81–85 of 85 posts
My favorite quote from Ioannidis: “Science is a noble endeavor, but it’s also a low-yield endeavor,” he says. “I’m not sure that more than a very small percentage of medical research is ever likely to lead to major improvements in clinical outcomes and quality of life. We should be very comfortable with that fact.” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-da...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was an intervention (telling people not to eat fat) based on the "eating fats = bad" hypothesis and that intervention failed to have the effect that the hypothesis would predict. That is disconfirming evidence. You are correct that it's not conclusive, but it is disconfirming nonetheless. That's all I am saying.
It’s not disconfirming since it’s possible that eating fats is bad but also that replacing fats with sugar is bad too or possibly even worse than eating fats. There are also other possibilities to explain why eating too many fats is bad even though when they were targeted for reduction health outcomes did not improve.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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.
That makes sense, I should have caught that the harm reduction was not in total mortality but just of the bowel cancer subset.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The operating principle is homogeneity. Purity is a bit of a misnomer because a "perfectly" homogeneous species with no distinctive heterogeneous groups would have to be called pure, but that's not usually how people use the word. The implication is usually that there are several distinct, homogeneous groups within which there is homogeneity among its members. Having homogeneity at some level, even if it ends up bein…
> homogeneous groups, allows one to make useful scientific findings and generalizations. On the other hand, if everything was very heterogeneous, down to each individual, it would be very hard to find a general statement applicable to any appreciable number of individuals. and yet it is possible we will need to end up where individual advice is the only one working