ChristianKl comments on Critiquing Gary Taubes, Part 4: What Causes Obesity? - Less Wrong

7 Post author: ChrisHallquist 31 December 2013 10:04PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (110)

CC Licenced

Tags: gary_taubes

Comments (110)

Sort By: Best

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: ChristianKl 01 January 2014 01:12:48PM 1 point [-]

It seems irrelevant whether or not Atkins "works" if the reason it works has nothing (or little) to do with the reasons being given.

That's a strange sentiment. There are people who care about losing weight. It might be surprising but those people do exist. If you give them a working solution they are happy, even if your theoretical underpinnings are off.

Comment author: Brillyant comment score below threshold [+] (7 children)

Comment author: ChristianKl 01 January 2014 04:59:43PM 4 points [-]

We assume that something like losing weight exists in the real world.

If we would assume the same thing for going to heaven, I would want to follow heuristics that bring me to heaven. I don't really care whether given my a beggar a dollar brings me nearer to heaven because it's me showing compassion or because it's a sign that I'm not greedy.

The core question is whether giving the person the dollar works as a strategy for raising my chances of going to heaven. Different churches might have huge disagreements about finding the real reason, but I don't care that much about those reasons.

If you say that you don't care about whether something is working, that's declaring faith in the church of mainstream science, where adherence to virtues is more important than utility or consequences of actions. Is that really your position?

Comment author: Brillyant 01 January 2014 09:41:13PM -1 points [-]

I care about whether or not something is working.

I've got this idea for a workout plan to increase your muscle mass: Buy these Magic Muscle Beans from me AND workout with weights 4 times per week for 6 months. You will experience tremendous results!

My point is that the Atkins Diet and every other Diet! basically combine common sense, well-established, mainstream health heuristics with magic.

Magic Beans and Heaven and The Perfect Diet! might exist, but my guess is they are superfluous, and used only to line the pockets of those who cite them as real.

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 January 2014 12:00:49AM 3 points [-]

I care about whether or not something is working.

Then don't say that it's irrelevant.

It's very valuable to distinguish between whether something works and whether the theoretical underpinning is correct.

Usually there are years between the one and the other.

Einstein formulated the theory of special relativity decades before it had strong empirical evidence. That's having theory before empirical confirmation.

Washing hands before operating a person is the other case. Even before you know about bacteria and viruses you should start washing your hands if you see that having clean hands generally reduce the number of complications in operations.

The people who advocate washing hands might tell you some magical theory about how washing hands means that you smell better and that your patients are less likely to develop complications because you smell better.

It's a lot harder to find out that bacteria cause illnesses than to find out that surgeons who wash their hands achieve better results.

On the same token it's easy to observe that many people who adopt a low carb diet, do lose weight on the diet. Whether it's due to changes in insulin production, ketones-in-the-urine or some other factor is a harder question.

It's certainly nice is someone is right about the reasons why the diet he advocates works but the person who's suffering about overweight cares primarily about whether the diet works. A person who's in the advice business is generally forgiven if his advice works but his theory is off.

Comment author: [deleted] 02 January 2014 12:29:33PM * 0 points [-]

Einstein formulated the theory of special relativity decades before it had strong empirical evidence. That's having theory before empirical confirmation.

<nitpick>ITYM general relativity -- the Michelson–Morley experiment had been performed 15 years earlier. (OTOH IIRC Einstein said he didn't remember whether he was aware of it in 1905.)</nitpick>

Comment author: ChristianKl 02 January 2014 12:51:28PM 1 point [-]

As far from what I remember from school Michelson-Morley did show that not all was well with the prevailing physical model. I don't think it provided enough evidence to validate that Einstein was completely right.

Comment author: Calvin 01 January 2014 05:30:36PM * 0 points [-]

I think that for many people, getting fit (even if they arrived at fitness with incorrect justification) is far more important than spending time analyzing the theoretical underpinnings of fitness. Same thing with going to haven, choosing right cryo-preservation technique, learning to cook or any realm of human activity where we don't learn theory FOR THE SAKE OF BEING RIGHT, but we learn it FOR THE SAKE OF ACHIEVING X GOALS.

I mean, I concur that having vastly incorrect map can result in problems (injuries during workout, ineffecting training routine, ending up in hell) but after you update a map a bit you hit the point of dimnishing returns, and it is probably better to focus on practical part than to theorize (especially in the realm of physical pursuits).

Comment author: Brillyant 01 January 2014 09:33:29PM 0 points [-]

but after you update a map a bit you hit the point of dimnishing returns, and it is probably better to focus on practical part than to theorize

Um, yep. And that has been position all along on this series of posts. I've said why I think Atkins works and why I don't think it has anything to do with why the Atkins diet is said to work.

Eat Less, Exercise More for weight loss.

Lift More for strength training.

Of course there are lots of exceptions, and plenty of nuance within these heuristics. But you said it best: The diminishing returns happen quickly for most people and most advice.

My point was only that if someone wants to sell you Magic Muscle Beans and a workout plan that says Lift More, don't buy the beans.

ChristianKl comments on Critiquing Gary Taubes, Part 4: What Causes Obesity? - Less Wrong

Article Navigation

Comments (110)

Nearest Meetups

Virtual Study Room

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Recent Rationality Quotes

Recent Wiki Edits

Top Contributors, 30 Days

Recent Karma Awards

Comments (110)

Top Contributors, 30 Days

You'll need to login or register to do that

(Don't worry, it only takes a few seconds)

Create

Login