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The burden of evidence should be on the person claiming to have a miracle drink. The burdon of evidence should be even greater when it's a non-natural source, a

The burden of evidence should be on the person claiming to have a miracle drink. The burdon of evidence should be even greater when it's a non-natural source, as Nassim Taleb argues in Antifragile, "The "non-natural" has to prove its harmlessness." If you don't take this viewpoint, you end up with cigarettes, transfat and radium jewelry.

Dylan16807 14y ago
But he doesn't have a 'miracle drink'. He has a generic food mash and his only claim is 'contains basic nutrients and calories'.
- droopyEyelids 14y ago
  It's a curious statement about our society where the idea that the fuel for the human body could be simple. "Basic nutrients and calories" It's all produced by self replicating lifeforms we've only begun to comprehend, right?
  - Kim_Bruning 14y ago
    Right, but those sophisticated replicators are so sophisticated that they tend to be rather tolerant of their input. There's no reason to think we can't science out what that input needs to be, or at least to be able to find one or more valid subsets of input. This is a rather large improvement over what most people do; one typically applies little to no science whatsoever. :-P
    - pyre 14y ago
      The liver is pretty tolerate of alcohol, but a lifetime of alcohol use can cause liver issues.
      - Kim_Bruning 14y ago
        Right; the downside of a tolerant system is that it does not fail hard. This does not, however, preclude finding the system limits by use of the scientific method. It just makes it a tad trickier at times. I'm getting the idea that people profess a "belief in science" in the general case, but then absolutely deny its applicability in the specific case here. ;-)
- damoncali 14y ago
  He says it contains all the nutrients the body needs. That is a big claim.
  - vidarh 14y ago
    Given that he is asking for feedback from others who decide to try it, and on his blog warns that he is not sure how it might work for others, and is offering to provide samples to people who agree to have blood work done before and after trying it for a week, he seems acutely aware that while he thinks it contains all he needs, he does not yet have sufficient evidence to be sure. He's not written a scientific paper - don't assume that every single word he has written is meant to be interpreted in the strictest way possible. By all means be sceptical, but while he might very well be wrong, at least he appears to be earnestly looking to identify and correct any flaws which already puts him far above a lot of charlatans selling risky diets.
  - krenoten 14y ago
    No, he says it has all of the ones we know about. He emphasizes the fact that there stands to be a lot of learning to do and bugs to work out.
vidarh 14y ago
He seems to be very conscious that this is in effect an experiment, that might be risky as well. E.g. from his site ( http://robrhinehart.com/ http://robrhinehart.com/): "I am reticent to provide exact brand names and instructions because I am not fully convinced of the diet's safety for a physiology different than mine. What if I missed something that's essential for someone of a different race or age group" But he is interested in actually gathering more data, even if not exactly formally enough for a proper study: "So…I'll just ship you some of my batch. If you are willing to consume exclusively soylent, and get a CBC, chem panel, and lipid blood test before and after the week and share your results with me it's on the house. Bonus points for getting a psych evaluation before and after. The brain is an organ. I can ship it worldwide but it would be nice if you were in San Francisco so we can meet in person." Further down on his blog, he has also posted PDF's of his bloodwork. While he certainly does not have sufficient evidence of general safety and effect, he is aware of that and seems to be actively interested in learning about any flaws in what he's done so far. > The burdon of evidence should be even greater when it's a non-natural source, as Nassim Taleb argues in Antifragile This, to me, is ridiculous. A vast range of dangerous poisons are readily avaiable in nature. I used to pick a lot of mushrooms, and can safely identify perhaps a dozen types common where I grew up. But every year there are people who die agonizing deaths from consuming various nasty toxins because they didn't pay close enough attention to what they picked. And the safety of most mushrooms is unknown - we simply don't have data, and the effects can take a long time to show. In some cases, popular mushrooms are known to be toxic, such as false morels that contains gyromitrin. They are seemingly safe after boiling. Except there is still gyromitrin in the mushroom, just in small enough quantities that you're ok as long as you don't ingest too much. It's typical to recommend no more than one meal per season, as the poison is stored. But many mushrooms contains compounds we don't know the effect of, and where it is perfectly possible that no effect would be noticeable for a very long time - properly cooked false morels for example, might have no effect on you for years, until you get a bit careless with the cooking (a common way for people to get poisoned by false morels is to stand over the pot while boiling it...) Nature has an abundant supply of horribly nasty toxic substances that might pass for food for a while. This is before getting into what "natural" even means. Everything has to prove its harmlessness. It's just that some things we have a lot of existing data for that at least demonstrates a certain level of safety. But in the absence of data, I'm no more going to be willing to chew on some random "natural" substance than I'd be willing to ingest some random synthetic substance.
theyare 14y ago
What is not natural with cigarettes?

Dylan16807 14y ago

But he doesn't have a 'miracle drink'. He has a generic food mash and his only claim is 'contains basic nutrients and calories'.

droopyEyelids 14y ago
It's a curious statement about our society where the idea that the fuel for the human body could be simple. "Basic nutrients and calories" It's all produced by self replicating lifeforms we've only begun to comprehend, right?
- Kim_Bruning 14y ago
  Right, but those sophisticated replicators are so sophisticated that they tend to be rather tolerant of their input. There's no reason to think we can't science out what that input needs to be, or at least to be able to find one or more valid subsets of input. This is a rather large improvement over what most people do; one typically applies little to no science whatsoever. :-P
  - pyre 14y ago
    The liver is pretty tolerate of alcohol, but a lifetime of alcohol use can cause liver issues.
    - Kim_Bruning 14y ago
      Right; the downside of a tolerant system is that it does not fail hard. This does not, however, preclude finding the system limits by use of the scientific method. It just makes it a tad trickier at times. I'm getting the idea that people profess a "belief in science" in the general case, but then absolutely deny its applicability in the specific case here. ;-)
damoncali 14y ago
He says it contains all the nutrients the body needs. That is a big claim.
- vidarh 14y ago
  Given that he is asking for feedback from others who decide to try it, and on his blog warns that he is not sure how it might work for others, and is offering to provide samples to people who agree to have blood work done before and after trying it for a week, he seems acutely aware that while he thinks it contains all he needs, he does not yet have sufficient evidence to be sure. He's not written a scientific paper - don't assume that every single word he has written is meant to be interpreted in the strictest way possible. By all means be sceptical, but while he might very well be wrong, at least he appears to be earnestly looking to identify and correct any flaws which already puts him far above a lot of charlatans selling risky diets.
- krenoten 14y ago
  No, he says it has all of the ones we know about. He emphasizes the fact that there stands to be a lot of learning to do and bugs to work out.

vidarh 14y ago

He seems to be very conscious that this is in effect an experiment, that might be risky as well. E.g. from his site ( http://robrhinehart.com/ http://robrhinehart.com/): "I am reticent to provide exact brand names and instructions because I am not fully convinced of the diet's safety for a physiology different than mine. What if I missed something that's essential for someone of a different race or age group" But he is interested in actually gathering more data, even if not exactly formally enough for a proper study: "So…I'll just ship you some of my batch. If you are willing to consume exclusively soylent, and get a CBC, chem panel, and lipid blood test before and after the week and share your results with me it's on the house. Bonus points for getting a psych evaluation before and after. The brain is an organ. I can ship it worldwide but it would be nice if you were in San Francisco so we can meet in person." Further down on his blog, he has also posted PDF's of his bloodwork. While he certainly does not have sufficient evidence of general safety and effect, he is aware of that and seems to be actively interested in learning about any flaws in what he's done so far. > The burdon of evidence should be even greater when it's a non-natural source, as Nassim Taleb argues in Antifragile This, to me, is ridiculous. A vast range of dangerous poisons are readily avaiable in nature. I used to pick a lot of mushrooms, and can safely identify perhaps a dozen types common where I grew up. But every year there are people who die agonizing deaths from consuming various nasty toxins because they didn't pay close enough attention to what they picked. And the safety of most mushrooms is unknown - we simply don't have data, and the effects can take a long time to show. In some cases, popular mushrooms are known to be toxic, such as false morels that contains gyromitrin. They are seemingly safe after boiling. Except there is still gyromitrin in the mushroom, just in small enough quantities that you're ok as long as you don't ingest too much. It's typical to recommend no more than one meal per season, as the poison is stored. But many mushrooms contains compounds we don't know the effect of, and where it is perfectly possible that no effect would be noticeable for a very long time - properly cooked false morels for example, might have no effect on you for years, until you get a bit careless with the cooking (a common way for people to get poisoned by false morels is to stand over the pot while boiling it...) Nature has an abundant supply of horribly nasty toxic substances that might pass for food for a while. This is before getting into what "natural" even means. Everything has to prove its harmlessness. It's just that some things we have a lot of existing data for that at least demonstrates a certain level of safety. But in the absence of data, I'm no more going to be willing to chew on some random "natural" substance than I'd be willing to ingest some random synthetic substance.

theyare 14y ago

What is not natural with cigarettes?