hyporational comments on Critiquing Gary Taubes, Part 4: What Causes Obesity? - Less Wrong
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Comments (110)
So, I’ve liked this series (and upvoted it), but I’ve had mixed feelings about the most recent post. It feels like this is verging dangerously close to “someone is wrong on the internet” (1) territory.
In particular, something that seems to me like a major failing is that I’m now 4 posts into a series on nutrition and I don’t know the right answer. I don’t even know your best guess as to the right answer. Without an executive summary on “the right answer to nutrition” this series has no actionable take away points. Its clear to me that a lot of research was done to write this series. The series would be more valuable if you shared the fruits of that research.
Actionability aside, not stating a view on what someone ought to conclude makes it hard to see just how wrong Taubes is or isn’t. Will following his advice kill me? (Taubes is a dangerous madman). Will following his advice cause me to gain weight or fail to lose weight? (Someone is wrong on the internet). Is Taubes directionally correct such that following his advice will cause me to lose weight but he overstates his case while taking rhetorical cheap shots at strawmen? (Someone is technically incorrect on the internet).
1: http://xkcd.com/386/
I concur with your criticism.
I wish people went to greater lengths in explaining themselves whenever they give contrarian advice here, maybe write a post of their own if the issue is important enough. That would make these kinds of posts obsolete.
Often I see some superficially weird off topic statement with upvotes indicating many people agree, although no actual discussion has taken place here regarding the issue, and I have no idea why I should believe it. Engaging those comments is rarely fruitful, but that could be my bad, and of course I probably make weird statements too, since I have little in common with a typical lesswrongian.
I only regret that I have but one upvote to give for this comment.