On 8/24/2013 3:40 PM, clipka wrote:
>> That's precisely one of the most persistent lies that creationists spout
>> all the time (in order to try to give more credibility to their own
>> position.)
>
> I don't consider it a lie, nor is it a position I have taken on from
> creationists. Normally I don't believe shit of what they say.
>
The man Paulin, who came up with the idea of "megavitamins" was Nobel 
prize winner, at one point, but was considered, by the scientific 
community to have become a complete bloody nut, by the time of his 
death. In 1994 the bloody congress decided they would rather believe 
him, than the FDA, about the possible dangers of massive doses of 
chemicals being added to people's diets, purely due to them being "natural".

In the same time frame, another scientist put out "preliminary" results 
studying anti-oxidants, which was, in part, touted by Paulin as a great 
discovery, and helped him push his ideas. This was a "preliminary" 
study, which every idiot from the press, to the new-age/altie-med 
community took off with. A year or two back he released new results - 
animals that had their own natural anti-oxidant production disabled 
lived 25% "longer" than the ones who had it, and given them supplements 
reduced there life spans back to normal. The conclusion - taking more of 
them might actually kill you faster. Might, that is. Its still 
"incomplete", but.. since all the idiots ran with it the last time... 
Oh, wait, no.. they didn't run with it this time. Why? Could it be 
because they are making more money selling crap, on the idea that it 
will make you live forever, than they can by telling you to not buy it? 
Nah...

You will note that Paulin was not a biologist, nor made any pretense at 
it. He was a physicist and mathematician (sort of the engineer effect - 
i.e, if your are an engineer, or physicist, you are like twice as likely 
to be a total idiot about biology, biochemistry, or any other less 
mathematical/well understood, and messy, science). He never did any 
research, at all, just read a bunch of (and misunderstood) preliminary 
studies, and took one bbbiiiiggggg leap with it. The guy who actually is 
a scientist, never fell for the vitamin craze, and waited for the actual 
results, and is still working on understanding what is going on. He 
probably only released his second "preliminary" study on anti-oxidant 
disabling to make some limited attempt to stop the madness already 
generated by Paulin, and his absurdities.

There is a lot of total BS out there. And, the general public often 
can't, especially when news programs, magazines, etc. refuse to fact 
check their own reporting, which of it comes for people guessing, making 
things up, misunderstanding the details of real studies, and writing up 
total gibberish about it, or actually reporting real information. Worse, 
the real information is often behind pay walls, or inaccessible to the 
public, even if they could understand the studies any better than the 
news people, or magazine writers.

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