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Yes, you are making a "every opinion deserves equal airtime" claim. When someone who isn't trained at all in a field claims to have made a revolutionary advanc

Yes, you are making a "every opinion deserves equal airtime" claim. When someone who isn't trained at all in a field claims to have made a revolutionary advance in that field, the rational response for a non-subject-matter-expert member of the public is deep skepticism. The discovery might indeed be revolutionary, but the way we find out is by running proper scientific tests on it, not by pioneering the revolution. The rational objective news angle on this is as a human interest story. Until a proper, falsifiable scientific test is at least planned, this project is genuinely interesting, but has no scientific merit. (FWIW, health advice condensed into headline "do" and "don't" edicts is bad science reporting as well)

beagle3 13y ago
On the contrary. I am saying "experts ALSO deserve skepticism". Not equal doubt, but certainly nonzero doubt. And I gave three examples that experts often get wrong, and the only times I see them questioned is when I do that. Most of the criticism directed at soylent is of "this doesn't seem right" variety, rather than the "this detail is wrong" variety. The latter is what I read the discussions for. The former is a waste of bits.
asdasf 13y ago
>the rational response for a non-subject-matter-expert member of the public is deep skepticism And the response in question is not deep skepticism, but equally non-scientific and inaccurate nonsense. "Soylent will kill you because you need the magic spirits of whole foods!" is not skepticism, it is bullshit.
JPKab 13y ago
Let's keep one thing that the poster you are replying to had in mind: Human nutritional science is HORRIBLE from a "meta-science" perspective. Gary Taubes, who admittedly is a bit of a one trick pony, has written extensively on the failings of the nutritional scientific community to adequately fund real, controlled studies that test out poorly performing hypothesies that have been taken as gospel. Eggs are good for you now, but a few years ago every doctor was saying they were bad for you, along with butter. Why is that? Because nutritional science SUCKS. The general public thinks that eating a serving of bacon is worse for their body than eating a serving of raisin bran. The actual data shows that the opposite is true. The fault for this lies 100% with the nutritional science community in the United States. As a person who fell victim to their bullshit for years until I tried the Atkins diet (tons of green vegetables, meat, minimal carbs/sugar) and subsequently lost weight, improved my blood profile (HDL went up, triglycerides went down, LDL decreased slightly) and all the while going against the conventional wisdom on diet. I tried low fat, I tried vegetarian/vegan, none of it worked. It was scientifically unproven bullshit due to a flawed scientific community embedded in the study of human nutrition. I'm not saying reject the scientific credentials of individuals in the community. I'm saying reject the establishment. They have repeatedly failed the public, so fuck em.
- stcredzero 13y ago
  > Human nutritional science is HORRIBLE from a "meta-science" perspective. What most people don't realize is that their gut is probably the single thing with the biggest influence on nutrition, and it is practically its own goddamn biome. Also, what we know of human metabolism would fill an entire wall with an intricate nightmare spaghetti chart, and that would be the abridged version. At this point, the only viable way to proceed is to continue research and empirical data on large populations. This is why traditional diets and whole foods win, because we already have a lot of data.

beagle3 13y ago

On the contrary. I am saying "experts ALSO deserve skepticism". Not equal doubt, but certainly nonzero doubt. And I gave three examples that experts often get wrong, and the only times I see them questioned is when I do that. Most of the criticism directed at soylent is of "this doesn't seem right" variety, rather than the "this detail is wrong" variety. The latter is what I read the discussions for. The former is a waste of bits.

asdasf 13y ago

>the rational response for a non-subject-matter-expert member of the public is deep skepticism And the response in question is not deep skepticism, but equally non-scientific and inaccurate nonsense. "Soylent will kill you because you need the magic spirits of whole foods!" is not skepticism, it is bullshit.

JPKab 13y ago

Let's keep one thing that the poster you are replying to had in mind: Human nutritional science is HORRIBLE from a "meta-science" perspective. Gary Taubes, who admittedly is a bit of a one trick pony, has written extensively on the failings of the nutritional scientific community to adequately fund real, controlled studies that test out poorly performing hypothesies that have been taken as gospel. Eggs are good for you now, but a few years ago every doctor was saying they were bad for you, along with butter. Why is that? Because nutritional science SUCKS. The general public thinks that eating a serving of bacon is worse for their body than eating a serving of raisin bran. The actual data shows that the opposite is true. The fault for this lies 100% with the nutritional science community in the United States. As a person who fell victim to their bullshit for years until I tried the Atkins diet (tons of green vegetables, meat, minimal carbs/sugar) and subsequently lost weight, improved my blood profile (HDL went up, triglycerides went down, LDL decreased slightly) and all the while going against the conventional wisdom on diet. I tried low fat, I tried vegetarian/vegan, none of it worked. It was scientifically unproven bullshit due to a flawed scientific community embedded in the study of human nutrition. I'm not saying reject the scientific credentials of individuals in the community. I'm saying reject the establishment. They have repeatedly failed the public, so fuck em.

stcredzero 13y ago
> Human nutritional science is HORRIBLE from a "meta-science" perspective. What most people don't realize is that their gut is probably the single thing with the biggest influence on nutrition, and it is practically its own goddamn biome. Also, what we know of human metabolism would fill an entire wall with an intricate nightmare spaghetti chart, and that would be the abridged version. At this point, the only viable way to proceed is to continue research and empirical data on large populations. This is why traditional diets and whole foods win, because we already have a lot of data.