I do not merely have “a different interpretation of some studies” to SMTM- or at least, this is not centrally why I make the rather specific accusation I do (which I stand entirely by) (A few points of closer-to-object-level disagreement to follow, concluding with my “real” response here, if you want to skip ahead).
The first of three instances I cite here is closest to the pattern you describe, and even there, I wouldn’t suggest they were being purposefully misrepresentational if they had cited and disagreed with the paper in question. What we have instead is a paper clearly stating/providing, in its abstract and conclusion (and quite frankly, there is no other reasonable interpretation of the data they provide- one could dispute the data, but SMTM does not go this route) a causal story for secular weight gain (specifically during childhood), and SMTM using that citation narrowly to, in effect, make the contrary point (that this is a big old mystery, that our forebears ate more “bad” food than we did and mysteriously didn’t get fat). It gets worse, mind you, though I was trying to keep my initial comment (relatively) brief- since this is immediately followed up wth “we don’t seem to have any idea what that thing was”. I’m of the view that if SMTM had good reason to disagree with this and other papers they cite (to say nothing of the mass which address this question besides, but I’m not merely accusing them of being uninformed, as I said), then they should either explain why in individual cases, or give some reason for a blanket-dismissal of the literature (which they remain happy to cite for their own purposes, mind you, so the reason can’t be “utter incompetence of people in the field).
The second point simply leaps from a claim about percentages of intake to a claim about absolute intake with precisely no citation, explanation, or argument, in a way that clearly equivocates (I’ve had several conversations with people who have, in fact, “fallen for” this). SMTM are not fools, and they’re often praised for the quality of their writing, so I struggle to believe this was an innocent mistake. I won’t go over point 3, but I’ll make a more general point, a little further from the object level here too.
I think what can be an epistemic virtue in discussion can risk becoming a failure mode in action. Extending the sort of charity required to assume SMTM are merely misguided, or that a mere factual disagreement exists among us, despite evidence to the contrary, is a Good Thing, even if not strictly accurate, while we’re debating diet models, or considering the effects of lithium on body fat, or whatever else. We want to engage with the strongest possible version of our counterparts position, or at least engage on assumptions of good faith. That’s all great, and a positive thing in general about the LW/ACX/Rationalist community. On the other hand, if you’re trying to buy a car, or are contemplating a business deal, or (as here) are considering where to give money to charity, between “nets for african children”, “AI alignment”, ” When thinking in the domain of “giving people money”, I think one should be more, not less, than averagely sensitive to the possibility that you are being deliberately misled. If someone shows all the signs that they are:
(1) omitting important information; “This car lacks brakes!” “Well, I would have told you but the email just didn’t have room for that information”
(2) interpreting data differently to how the modal reasonable person would without any explanation (and without providing the data upfront); [no patients in the hospital and only admin staff on payroll] “The hospital is operating at peak efficiency and achieving its strategic goals!”
(3) Equivocating or jumping from one claim to a different one without good reason; I honestly can’t think of a better example than the Hadza case for SMTM so I won’t try, and will just invite people to look at that again
then you should, in fact, model them as liars, and don’t give them your money. I think this is a reasonable heuristic, at least, but one is free to do whatever of course. I’d just put around a credence of 0.0000001 in you getting any sort of return on this investment. You might ask why one should not say “This person is radically wrong in this case, don’t give them money to study this” instead of accusing them of deliberate misrepresentation. Well, understanding when someone is lying is helpful to modelling future action. I think we would all mostly agree that it would be deeply unwise to “invest” in Bernie Madoff, or someone else who made their money convincing people to invest on the promise of good returns a la pyramid schemes. At least, the burden should be on them to demonstrate, with quite a high bar, that this time they are being entirely on the level with you.
Well, this has inspired me to finally make an account for LessWrong commenting!
As someone very familiar with the “science on obesity”, I do not find SMTM remotely persuasive. https://basedprof.substack.com/p/smtm-mysteries canvasses the reasons why in detail, for those who are going to look at the link in the above article and be inclined to trust it. SMTM repeatedly misrepresent not just scientific consensus, but also literally the articles which they cite. There are multiple examples of it in the “Mysteries” post, but this isn’t even the worst offender.
If you do not believe that EA should be in the business of giving money to proven liars, shown to be rather specifically lying about the thesis which they would be given money to study, you should not give a cent to them, and you should point out that others should (not) do the same.
For those who don’t want to read my (admittedly ranty) post about them (the reasons for said rantiness are, well, the consistent lying), here are three such lies/misrepresentations (two from the above, another from the second post in the series). As an aside, I’m not merely asserting that they are often wrong (though that would also, by extension, and in addition, be true).
(1) “their [our grandparents/great grandparents and older] diets were worse, not better. They ate more bread and almost four times more butter than we do today. They also consumed more cream, milk, and lard.”—and the linked article once more: https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/91/5/1530S/4597478
I suppose this is not “strictly” a lie in the same way that “When did you stop beating your wife?” is not strictly an unreasonable question to ask. But it’s deeply misleading, and SMTM must know it is misleading if they actually read the article they use as evidence. That very article cites a massive increase in consumption of other fats, and carbohydrates- so even if our ancestors ate more butter and bread, they were still consuming far fewer calories. This, in fact, is what the article concludes: “The increase in childhood obesity mainly reflects increased energy intake”.
(2) “A Tanzanian hunter-gatherer society called the Hadza get about 15 percent of their calories from honey. Combined with all the sugar they get from eating fruit, they end up eating about the same amount of sugar as Americans do. Despite this, the Hadza do not exhibit obesity.”
They provide literally no evidence for the proposition that the Hadza eat as much sugar as Americans do, their citations certainly do not demonstrate this. And as I cite in my response ( https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0040503 :
“Western diets are certainly more sugar-rich and energy-dense than more “traditional” diets and wild foods [4], [8], [9], many hunter-gatherers seasonally consume a large portion of their daily calories as honey” which, ok sure, “a lot of daily calories as honey”, but look at the “western diets are more sugar rich and energy dense” bit.
They move from a claim about percentage of energy intake for individuals to an entirely unwarranted claim about overall energy intake between two different cultures. This section is actually way worse, but feel free to read my post for more.
(3) ““This model seems to exist mostly to make lean people feel smug,” writes Stephen Guyenet, “since it attributes their leanness entirely to wise voluntary decisions and a strong character. I think at this point, few people in the research world believe the CICO model.””
This is a “lie by equivocation”. Guyenet is a respectable scientist, who works on hunger signalling. When he talks about “CICO”, he means “the model by which people just eat more as a purely voluntary thing and gain weight”. And he is totally right that no-one thinks weight-gain is purely voluntary. Even the “hyper palatable food” people don’t think that. But that isn’t what SMTM mean by CICO. Here is what SMTM say:
“A popular theory of obesity is that it’s simply a question of calories in versus calories out (CICO). You eat a certain number of calories every day, and you expend some number of calories based on your metabolic needs and physical activity. If you eat more calories than you expend, you store the excess as fat and gain weight, and if you expend more than you eat, you burn fat and lose weight. This perspective assumes that the body stores every extra calorie you eat as body fat, and that it doesn’t have any tools for using more or less energy as the need arises. But this isn’t the case. Your body has the ability to regulate things like its temperature, and it has similar tools to regulate body fatness. When we look closely, it turns out that “calories in, calories out” doesn’t match the actual facts of consumption and weight gain.”
So SMTM are misrepresenting what a hunger scientist means to gain a little bit more epistemic credibility for their take. He is talking about what drives hunger, which leads to increased energy intake. They’re talking about mechanisms for bodily fat regulation.