40 year old study could have reshaped American diet, was never fully published
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Re: 40 year old study could have reshaped American diet, was never fully published
#2> The lead investigators of the trial, noted scientists Ancel Keys and Ivan Frantz, are deceased.
No wonder.
Re: 40 year old study could have reshaped American diet, was never fully published
#3To me, the problem is not scientific studies, but mainstream reporting of scientific studies that turn into popular fads and trends. Science doesn't deal in absolutes, but society does. This is true for dietary fat, autism, gluten, paleo, salt, etc.
Re: 40 year old study could have reshaped American diet, was never fully published
#4To me, the problem is not scientific studies, but mainstream reporting of scientific studies that turn into popular fads and trends. Science doesn't deal in absolutes, but society does. This is true for dietary fat, autism, gluten, paleo, salt, etc.
I think you give "science" too much credit. "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and all that. In an abstract sense, yes, everything in science is subject to criticism and reevaluation. But in a human sense, entire fields are dominated for decades by strong personalities whose theories aren't necessarily stronger but have greater social support. I present to you Noam Chomsky re: linguistics as a prime example.
Surely I oversimplify, but I think it's important to acknowledge the human factor in what passes as scientific consensus in a field at any given time.
Re: 40 year old study could have reshaped American diet, was never fully published
#5To me, the problem is not scientific studies, but mainstream reporting of scientific studies that turn into popular fads and trends. Science doesn't deal in absolutes, but society does. This is true for dietary fat, autism, gluten, paleo, salt, etc.
Actually this just reads like scientists being blind to their own biases. One of the guys heading the original study was Ancel Keys, the father of the lipid hypothesis.
Re: 40 year old study could have reshaped American diet, was never fully published
#6> The lead investigators of the trial, noted scientists Ancel Keys and Ivan Frantz, are deceased. No wonder.
I'm not sure what point (if any) gwern is making here but, e.g., Ancel Keys died in 2004 at the age of 100. So, indeed, no wonder he's deceased: he would have had to be staggeringly old to still be alive now.
[EDITED to add:] On the face of it, the most obvious reading of gwern's comment is (it seems to me) something like "ha ha, of course they're dead, because they had stupid theories about diet and health so we should expect them to have died by now". If that is what gwern meant, then I think he was being unreasonable. (But I'm not at all sure it is.)
Re: 40 year old study could have reshaped American diet, was never fully published
#7> The lead investigators of the trial, noted scientists Ancel Keys and Ivan Frantz, are deceased. No wonder.
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Re: 40 year old study could have reshaped American diet, was never fully published
#8"Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints, by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences."[1]
Re: 40 year old study could have reshaped American diet, was never fully published
#9> The lead investigators of the trial, noted scientists Ancel Keys and Ivan Frantz, are deceased. No wonder.
I'm not sure what point (if any) gwern is making here but, e.g., Ancel Keys died in 2004 at the age of 100. So, indeed, no wonder he's deceased: he would have had to be staggeringly old to still be alive now. [EDITED to add:] On the face of it, the most obvious reading of gwern's comment is (it seems to me) something like "ha ha, of course they're dead, because they had stupid theories about diet and health so we sho…
I totally read it as "oh, no wonder it 'was never fully published' before now, since the lead investigators were the infamous Ancel Keys and a now-deceased collaborator."
Re: 40 year old study could have reshaped American diet, was never fully published
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure what point (if any) gwern is making here but, e.g., Ancel Keys died in 2004 at the age of 100. So, indeed, no wonder he's deceased: he would have had to be staggeringly old to still be alive now. [EDITED to add:] On the face of it, the most obvious reading of gwern's comment is (it seems to me) something like "ha ha, of course they're dead, because they had stupid theories about diet and health so we sho…
I totally read it as "oh, no wonder it 'was never fully published' before now, since the lead investigators were the infamous Ancel Keys and a now-deceased collaborator."
Well also, as pointed out elsewhere, Keys championed reduction in saturated fats, etc. to prevent heart disease. If the results of a trial he conducted disputed that idea, that might have harmed his reputation.