One other point I should make: this isn’t just about “someone” being wrong. It’s about an author frequently cited by people in the LessWrong community on an important issue being wrong.
Indeed, I’m not sure I’d know about Taubes at all if not for the LessWrong community.
I’ve already mentioned Eliezer’s “Correct Contrarian Cluster” as an example in another thread, but perhaps it would be helpful to mention other examples:
In a thread where someone asked what the evidence in favor of paleo was, Taubes was the main concrete source that came up. Specifically, Luke mentioned Taubes as the person he’s “usually” referred to on this question, without taking a stand himself and saying he didn’t have time to evaluate the evidence personally.
Sarah Constantin (commenter at Yvain’s blog, author of reply to Yvain’s non-libertarian FAQ, and I just learned a MetaMed VP) has cited Taubes a couple times partly to make a libertarian point.
Jack bringing up Taubes in offline conversation
Yvain’s old blog had a review of Taubes which doesn’t seem to be public right now, but which I remember as partly criticizing Taubes but also lauding him for things that now I don’t think Taubes deserves credit for.
So Taubes was someone I could expect to see cited in the future when the issue of expert consensus gets discussed on LessWrong. In spite of all the people who didn’t like these posts, I think I may have accomplished the goal of getting people to stop citing Taubes.
Taubes is now involved in an initiative with the Arnold Foundation doing randomized nutrition trials. It would be interesting to make predictions about some of those.
If they do stop citing Taubes, I predict they start recommending the Perfect Health Diet. I think the correct response would be to suggest they write a summary, not write a series of articles rebuking the diet, so that we can question them and not the other way around. Make the people with novel advice do most of the work.
It started out that way, but over time it seemed like over time the response morphed into, “okay, Taubes is wrong about thee things but so what?” Jack even made the argument that Taubes isn’t a rationalist so it’s unfair to hold him to that standard.
The OP has attacked Taubes on a peripheral issue and used that to make it look like Taubes got it wrong on his central theses. And I don’t think he did.
Even on this peripheral issue, I think Taubes is actually basically right. I have read 3 of his books and watched a few of his talks so I know his views on the topic.
Overwhelmingly the advice to consumers has been eat less move more. As if that was a solution to the problem of weight gain. My own doctors have said this to me. Not a word about more sophisticated approaches to regulating appetite and hunger.
The scientific rationale for the 2015-2020 guidelines has barely a thing to say about this. They have some ideas about eating less sugar and less takeaway food but evcen there the main argument is the hoary old chestnut about calorie density (fat = 9 calories / gram versus healthy carbs at 4).
Of course you can find some quotes suggesting that regulation of weight is complex. But overwhelmingly the message is calories in calories out. Ancel Keys—who dominated the field, and was funded in part by packaged food companies—gave this message repeatedly in his works.
Dietary policy in the US (and therefore in most of the world) has been a monumental failure with skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes. The fall in smoking rates and better treatments have masked the impact of this on heart disease.
There is a long and sad history of the recommendations not being evidenced based and being skewed by the packaged food industry and by vegetarian/vegan zealots (particularly more recently).The AHA’s original big funding splash came from Proctor and Gamble, who marketed the wonder food, Crisco, full of “healthy” trans vegetable fats.
Read the reports over time and look at the evidence that wasn’t there and the evidence that was ignored.
As an example here is copypasta from the latest dietary guidelines:
Adults who are obese should change their eating and physical activity behaviors to prevent additional weight gain and/or promote weight loss. Adults who are overweight should not gain additional weight, and those with one or more CVD risk factors (e.g., hypertension and hyperlipidemia) should change their eating and physical activity behaviors to lose weight. To lose weight, most people need to reduce the number of calories they get from foods and beverages and increase their physical activity. For a weight loss of 1 to 11⁄2 pounds per week, daily intake should be reduced by 500 to 750 calories. Eating patterns that contain 1,200 to 1,500 calories each day can help most women lose weight safely, and eating patterns that contain 1,500 to 1,800 calories each day are suitable for most men for weight loss. In adults who are overweight or obese, if reduction in total calorie intake is achieved, a variety of eating patterns can produce weight loss, particularly in the first 6 months to 2 years; [9] however, more research is needed on the health implications of consuming these eating patterns long-term.
One other point I should make: this isn’t just about “someone” being wrong. It’s about an author frequently cited by people in the LessWrong community on an important issue being wrong.
Not experts on the topic of diet. I associated with members of the Calorie Restriction Society some time ago. Many of them were experts on diet. IIRC, Taubes was generally treated as a low-grade crackpot by those folk: barely better than Atkins.
One other point I should make: this isn’t just about “someone” being wrong. It’s about an author frequently cited by people in the LessWrong community on an important issue being wrong.
Indeed, I’m not sure I’d know about Taubes at all if not for the LessWrong community.
I’ve already mentioned Eliezer’s “Correct Contrarian Cluster” as an example in another thread, but perhaps it would be helpful to mention other examples:
In a thread where someone asked what the evidence in favor of paleo was, Taubes was the main concrete source that came up. Specifically, Luke mentioned Taubes as the person he’s “usually” referred to on this question, without taking a stand himself and saying he didn’t have time to evaluate the evidence personally.
Sarah Constantin (commenter at Yvain’s blog, author of reply to Yvain’s non-libertarian FAQ, and I just learned a MetaMed VP) has cited Taubes a couple times partly to make a libertarian point.
Jack bringing up Taubes in offline conversation
Yvain’s old blog had a review of Taubes which doesn’t seem to be public right now, but which I remember as partly criticizing Taubes but also lauding him for things that now I don’t think Taubes deserves credit for.
So Taubes was someone I could expect to see cited in the future when the issue of expert consensus gets discussed on LessWrong. In spite of all the people who didn’t like these posts, I think I may have accomplished the goal of getting people to stop citing Taubes.
Taubes is now involved in an initiative with the Arnold Foundation doing randomized nutrition trials. It would be interesting to make predictions about some of those.
If they do stop citing Taubes, I predict they start recommending the Perfect Health Diet. I think the correct response would be to suggest they write a summary, not write a series of articles rebuking the diet, so that we can question them and not the other way around. Make the people with novel advice do most of the work.
Really? Most of the negative reactions have been explicitly about finding the posts unconvincing. I doubt those people will stop citing Taubes.
It started out that way, but over time it seemed like over time the response morphed into, “okay, Taubes is wrong about thee things but so what?” Jack even made the argument that Taubes isn’t a rationalist so it’s unfair to hold him to that standard.
Not “unfair” just not relevant to whether or not he is essentially right.
I think people would react to your posts better if they included some of this at the top. You need to remind people why they should care
I don’t buy this at all.
The OP has attacked Taubes on a peripheral issue and used that to make it look like Taubes got it wrong on his central theses. And I don’t think he did.
Even on this peripheral issue, I think Taubes is actually basically right. I have read 3 of his books and watched a few of his talks so I know his views on the topic.
Overwhelmingly the advice to consumers has been eat less move more. As if that was a solution to the problem of weight gain. My own doctors have said this to me. Not a word about more sophisticated approaches to regulating appetite and hunger.
The scientific rationale for the 2015-2020 guidelines has barely a thing to say about this. They have some ideas about eating less sugar and less takeaway food but evcen there the main argument is the hoary old chestnut about calorie density (fat = 9 calories / gram versus healthy carbs at 4).
Of course you can find some quotes suggesting that regulation of weight is complex. But overwhelmingly the message is calories in calories out. Ancel Keys—who dominated the field, and was funded in part by packaged food companies—gave this message repeatedly in his works.
Dietary policy in the US (and therefore in most of the world) has been a monumental failure with skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes. The fall in smoking rates and better treatments have masked the impact of this on heart disease.
There is a long and sad history of the recommendations not being evidenced based and being skewed by the packaged food industry and by vegetarian/vegan zealots (particularly more recently).The AHA’s original big funding splash came from Proctor and Gamble, who marketed the wonder food, Crisco, full of “healthy” trans vegetable fats.
Read the reports over time and look at the evidence that wasn’t there and the evidence that was ignored.
As an example here is copypasta from the latest dietary guidelines:
Straight wall to wall calories in calories out.
Not experts on the topic of diet. I associated with members of the Calorie Restriction Society some time ago. Many of them were experts on diet. IIRC, Taubes was generally treated as a low-grade crackpot by those folk: barely better than Atkins.