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

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

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Comment author: William_Quixote 30 December 2013 12:24:34PM *  19 points [-]

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/

Comment author: private_messaging 01 January 2014 05:39:30PM *  4 points [-]

Following his advice can result in chronic ketosis, read the article yourself to draw your conclusions.

Furthermore, there's a wealth of contradictory data which he fails to report or distorts. For instance, Japanese eat high-carb low-fat diet (calories coming largely from white rice) and have very, very low prevalence of obesity, colon cancer, etc. Even more relevantly for Caucasians, obesity rates in Europe used to be very low fairly recently (and are still significantly lower than in the US), without being particularly low in carbohydrates - and the changes are very easily observable (fast food, soft drinks).

As for whenever his diets are effective for losing weight, that is a very complicated issue, largely psychological in nature. Perhaps some people can be more motivated when they follow unusual / non-mainstream advice, where success proves them right and their boring doctor (who recommends cutting fats) wrong.

edit: and as for whenever his advice would kill you... cancer risks associated with red meat are of interest.