This is a fascinating topic, and I hope it attracts more commentary. As Bentarm says, it is important and relevant to each of us, yet the topic is fraught with uncertainty, and it is expensive to try to reduce the uncertainty.
I do not believe Taubes. No one book can outweigh the millions of pages of scientific research which have led to the current consensus in the field. Taubes is polemical, argumentative, biased, and one-sided in his presentation. He makes no pretense of offering an objective weighing of the evidence for and against various nutritional hypotheses. He is selling a point of view, plain and simple. No doubt he felt such a forceful approach was necessary given the enormous odds he faces in trying to gain a hearing for his ideas. But the fact remains that the reader must keep in mind that he is only hearing one side of the story.
Weighed against Taubes (and others who have advocated similar positions) we must consider the entire scientific establishment, thousands of researchers who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of knowledge. To believe Taubes, we must believe that these people are basing their entire professional careers on a foundation of falsehoods. Worse, from the lack of impact Taubes’ book has had on consensus opinion, we have to imagine that researchers are willfully ignoring the truths that Taubes so convincingly reveals. Nutrition researchers are intentionally lying and covering up the truth in order to protect the false dogma of the field. (Note that this is exactly the same critique of researchers made by global warming skeptics.)
I can’t believe that scientists are so dishonest, or that such a cover-up could be executed successfully. I can’t imagine how any young, budding nutrition researcher could go to work in a post-Taubes world with a clean conscience, if the book is really as convincing as it claims to be.
My conclusion is that to someone intimately acquainted with the field, Taubes’ book is not as persuasive as it appears to the layman.
Now, I will confess that I have some independent reasons to doubt Taubes. But I would prefer not to go into that because IMO the argument I have outlined above is sufficient. Never believe a polemical, one-sided book which has been rejected by the scientific establishment. I offer that as a valid heuristic which has proven correct in the overwhelming majority of cases.
This is a fascinating topic, and I hope it attracts more commentary. As Bentarm says, it is important and relevant to each of us, yet the topic is fraught with uncertainty, and it is expensive to try to reduce the uncertainty.
I do not believe Taubes. No one book can outweigh the millions of pages of scientific research which have led to the current consensus in the field. Taubes is polemical, argumentative, biased, and one-sided in his presentation. He makes no pretense of offering an objective weighing of the evidence for and against various nutritional hypotheses. He is selling a point of view, plain and simple. No doubt he felt such a forceful approach was necessary given the enormous odds he faces in trying to gain a hearing for his ideas. But the fact remains that the reader must keep in mind that he is only hearing one side of the story.
Weighed against Taubes (and others who have advocated similar positions) we must consider the entire scientific establishment, thousands of researchers who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of knowledge. To believe Taubes, we must believe that these people are basing their entire professional careers on a foundation of falsehoods. Worse, from the lack of impact Taubes’ book has had on consensus opinion, we have to imagine that researchers are willfully ignoring the truths that Taubes so convincingly reveals. Nutrition researchers are intentionally lying and covering up the truth in order to protect the false dogma of the field. (Note that this is exactly the same critique of researchers made by global warming skeptics.)
I can’t believe that scientists are so dishonest, or that such a cover-up could be executed successfully. I can’t imagine how any young, budding nutrition researcher could go to work in a post-Taubes world with a clean conscience, if the book is really as convincing as it claims to be.
My conclusion is that to someone intimately acquainted with the field, Taubes’ book is not as persuasive as it appears to the layman.
Now, I will confess that I have some independent reasons to doubt Taubes. But I would prefer not to go into that because IMO the argument I have outlined above is sufficient. Never believe a polemical, one-sided book which has been rejected by the scientific establishment. I offer that as a valid heuristic which has proven correct in the overwhelming majority of cases.
I roughly buy this argument. However, I’d be interested to know more about how you distinguish this from the rejection of cryonics by cryobiologists.