This is a valid point. However, there is an objective fact that’s different between physics/biology and nutrition: in the former, there is a lot of historical progress: stuff discovered and promoted at a high confidence tends to be supported and replicated. In the latter, stuff promoted at high confidence by the media is fairly likely to be contradicted again soon after. So it’s significantly more reasonable to ignore the results of nutrition science when deciding what to eat than it is to ignore the predictions of, say, biology when deciding whether to vaccinate your children.
Ah. Then yeah that’s a problem, but I’m not sure why this would be worse with recent research.
This article gives a pretty good overview of the shortcomings of medical statistics, and includes one of my favorite lines ever:
Such sad statistical situations suggest that the marriage of science and math may be desperately in need of counseling. Perhaps it could be provided by the Rev. Thomas Bayes.
This is a valid point. However, there is an objective fact that’s different between physics/biology and nutrition: in the former, there is a lot of historical progress: stuff discovered and promoted at a high confidence tends to be supported and replicated. In the latter, stuff promoted at high confidence by the media is fairly likely to be contradicted again soon after. So it’s significantly more reasonable to ignore the results of nutrition science when deciding what to eat than it is to ignore the predictions of, say, biology when deciding whether to vaccinate your children.
I suspect much of medicine especially the newer stuff is probably nearly as bad as nutrition.
Edit: See Robin Hanson’s many posts on the subject.
Why especially the “newer stuff”?
The two most obvious reasons are:
1) Once the low-hanging fruit is exhausted, people are more likely to make stuff up.
2) Newer stuff has had less time for problems to get exposed.
Just curious, as I’ve heard the opposite asserted with confidence.
1) Very little of the Hansonian critique of medicine involves researchers making stuff up, and I doubt this is a major problem.
2) True, although hopefully research methodology is improving.
This analysis may interest you, I seem to recall it supports your suspicion.
Sorry about that, I didn’t meant more generate results based on statistical noise, then outright faking research.
Ah. Then yeah that’s a problem, but I’m not sure why this would be worse with recent research.
This article gives a pretty good overview of the shortcomings of medical statistics, and includes one of my favorite lines ever:
Because the earlier stuff, e.g., sanitation, vaccines, and antibiotics, had a stronger effect and thus was easier to notice above the noise.
And also the older stuff has been around long enough to get the bad results beaten out of it.