Just Claims, No Data

On the internet, ‘research’ has sunken to the level of merely reiterating a statement until it becomes unified as truth.

When I research ascorbic acid and other chemical content in pine trees and other conifers, I oftentimes come across a snippet of information that seems stretched out or utterly false.

Upon further investigation, I find a so-called source for this information. This source forms a loop of linking back to the previous page. After much searching, I find that the whole claim arised from nonsense...

An irrelevant article, bad math, sketchy books from the 1800s, vague tales, or, just some guy on a forum post inventing lies as he please.

This isn’t scientific. This is worse than what went on for thousands of years, that is, human results consistently proving something worked. No exact data, but it seemingly would work fine had short and long-term clinical trials been done.

This, is inventing numbers and statistics, which ends up making legitimate medicinal plants fit into the category of ‘herbal remedies’ and folk medicine. You know what I mean. Those websites that look like they were designed in ’98, those websites with everything in turquoise, magenta, and pale colors + raging fire. Stock illustrations with enough pixels you could count them one by one. These kind of tacky websites ruin the reputation of good plants.

Will it be the survivalist nut selling bug-out bags and warning of SHTF? Or, will it be the demonic new-age, ‘rocks are alive,’ animal rights activist selling essential oils to cure everything?

No one normal seems to write about medicinal plants. But this can change. Promote the scientific study of pines by citing research with your claims. There’s plenty of it right here on this website.

Now, I will say that forums, old books, survivalist websites, and even Pinterest, can provide good ideas for using pine trees and their products. Bad math can give a starting point to good math. Irrevivant articles can point to relevant ones, by metadata, references, and even reviews and the reviewers who wrote them. (The new-age yoga people I don't want any ideas from. They are satanists and I want nothing to do with them.)

A lot of things can provide ideas and inspiration. But they must be kept separate from actual research, documented events, and clinical trials.