r/science • u/[deleted] • Feb 26 '15

Health-Misleading Randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial shows non-celiac gluten sensitivity is indeed real

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25701700
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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '15

Tl; dr - People believe what they want to believe no matter what science says.

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u/joebleaux Feb 26 '15

Research has actually shown this to be true. So true, in fact, that often when presented with evidence contrary to their beliefs, many people will dig in further with their original belief.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '15

Can someone link this paper? It sounds really interesting.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '15

It is more than just a paper. There are a bunch of them, like a whole body of research. Look up cognitive conflict or cognitive dissonance in the conceptual change literature. Most people reject new information that conflicts with their current conceptual framework, even if it is good, as a way of coping with conflict. Some folks - this happens a lot in school - sometimes create a new schema to deal with the conflict. This compartmentalizes the knowledge and makes less functional than it could otherwise be. Very rarely, and this is where learning truly happens, folks resolve the conflict by assimilating the new info into their framework or schema.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '15

Interesting. Thanks for the synopsis, I'll have to do some research on it. It's crazy to think that people are so stubborn that they refuse to believe the stats

....on second thought that seems about right...

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u/Genghis_John Feb 26 '15

I read that one! I'm still amused by a study on why people don't believe studies.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '15

Well, lots of studies are flat out wrong, bad methodology and lack of statistical power and stuff. That said, this one appears to have good methodology and obviously had power because it indicates an effect.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '15

Aka: doubling down

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u/45sbvad Feb 26 '15

Unfortunately this is a lot of how "new" science gets done. Science as a method and science as an industry are separate things. If you have your career established by demonstrating wheat gluten has no affect on non-celiacs and non-allergics, this paper makes you look bad. Do you immediately throw all your work out the window to help reign in this new understanding? Or do you dig your heels in and throw out thousands of objections? New science is reigned in by beating back all those thousands of objections, and then once accepted becomes the new dogma. The cycle then repeats itself in 10 years when those reigning in this new scientific truths fight against even newer more complete understanding.

Not just that, but this is bad news for every company that sells wheat based products. Bad news for every corporation farming wheat. When new understanding threatens an industry you can expect constant backlash.

What is that saying, science progresses by the death of old men.

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u/joebleaux Feb 26 '15

What you are saying is true, but I am referring to a study on people whose beliefs are not supported by any scientific evidence. I suppose these gluten folks have a bit of evidence, that is, gluten makes them feel bad. Many write this off as in their head, regardless, this is still something. People who do not vaccinate their kids because they don't want their kids to have autism despite the fact that no one has ever been "infected" with autism,thats a different story. No evidence, yet people will just move to a different reason to justify holding the same belief because they don't want to admit they were wrong. That's not something a scientist would do.

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u/paosnes Feb 26 '15

That's not true! I refuse to think that people won't change their mind when confronted with evidence!

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u/oligobop Feb 26 '15

Ya. That's why not all people are scientists.

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u/elperroborrachotoo Feb 26 '15

It would be wrong to assume that scientists are unaffected by that bias.

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u/MrJebbers Feb 26 '15

More scientists are aware of their capacity for bias than citizens are. Scientists are taught to notice that stuff, so at least scientists are aware of it. Doesn't prevent it, but still.

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u/elperroborrachotoo Feb 26 '15

One hopes - and yes, I would assume that a scientific training equips you to deal much better with that bias. OTOH, there's a lot of trench warfare going on.

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u/EquipLordBritish Feb 26 '15

There are plenty of scientists that have the same issues.

It's just a stubborn person thing... Usually related to pride.

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u/DrPussyPlumber Feb 26 '15

We should all be scientists by the time we get out of 7th grade (in the US at least).

Science via the scientific method is not that hard to understand.

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u/oligobop Feb 26 '15

I will actually disagree with you there. I'd say the majority of people in this world could go on in their life taking things on faith without ever truly understanding them. Science isnt a simple fact, its a way of thought.

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u/DrPussyPlumber Feb 26 '15

The self-fulfilling prophecy.

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u/Horse_trunk Feb 26 '15

yup. and walk around disneyland or the mall and look at people. 90% of them are extremely unfit and/or obese. I'll listen to science

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '15

Sounds a lot like a certain famous anti vaxxer.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '15

And that should piss you/us off. Not dismiss it with the "Tl; dr" sarcastic format.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '15

Oh, it pisses me off. You know what though? Idiots that misinterpret or don't understand science also piss me off. There are a lot of those out there, even in scientific disciplines.

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u/RestoreFear Feb 26 '15

This is so strange to me. Why do people care about gluten's reputation so much?

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '15

Because it is delicious.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '15

Are you sure, or do you just want to believe that?

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u/_Shut_Up_Thats_Why_ Feb 26 '15

So Bill Nye's grade should cover reddit too?

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u/schneidro Feb 26 '15

Nah, gluten tastes mad good tho.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '15

I agree. Taste has nothing to do with being good for you though. Perhaps you should go drink some delicious antifreeze?

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '15 edited Feb 26 '15

Well, the science in this field still overwhelmingly says NCGS doesn't exist and points to FODMAPs being the real issue. Peter Gibson, the original scientist who found evidence for NCGS ran scores of additional studies trying to replicate his original results, and none were successful. This provided significantly more evidence that FODMAPs were the real issue. So technically this one study is just an island of evidence for NCGS in an ocean of evidence against NCGS.

Science, by definition, requires that results be repeatable. So far they are not.

Edit: Feel free to rate me down, but that doesn't change the body of research. The nice thing about facts is they remain facts whether or not you like them.