The new research is the first to measure community water fluoridation exposure during childhood and any potential impact on cognition up to age 80.

The paper is here

  • rynn@piefed.social
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    6 hours ago

    People crave certainty. Like are obsessed with it. They will do anything to obtain it including believing all kinds of wildly untrue things. Intuition is usually associated with these hard fictions.

    Science starts from the premise that the universe is uncertain. Uncertainty is baked into all scientific measurements. This mindset leads to true knowledge but it is fundamentally not how people are naturally wired to think. It takes repeated practice to stay scientifically minded even if you are trained in the practice and you exercise it regularly. It’s uncomfortable to stay in the uncertain place for long periods of time for most people. Regression to certainty is the norm, science is the exception.

    I give people a lot of empathy for the certainty mindset, even if it is wrong it helps people cope with the gaping abyss of uncertainty. It’s not an easy thing to grapple with.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      People crave certainty.

      I think its slightly different I’d say its closer to: People crave simplicity.

      That can frequently mean certain answers, but even if the answers aren’t certain, but simple, they accept it. This is the root of most conspiracy theories. It is much simpler to accept that a global cabal is specifically trying to convince people the Earth is flat rather than accept that we live on the surface of a very large round planet, that “down” doesn’t always mean down, and that gravity exists to prevent people on the “bottom” of Earth don’t simply fall off into space.

    • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Oh I have met plenty of scientists who are scientific only about their own research field. And complete dumbasses about anything else, like they do biology all day but can’t drive for shit because they have zero understanding of the laws of physics, including gravity, and they get hyper defensive if you tease them about this.

      It’s mind-boggling, but that’s just how human beings are. And if you aren’t wired like that… it’s pretty hard to socialize successfully because social group identity is so often solely generated on shared beliefs many of which are ‘hard fictions’.

      • rynn@piefed.social
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        3 hours ago

        Yes! That’s my point on it being very difficult to live in uncertainty all the time. You can live with it in a field of study but boy is it hard to live with in everything. You should live with it, but its psychologically challenging.