... by taeric on Sunday May 22, 2022 @09:17PM (#31474432)
This feels wrong, too. You are presenting one option as a settled thing because it has a proposed mechanism.

I agree that just dropping a seemingly safe belief should take effort. I have no problem challenging them on a regular basis, though. Especially with more than just arguments and thought experiments. More observational studies can almost certainly only be a good thing.

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Re:Current guidelines for sun exposure are unhealthy and uns... by dsizzle on Sunday May 22, 2022 @09:47PM (#31474595)
GP didn't say that the science of sun exposure is "settled."

Also, that UV damages DNA and causes cancer isn't simply a "proposed" mechanism, it's been tested many times.

I would say pure "observation" per se has little value -- for it to be scientifically valid it needs to seek explanations.

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Re:Current guidelines for sun exposure are unhealthy and uns... by taeric on Sunday May 22, 2022 @11:05PM (#31474977)
Observational studies are certainly science. Any claim against that is going to be hard to defend.

The mechanism isn't really at question. But just as sun exposure can kill grass, so to can lack of sun. We know that humans don't do photosynthesis, but it seems reasonable to ask if we do get other benefits.

Note. Is reasonable to ask and study. Is not reasonable to just assume the conclusion.

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Re:Current guidelines for sun exposure are unhealthy and uns... by dsizzle on Sunday May 22, 2022 @11:38PM (#31475108)
By "observational" studies I realize you probably just meant studies where they don't manipulate a variable (which, while less than ideal, it is indeed science), whereas I was making a more philosophical point, a la Popper https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/778918-the-belief-that-scie...
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Re:Current guidelines for sun exposure are unhealthy and uns... by taeric on Monday May 23, 2022 @12:01AM (#31475226)
Ah, makes sense. You are correct in what I was referencing. To your point, I would expect most observational studies to be done with the expection of validating understood mechanisms.
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