Please understand that I resist pointing the finder at anybody, although I don't find anything you've said offensive.

I just want us all to be respectful and make sure we don't take posts from others in the wrong way.

The only specific point is about credentials. They have been brought up on this thread (and other threads) and I believe it's not useful to do so. It can be viewed as confrontational to others, so I discourage it.

I also believe that credentials have their place, but they are, unfortunately, a horrible indicator of the presence of common sense. It's best just to discern each person individually as to whether or not they have a common sense.

I have no medical credentials yet I know more about mercury toxicity, it's effects on the body, and how to detox than 99% of doctors.

Nevertheless, I use information from people who have done research to establish my understandings about mercury (etc.) and most of them do have credentials.

So...

What is the purpose of all this research done by people with credentials?

To increase our quality of life.

How?

By sharing this information with the public so we can apply it.

So...

If this information meets with its intended end, namely, to be known and understood (at the very least in its application) by the public, than, in the context of the question "What do you know?", credentials are meaningless. A better question might be, "What have you studied (either professionally or personally)?" —As personal research may be less prone to special interests and is usually done by someone who cares because they're not getting paid for their work.

Of course, in the question "How do we learn more", i.e., "How do we conduct more research", credentials are useful, but they don't uniquely qualify credentialed persons for this job. These questions are solved with a combination of knowledge and common sense, which not all persons have, credentialed or not.

When people speak about credentials, they often are actually referring to licensing, which is one of the most horrible things to happen to any industry in the interest of people because it confuses and attempts to undermine the more important and useful subject of reputation.

But I'll save that for another day.

Keep up the good work and good cheer.


"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an underground dictatorship... To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a republic... The Constitution of this republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom."

—Benjamin Rush MD,
Signer of the Declaration of Independence