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Your dismissal is facile because you focused on parts of the report that are a part of the background, but you instead presented as germane to the report's over
by legerdemain 4y ago
Your dismissal is facile because you focused on parts of the report that are a part of the background, but you instead presented as germane to the report's overall credibility.
As one example, you started by dismissing the finding of adverse effect in fruit flies, as if the author was presenting it as being relevant to humans.
In reality, Lowe writes that the fruit fly result is a curiosity. The specific finding from human medicine that he is actually reporting on is far more relevant and concerning.
I posted Lowe's summary of the abstract because you preferred to focus on tangential minutia and ignored what is actually the novel and significant finding here.
I care that the report is by Derek Lowe because he has spent literally years convincing me of his scientific expertise, industry experience, and journalistic bona fides. You have done nothing to show that you have any of these, and your choice of what you focused on makes me think the opposite.
- v0x 4y agoI am typically extremely skeptical of food-related studies generally, but Derek Lowe taking it seriously is enough to make me a bit concerned, too. Derek (not David as the other person said) indeed has a stellar reputation as you say.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y agoI’m not sure after three years of Covid nonsense, I can get on board with any more authority bias. I could be exactly right about everything. I could not in good faith just believe him because of his name, and even previous work. In five years, erythritol is still on the market, then maybe he drew the wrong conclusion from the study.
- ravenstine 4y agoYep, that was a typo. Thanks for pointing it out. Too bad I can't correct it.
- ricksunny 4y agoWhile I have zero opinion (or awareness even) about erythritol, I find the tendency, especially prevalent on IT-focused HN, to deify Lowe as the herald representative of all things life-sciences to be somewhat problematic. I too have learned lots from reading him. But that doesn't mean I don't take his pronouncements without a grain of salt. He's as subject to his profession's groupthink as anyone is to their own profession's. I co-wrote a paper challenging a consequential assumption he propagated back in 2020. Explainer version: https://files.theseedsofscience.org/2022/General_antiviral_protocols.pdf https://files.theseedsofscience.org/2022/General_antiviral_p... (substack version also online).
- legerdemain 4y agoI generally expect Lowe to present findings engagingly and as fairly as I can expect to see in the lay press. And that's about it for me. I literally have a bag of erythritol in my pantry and I am literally eating from it with a spoon. I am eager to see follow-up studies. That said, the fact that the authors found a substantial effect and identified a clear mechanism of action is what makes me pay attention. And I appreciate Derek Lowe bringing it to my layman's attention.