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The science behind nutrition health is extremely complicated and expecting it to remain constant represent a total misunderstanding of how nutrition research is

by mkautzm 10y ago

The science behind nutrition health is extremely complicated and expecting it to remain constant represent a total misunderstanding of how nutrition research is done and how results are determined. > The history of medical reversals -- and in this case, nutrition reversal -- shows that the government isn't magic. What it shows is that nutrition science is hardly 'solved' and you'd be hard pressed to find a researcher in the field suggest otherwise. > A whole raft of restrictions could be converted to warnings and recommendations, freeing up industry to innovate and consumers to take a little more responsibility for themselves. The problem with this is that the average consumer is both A) dumb, and B) doesn't know what they need. Alternative medicine skirts very cleanly around FDA regulation by not making any medical claims on it's product. They still market their product as a solution for various diseases and conditions, but they never make a formal claim. It's a $30,000,000,000 industry of people buying stuff that does nothing, or worse yet, can cause potential harm. To suggest their is no value in regulation of the drug markets is to suggest that people's health has no value. The defense of, 'well, people are responsible for their own decisions' doesn't hold any water when we know that the direct consequences of that mentality can be measured in literally tens of billions of dollars.

WillPostForFood 10y ago
That is why people have been so slow to mobilize around climate change predictions.
- mustacheemperor 10y ago
  Only through people's incorrect interpretation of reality. >nutrition science is hardly 'solved' and you'd be hard pressed to find a researcher in the field suggest otherwise. You'd be hard pressed to find a climate scientist not in agreement with the consensus on climate change, at least one that isn't already promoting book deals on Fox.
  - WillPostForFood 10y ago
    yup, the science is "agreed on." Disagree and lose your job/funding. That's how to build climate consensus.
    - mkautzm 10y ago
      That's not at all true, and that level of ignorance is actually quite dangerous. Scientists in no field are punished for disagreement. Even in really fringe science, disagreement is not only well-funded, but encouraged. A great example is String Theory: It has a lot of supporters and a lot of people saying it's untestable bunk, but research for both sides continues.. Consensuses happen when there is sufficient data to collapse to a consensus, not because 'funding'. Disagreements are extremely common in research and suggesting that the overwhelming consensus on the state of climate change is somehow a conspiracy or due to research pressures (that don't seem to exist anywhere else...) is complete garbage.
      - WillPostForFood 10y ago
        I wish science was as functional as you imagine. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/sep/21/society.politics https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/sep/21/society.politics https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13098773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13098773
      - tertius 10y ago
        Are your a scientist? You seem very naive about the scientific world. If you haven't experienced the cut throat nature of science or the immensely aggressive politics you may need to reassess your rose colored view. The mantra, is your haven't heard it, is publish or perish. Disagreement is well funded? What are your talking about? Good data is well funded. Doesn't matter how much you disagree, if the data is missing or bad you get no money.
      - wyager 10y ago
        Nope, that's not how it works. Do you work in the science community? Many fields of science and engineering are gradually being eaten by politics. Going against progressive politics is dangerous for the career of any academic scientist in the US. This isn't a huge issue (yet) for math or hard physics. It's hard to politicize those fields (not for lack of trying; I could go on a very long rant about how non-scientists are trying to make scientific fields conform to their political expectations), but for other fields like environmental science (which, by the way, is only weakly scientific in the sense that it does not follow good practices for having high predictive power, so it's relatively easy to manipulate) political concerns are very powerful. This is a bit rambly, but the gist of it is that it's naive to pretend that many nominally scientific fields are actually entirely objective and free from politics.
  - hueving 10y ago
    >You'd be hard pressed to find a climate scientist not in agreement with the consensus on climate change You'd also be hard pressed to find a numerologist not in agreement with the consensus that numerology is effective. Argument from authority isn't appropriate in this forum.
    - mkautzm 10y ago
      k. http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
BurningFrog 10y ago
> The problem with this is that the average consumer is both A) dumb, and B) doesn't know what they need Note that the customer for prescription drugs is a licensed doctor.
- afterburner 10y ago
  > Note that the customer for prescription drugs is a licensed doctor. Who can be bought and misled like anyone else.
  - wonder_er 10y ago
    Just like federal regulators can be bought and misled like anyone else.
    - afterburner 10y ago
      Federal regulators are not in any way the consumer in this line of discussion, so your comment is a non sequitur. Doctors are not expected to regulate the drug industry, federal regulators are. Please read the comment I was responding to.
- baddox 10y ago
  Also note that the proposed (and current) alternative is for these consumers to vote for politicians who will make these scientific decisions for them.
wyager 10y ago
If nutrition science "isn't solved", the government shouldn't be making laws and regulations based on it.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- delecti 10y ago
  Morality isn't "solved" either, but we still outlaw murder. We can't not try to protect ourselves.
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    Murder is long solved. We've conclusively determined, with no exceptions, that it is unhealthy for the victim.
    - tomp 10y ago
      Clearly there are exceptions (military, capital punishment, police with guns, etc).
- SilasX 10y ago
  Basically, yeah. As a general rule, the bigger the change you want to make to existing practice, the better your model for that domain needs to be. (I call that the "if it ain't broke" heuristic.) Changing the composition of an entire nation's schoolchildren's food supply ... should require something like skyscraper-failure-prediction accuracy. It's no defense that "science learns and revises". If the learning and revising is still that big, you don't have a basis for telling others to do it your way. (IMHO, this is, at root, the same mentality as "fake it till you make it" / "all self doubt must be Impostor Syndrome and never an accurate assessment".)
FrancoDiaz 10y ago
The problem with this is that the average consumer is both A) dumb, and B) doesn't know what they need. Unfortunately, a significant number of bureaucrats and statists would prefer consumers to be dumb (or at least say that they are) in order to maintain power. Oh and let me guess, you're not one of the dumb ones....it's the other guys right? ;)
- Naritai 10y ago
  I'm a complete idiot when it comes to what drug is going to have what effect on me. That's why I consult an expert: a doctor.
  - FrancoDiaz 10y ago
    You're choosing your own doctor, right? Do you just blindly take whatever the doctor prescribes to you without doing your own research? How do you know your doctor is an expert? I'm pretty sure my doctor is not an expert in lots of things pertaining to medicine. He's not studying all the new research. That doesn't mean I can't have a conversation with him, but it's healthy to be skeptical of doctors too...that's why we get second opinions. I don't have a huge problem with the FDA, but I'd rather have a number of choices of where to get information, and at the end of the day make my own choice on what to consume. Also if people are so stupid like the OP suggested why not ban a whole plethora of foods like Twinkies, potato chips, soda, etc..?
    - mkautzm 10y ago
      > Do you just blindly take whatever the doctor prescribes to you without doing your own research? Yes. I'm do not have a medical background and at best, I could gain a surface-level understanding of the drug, which is not useful to determine which drug(s) are best for me. > How do you know your doctor is an expert? They went to 10 years of school and several years of residency to do doctor things. These things are also regulated by several boards which have the power to revoke medical licenses if doctors suck.
    - Broken_Hippo 10y ago

by mkautzm 10y ago

WillPostForFood 10y ago

That is why people have been so slow to mobilize around climate change predictions.

mustacheemperor 10y ago
Only through people's incorrect interpretation of reality. >nutrition science is hardly 'solved' and you'd be hard pressed to find a researcher in the field suggest otherwise. You'd be hard pressed to find a climate scientist not in agreement with the consensus on climate change, at least one that isn't already promoting book deals on Fox.
- WillPostForFood 10y ago
  yup, the science is "agreed on." Disagree and lose your job/funding. That's how to build climate consensus.
  - mkautzm 10y ago
    That's not at all true, and that level of ignorance is actually quite dangerous. Scientists in no field are punished for disagreement. Even in really fringe science, disagreement is not only well-funded, but encouraged. A great example is String Theory: It has a lot of supporters and a lot of people saying it's untestable bunk, but research for both sides continues.. Consensuses happen when there is sufficient data to collapse to a consensus, not because 'funding'. Disagreements are extremely common in research and suggesting that the overwhelming consensus on the state of climate change is somehow a conspiracy or due to research pressures (that don't seem to exist anywhere else...) is complete garbage.
    - WillPostForFood 10y ago
      I wish science was as functional as you imagine. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/sep/21/society.politics https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/sep/21/society.politics https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13098773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13098773
    - tertius 10y ago
      Are your a scientist? You seem very naive about the scientific world. If you haven't experienced the cut throat nature of science or the immensely aggressive politics you may need to reassess your rose colored view. The mantra, is your haven't heard it, is publish or perish. Disagreement is well funded? What are your talking about? Good data is well funded. Doesn't matter how much you disagree, if the data is missing or bad you get no money.
    - wyager 10y ago
      Nope, that's not how it works. Do you work in the science community? Many fields of science and engineering are gradually being eaten by politics. Going against progressive politics is dangerous for the career of any academic scientist in the US. This isn't a huge issue (yet) for math or hard physics. It's hard to politicize those fields (not for lack of trying; I could go on a very long rant about how non-scientists are trying to make scientific fields conform to their political expectations), but for other fields like environmental science (which, by the way, is only weakly scientific in the sense that it does not follow good practices for having high predictive power, so it's relatively easy to manipulate) political concerns are very powerful. This is a bit rambly, but the gist of it is that it's naive to pretend that many nominally scientific fields are actually entirely objective and free from politics.
- hueving 10y ago
  >You'd be hard pressed to find a climate scientist not in agreement with the consensus on climate change You'd also be hard pressed to find a numerologist not in agreement with the consensus that numerology is effective. Argument from authority isn't appropriate in this forum.
  - mkautzm 10y ago
    k. http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

BurningFrog 10y ago

> The problem with this is that the average consumer is both A) dumb, and B) doesn't know what they need Note that the customer for prescription drugs is a licensed doctor.

afterburner 10y ago
> Note that the customer for prescription drugs is a licensed doctor. Who can be bought and misled like anyone else.
- wonder_er 10y ago
  Just like federal regulators can be bought and misled like anyone else.
  - afterburner 10y ago
    Federal regulators are not in any way the consumer in this line of discussion, so your comment is a non sequitur. Doctors are not expected to regulate the drug industry, federal regulators are. Please read the comment I was responding to.
baddox 10y ago
Also note that the proposed (and current) alternative is for these consumers to vote for politicians who will make these scientific decisions for them.

wyager 10y ago

If nutrition science "isn't solved", the government shouldn't be making laws and regulations based on it.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
delecti 10y ago
Morality isn't "solved" either, but we still outlaw murder. We can't not try to protect ourselves.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  Murder is long solved. We've conclusively determined, with no exceptions, that it is unhealthy for the victim.
  - tomp 10y ago
    Clearly there are exceptions (military, capital punishment, police with guns, etc).
SilasX 10y ago
Basically, yeah. As a general rule, the bigger the change you want to make to existing practice, the better your model for that domain needs to be. (I call that the "if it ain't broke" heuristic.) Changing the composition of an entire nation's schoolchildren's food supply ... should require something like skyscraper-failure-prediction accuracy. It's no defense that "science learns and revises". If the learning and revising is still that big, you don't have a basis for telling others to do it your way. (IMHO, this is, at root, the same mentality as "fake it till you make it" / "all self doubt must be Impostor Syndrome and never an accurate assessment".)

FrancoDiaz 10y ago

The problem with this is that the average consumer is both A) dumb, and B) doesn't know what they need. Unfortunately, a significant number of bureaucrats and statists would prefer consumers to be dumb (or at least say that they are) in order to maintain power. Oh and let me guess, you're not one of the dumb ones....it's the other guys right? ;)

Naritai 10y ago
I'm a complete idiot when it comes to what drug is going to have what effect on me. That's why I consult an expert: a doctor.
- FrancoDiaz 10y ago
  You're choosing your own doctor, right? Do you just blindly take whatever the doctor prescribes to you without doing your own research? How do you know your doctor is an expert? I'm pretty sure my doctor is not an expert in lots of things pertaining to medicine. He's not studying all the new research. That doesn't mean I can't have a conversation with him, but it's healthy to be skeptical of doctors too...that's why we get second opinions. I don't have a huge problem with the FDA, but I'd rather have a number of choices of where to get information, and at the end of the day make my own choice on what to consume. Also if people are so stupid like the OP suggested why not ban a whole plethora of foods like Twinkies, potato chips, soda, etc..?
  - mkautzm 10y ago
    > Do you just blindly take whatever the doctor prescribes to you without doing your own research? Yes. I'm do not have a medical background and at best, I could gain a surface-level understanding of the drug, which is not useful to determine which drug(s) are best for me. > How do you know your doctor is an expert? They went to 10 years of school and several years of residency to do doctor things. These things are also regulated by several boards which have the power to revoke medical licenses if doctors suck.
  - Broken_Hippo 10y ago