As to using studies, anyone can make any claim. But unless you have some kind of support like common knowledge, empirical studies, or historical references, or your opinion is seen as some kind of authority, there's no reason for your claims to be considered. If you have no reason for your claims to be considered, there's no point in making them.
I'd kinda be interested in seeing how a discussion here would go if everyone had to include evidence for every claim they made.
I don't see this working well.
What about new ideas, new suggestions or intuitions that many people have? Often it's useful to hear someone's reasoning or experience behind their claims and then test or find sources separately.
There's quite few studies on less popular topics and for many questions one can't find the appropriate scientific results.
I think it would ultimately stifle the discussion and not much new would be said, or people would reiterate existing theories.
Personally I can't be bothered to look for sources most of the time so I either rely on logical reasoning or amalgamating various facts and things already said in the thread, or what I can intuit.
True. Though agendas of researchers is never an actual concern. Either the data is there in a reproducible way or it isn't. If a shitty study does somehow get through a reputable review board, it will annoy enough people to produce a backlash of studies to refute the claims.
So many unknowns. Which boards are reputable, who makes them reputable, how can you tell a study is reproducible (sometimes you can sometimes you can't), there are many research results too fresh to have been verified independently or applied etc.
So in the end, relying on many studies would be very much lacking in confidence when adding a clause (I post this and this to back this claim, note however that this is a new study or that no one else checked if it's true or not).
There is opportunity in allowing people to openly make their cases and use whatever resources at their disposal to make them convincing, reasonable or interesting. It helps spark new ideas, perspectives or find mistakes/controversies that weren't available in the discourse before. I agree that certain sources are ridiculous and better left unmentioned.
I think it could work as a formal debate where requirements are clear from the onset, but I haven't seen any such debates started in ages here. Seems to generate very little interest.
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