wedrifid comments on The Unfinished Mystery of the Shangri-La Diet - Less Wrong

22 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 April 2009 08:30PM

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Comment author: wedrifid 05 March 2011 10:39:52PM *  -1 points [-]

You don't think "consume a @#%load of stimulants and you're going to lose weight" is scientifically proven? It just isn't a claim that is worth justifying beyond reference to whatever wikipedia has to say.

What Tim said about ECA didn't extend much beyond offhand mentions of the blatantly obvious. Including the part about dependence, ending up requiring constant stimulant use to maintain even normal levels of function and in general suggesting it is a stupid thing to do. He just isn't an ECA advocate - not even one that knows how to spell 'frequently'.

There is no way I'm going to follow you on that one. You are totally misjudging the extent to which that constitutes evidence against Tim's epistemic capability.

Extending the criticism to "the entire contents of Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss [emphasis in context]" is inexcusable. So is declaring an author incapable of understanding the difference between causation and correlation despite overwhelming evidence against your conclusion (a chapter explaining and constant emphasis where relevant) and basically no evidence for beyond 'fatal' disapproval.

Comment author: David_Gerard 05 March 2011 10:50:32PM *  3 points [-]

You don't think "consume a @#%load of stimulants and you're going to lose weight" is scientifically proven?

That is indeed scientifically proven, as I already noted in the RW article.

However, what Ferriss actually says in the book is (to cut'n'paste from the PDF I have here):

"The biochemistry was spot-on, and dozens of studies supported the effects. If E = 1, C = 1, and A = 1, the three combined have a synergistic effect of 1 + 1 + 1 = 6–10."

This sentence has a footnote, the text of which is:

"The ephedrine increases cAMP levels, the caffeine slows cAMP breakdown, and the aspirin further helps sustain increased cAMP levels by inhibiting prostagladin production."

I noticed this was the explanation from the deleted Wikipedia text. "At last, something citable!" I thought. And when I went to the reference PDF, I found a link to the old Wikipedia version with no references in whole or in part for that section and covered in "[citation needed]".

You are totally misjudging the extent to which that constitutes evidence against Tim's epistemic capability.

I think quoting an old Wikipedia article version as your crowning moment of evidence and carefully removing the "citation needed" tags is pretty damning.

Extending the criticism to "the entire contents of Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss [emphasis in context]" is inexcusable.

You have already misleadingly summarised what he says in the book in this case, as I note at the beginning of this comment, so aren't doing that well yourself.

Comment author: wedrifid 05 March 2011 11:12:25PM -1 points [-]

Our disagreement here is substantial and unlikely to change due to further conversation.

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