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John Ioannidis Aims His Bazooka at Nutrition Science (2018)

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Re: John Ioannidis Aims His Bazooka at Nutrition Science (2018)

#61

Post by chicob »

I do believe that many of the findings of nutrition science are half baked, provably contradictory, and ignore a plethora of factors that play a role in the interaction between food and health.

But there's another bazooka in the room: the contemporary erosion of trust in authority, in this case scientific authority. Ionannidis' remarks are for the best, I think, but will add to the confusion of not only what knowledge can the public trust but who is more apt to produce that knowledge.

Before things get better, this will inevitably widen the door not only for old bad science in new clothes, or in the form of professional, corporation funded research that resorts to p-hacking and such methods, but also to the further discredit of science in general in the general population.

Having said this, I do not believe Ioannidis' work (or Ben Goldacre's for that matter) is a tool of such agents.

Edit: After reading some comments in this thread, I have to say in all honesty that I suspect that the ACSH's interest in Ioannidis work is disingenuous, without putting into question the validity of his work.

Re: John Ioannidis Aims His Bazooka at Nutrition Science (2018)

#63

Post by nordsieck »

chicob wrote: post #61

I do believe that many of the findings of nutrition science are half baked, provably contradictory, and ignore a plethora of factors that play a role in the interaction between food and health. But there's another bazooka in the room: the contemporary erosion of trust in authority, in this case scientific authority. Ionannidis' remarks are for the best, I think, but will add to the confusion of not only what knowledg…

> But there's another bazooka in the room: the contemporary erosion of trust in authority, in this case scientific authority. Ionannidis' remarks are for the best, I think, but will add to the confusion of not only what knowledge can the public trust but who is more apt to produce that knowledge.

The erosion of trust is _because_ of the poor quality of scientific findings produced by Science the institution (particularly in select fields).

This is the only sustainable path forward for Science the institution. The only alternative is a period of suppression of criticism, inevitably contemporaneous with increasing levels of corruption, followed by massive denunciations and outrage once the dam breaks.

Didn't really work well for the Catholic church. I can't see how it would be any better for Science.

Re: John Ioannidis Aims His Bazooka at Nutrition Science (2018)

#64

Post by SilasX »

totalBeginner wrote: post #32
SilasX wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how much did they weight the utility of eating red meat in order to conclude that severely restricting it would be worth the .074% decrease in death risk? Because that doesn't seem like a significant risk. https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-...

Genuinely curious, where did you see the "0.074% decrease in death risk?" From the page you linked to: "13% of bowel cancer cases in the UK are caused by eating processed meat. Bowel cancer risk is 17-30% higher per 100-120g/day of red meat intake, meta-analyses have shown. Bowel cancer risk is 9-50% higher per 25-50g/day of processed meat intake, meta-analyses have shown; however bowel cancer risk was not associated…

>Genuinely curious, where did you see the "0.074% decrease in death risk?"

I was generously assuming that if I follow their advice, I eliminate bowel cancer risk entirely. Since only .074% of the population has it (74 per 100k), that’s the max change in risk of death.

But you’re right, I really only decreased my risk by 13% of that .074% by eliminating red meat. Still don’t see the enormous upside.

Re: John Ioannidis Aims His Bazooka at Nutrition Science (2018)

#65

Post by pixl97 »

jdietrich wrote: post #50
api wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a shortcut? I'm sure some improvements can be made but I am skeptical of the idea that science is just doing it wrong.

>Is there a shortcut? Controversially, I think we need to do less research. The publish-or-perish culture has created a perverse incentive to crank out junk papers. Most working scientists will privately admit that most research isn't actually advancing our understanding of nature, it's just a desperate effort to dredge up something sufficiently novel to publish. Conversely, there's a substantial amount of research t…

>but almost nothing on behavioural research to figure out how to stop people from gorging themselves to death on food they know to be terrible for them.

I'd also say the converse is true. Corporations spend lot on how to get you to eat their low cost high profit food that is not good for you. Think if we treated junk food like cigarettes in many countries where they had to be in a generic white box and no advertising.

Re: John Ioannidis Aims His Bazooka at Nutrition Science (2018)

#66

Post by chicob »

nordsieck wrote: post #63
chicob wrote: post #61

I do believe that many of the findings of nutrition science are half baked, provably contradictory, and ignore a plethora of factors that play a role in the interaction between food and health. But there's another bazooka in the room: the contemporary erosion of trust in authority, in this case scientific authority. Ionannidis' remarks are for the best, I think, but will add to the confusion of not only what knowledg…

> But there's another bazooka in the room: the contemporary erosion of trust in authority, in this case scientific authority. Ionannidis' remarks are for the best, I think, but will add to the confusion of not only what knowledge can the public trust but who is more apt to produce that knowledge. The erosion of trust is _because_ of the poor quality of scientific findings produced by Science the institution (particul…

> The erosion of trust is _because_ of the poor quality of scientific findings produced by Science the institution (particularly in select fields).

So it would seem, if we considered Nutrition Science alone. But that does not explain the process of increasing distrust in vaccination, global warming and climate change, or even evolution, where the scientific practice has a quite solid record and community consensus.

The erosion of authority reaches outside of Science, which to me suggests that there might be a broader explanation beyond the specificities of each field. In my opinion, and like you say, organized religion was one of the first victims of this process in the past and today.

Re: John Ioannidis Aims His Bazooka at Nutrition Science (2018)

#67

Post by xkcd-sucks »

oh_sigh wrote: post #49
toasterlovin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there's no research grants to be had by going against the prevailing fashionable beliefs in the field.

It's my understanding that disproving commonly accepted things is a way to become a superstar in the scientific field. Also, you don't need research grants to show that there is no research that shows a causal link between two things, which is what the poster above claimed was the problem with the anti-egg movement

Disproving stuff is a good way to "fan the flames" of your career but you have to have some reputation in the first place. Otherwise you're a quack amateur which doesn't work well with others, just like you'd be in any other field if you picked fights with the wrong people too soon.

It also turns out that validating people's preconceptions and getting grants is a great way to build credibility via "social proof".

The truly skilled PIs can develop a popular idea, make it accepted in the field, then dramatically disprove it once the "bad" researchers start piling on! These masters can usually be identified by massive grants, sending students places(careers) to build relationships/incur debt of favors over years, writing bestseller books (ghostwritten) etc. And these are the people whose ideas everyone repeats.

Re: John Ioannidis Aims His Bazooka at Nutrition Science (2018)

#68

Post by balt_s »

User23 wrote: post #25
chx wrote: post #23

Nutrition Science, ah yes. What would your reaction would be if I told you that we claim that the interaction of seven billion human beings to many thousands of previously living organisms will be the same for each of those human beings? That's obviously nonsense. In other words, you can't just say consuming eggs does X to everyone. You need to partition foodstuff AND partition humans, the partitioning likely based o…

It's almost as if different human populations separated by insurmountable geographic barriers in wildly differing ecological circumstances for myriad millennia underwent selection pressure!

That's racist.

/s

Re: John Ioannidis Aims His Bazooka at Nutrition Science (2018)

#69

Post by dekhn »

api wrote: post #18
dekhn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's really crazy is how much money it takes to not make much progress, either. Modern labs are washing cash down the drain.

Is there a shortcut? I'm sure some improvements can be made but I am skeptical of the idea that science is just doing it wrong.

I don't think there's a shortcut. There would have to be a massive change in approach. In my field of expertise, molecular biology, it;'s common to just run experiments over and over until you get a positive result- throwing away thousands of dollars in gels and other things along the way. This isn't even intellectually honest (it's fishing for significance) but it's what nearly everybody does to get publishable results.

As a response, I work at a company that is automating biology, with a goal of making much more reliable clean data for machine learning, but even then, it's very expensive. A decent robot arm costs well over $50K (I could build an equivalent for $1-2K, but at a cost of $100K of my time) and all the other equipment is often in the $100K+ range. Just to automate what you could hire a human to do for $75-100K a year!

So yeah, some scientists are doing it wrong, but even the folks doing it right are still wasteful. I think it's endemic to the enterprise, but we could still do better.

Re: John Ioannidis Aims His Bazooka at Nutrition Science (2018)

#70

Post by api »

jdietrich wrote: post #50
api wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a shortcut? I'm sure some improvements can be made but I am skeptical of the idea that science is just doing it wrong.

>Is there a shortcut? Controversially, I think we need to do less research. The publish-or-perish culture has created a perverse incentive to crank out junk papers. Most working scientists will privately admit that most research isn't actually advancing our understanding of nature, it's just a desperate effort to dredge up something sufficiently novel to publish. Conversely, there's a substantial amount of research t…

This is the only good reply I've seen so far.

I think a lot of information economies suffer from oversupply. I've heard it said that there are too many books, too much music, too many different open source projects trying to solve the same problems, and so on. It causes information overload on the demand side and perhaps paradoxically increases the odds of something genuinely important being neglected.

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