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Also, the author makes one of the most annoying forms of argument: "truth through averaging." "So, what’s the upper safe limit of fructose per day (all sources
by yanowitz 17y ago
Also, the author makes one of the most annoying forms of argument: "truth through averaging." "So, what’s the upper safe limit of fructose per day (all sources considered)? [Author than compares high and low estimates]... Figuring that both sides are biased, the middle figure between the two camps is roughly 50 grams for active adults."
Lessee -- scientists argue that the Earth formed ~6 billion years ago, creationists say ~6000 years ago. Figuring both sides are biased, the middle figure between the two camps is roughly 3 billion years ago. So the Earth is 3 billion years old. QED.
- nixme 17y agoAlthough I don't completely agree with the author, he accuses Lustig of a similar fallacy: using the popularity of his Youtube video to justify where the truth stands. See his retrospective of the original article: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/ http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-... It has a decent (although one-sided) summarization of the comments from the original.
- paulbaumgart 17y agoIt completely depends on what probability distribution you assume for the range. If it's a normal distribution with a high confidence interval from 25g to 90g, taking the average is reasonable. For the age of the Earth example, clearly the distribution is a bit more binary. Maybe we're getting "hung up on the trivial minutia of an exact gram amount", though.
- graywh 17y agoI think the word you want is "bimodal".
- paulbaumgart 17y agoI guess you're technically correct, though the two peaks are almost narrow enough to be binary. :-)