I’d also like to point out that the sentences you describe as “slightly misleading” come immediately after I said “if you take the data at face value (which you shouldn’t)”. So as far as I can tell we’re in agreement here
The first sentence is the title of the post, which has no hedging. The post also claims that“[i]f you’re going to conclude anything from these papers, it’s that fish are great,” which doesn’t seem to be the correct takeaway of this specific study given how wide and similar so many of the aHR 95% CIs are. You also claim “[o]utcomes for veganism are [...] worse than everything except for omnivorism in women” in another post without hedging.
In any case, taking the data at face value doesn’t imply “ignoring the confidence intervals.” I don’t see why it would imply that.
I thought you were using AHS2 to endorse much larger claims than you are.
My original comment concluded that there was a “substantial probability” that vegan diets are healthier, and quoted someone (correctly) showing that vegans have lower mortality than omnivores in the AHS-2. I didn’t mean to claim it was the healthiest option for everyone; the comment is perfectly compatible with this null result for women. I also claimed that it wasn’t obvious that vegan diets can be expected to make you less healthy ex ante, modulo things like B12. I apologize if it wasn’t clear.
I think everything I said makes sense in a context where people (including the study authors) are using this paper to argue for veg*nism. I’m arguing that the study is both weaker than reported, and (weakly) pointing in a different direction than reported. I agree that if a fish farm lobbying group was using this paper to claim that fish were the cure for aging, that would be very misleading and I’d argue against them too.
What you originally said was “say it’s not at all obvious that a vegan diet has health tradeoffs ex-ante”. I think what you meant here was “it’s not clear a vegan diet is net negative.” A vegan diet leading to lower energy levels but longer lifespan is the definition of a trade-off.
It would be helpful if you clarified the population you are talking about. I’ve already said I think some people’s optimal diet is vegan, and for some other people vegan is the best out of the options they can realistically achieve. So unless you mean a substantial probability everyone’s optimal diet is vegan, and there is no such thing as a prohibitive health issue, we’re not disagreeing.
I also feel like saying “modulo things like B12” is burying the lede. A lot of my point is that vegan advocates are recruiting people without providing the necessary nutritional education, and are in some cases fighting that education even when it’s done in a vegan-compatible way.
What you originally said was “say it’s not at all obvious that a vegan diet has health tradeoffs ex-ante”. I think what you meant here was “it’s not clear a vegan diet is net negative.” A vegan diet leading to lower energy levels but longer lifespan is the definition of a trade-off.
This might be semantics, but when you said “Change my mind: Veganism entails trade-offs, and health is one of the axes” I (until now) interpreted the claim as vegans needing to trade off health (writ large) against other desirable properties (taste, cost, convenience, etc), not a tradeoff within different components of health.
I don’t have a sense of how common my reading was, however, and I don’t want to put words in Natalia’s mouth.
The first sentence is the title of the post, which has no hedging. The post also claims that“[i]f you’re going to conclude anything from these papers, it’s that fish are great,” which doesn’t seem to be the correct takeaway of this specific study given how wide and similar so many of the aHR 95% CIs are. You also claim “[o]utcomes for veganism are [...] worse than everything except for omnivorism in women” in another post without hedging.
In any case, taking the data at face value doesn’t imply “ignoring the confidence intervals.” I don’t see why it would imply that.
My original comment concluded that there was a “substantial probability” that vegan diets are healthier, and quoted someone (correctly) showing that vegans have lower mortality than omnivores in the AHS-2. I didn’t mean to claim it was the healthiest option for everyone; the comment is perfectly compatible with this null result for women. I also claimed that it wasn’t obvious that vegan diets can be expected to make you less healthy ex ante, modulo things like B12. I apologize if it wasn’t clear.
I think everything I said makes sense in a context where people (including the study authors) are using this paper to argue for veg*nism. I’m arguing that the study is both weaker than reported, and (weakly) pointing in a different direction than reported. I agree that if a fish farm lobbying group was using this paper to claim that fish were the cure for aging, that would be very misleading and I’d argue against them too.
What you originally said was “say it’s not at all obvious that a vegan diet has health tradeoffs ex-ante”. I think what you meant here was “it’s not clear a vegan diet is net negative.” A vegan diet leading to lower energy levels but longer lifespan is the definition of a trade-off.
It would be helpful if you clarified the population you are talking about. I’ve already said I think some people’s optimal diet is vegan, and for some other people vegan is the best out of the options they can realistically achieve. So unless you mean a substantial probability everyone’s optimal diet is vegan, and there is no such thing as a prohibitive health issue, we’re not disagreeing.
I also feel like saying “modulo things like B12” is burying the lede. A lot of my point is that vegan advocates are recruiting people without providing the necessary nutritional education, and are in some cases fighting that education even when it’s done in a vegan-compatible way.
This might be semantics, but when you said “Change my mind: Veganism entails trade-offs, and health is one of the axes” I (until now) interpreted the claim as vegans needing to trade off health (writ large) against other desirable properties (taste, cost, convenience, etc), not a tradeoff within different components of health.
I don’t have a sense of how common my reading was, however, and I don’t want to put words in Natalia’s mouth.
Life is trade-offs all the way down.