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ChrisHallquist comments on Critiquing Gary Taubes, Part 4: What Causes Obesity? - Less Wrong
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To me it feels like this whole series is simply failing to find a smoking gun of Taubes saying something false, or Taubes implying that the mainstream view is X when it is actually Y, because a bunch of individual papers saying Y does not mean that the mainstream view is not X. On a recent visit to an endocrinologist she still earnestly advised me that I ought to reduce fat in my diet because fat has 9 calories per gram. Recently glancing at a state-government handbook for pregnant women it contained the original food pyramid with half your calories supposed to be for grains (along with a recommendation to get folic acid which didn't distinguish folic acid from folate, no mention of iodine supplementation, and no mention of choline supplementation). This is what Taubes is criticizing and the fact that many experimentalists have found that this is terrible and published papers accordingly is part of his criticism, not a refutation of it; he is, precisely, accusing mainstream dietary science of ignoring its own better knowledge, and continuing to have endocrinologists and government pamphlets earnestly advising people that eating fat makes you fat.
This is true. I wish we had surveys of the views of academic nutrition researchers on some of these questions, but as far as I can tell we don't.
That said, this isn't a random bunch of papers I'm citing. Rather, I'm citing the very same sources Taubes uses to show how absurd the views of people in mainstream nutrition science are supposed to be. Taubes is at the very least guilty of misrepresenting what his own sources say.
Furthermore, his choices of sources for the views of mainstream experts at least seem reasonable on the surface: FDA, NAS, Surgeon General, etc. Though I can't vouch for his description of them, Taubes describes the Handbook of Obesity as "edited by three of the most prominent authorities in the field”, and Joslin's as a "highly respected textbook."
Whether this is good advice will depend partly on what you replace the fatty foods you cut back on with, and how much fat you're currently consuming. And it's not entirely clear to me what level of fat consumption is ideal. That said, it sounds like she understands that calorie intake is ultimately more important than fat intake, and was not claiming eating less fat by itself was a sufficient condition for losing weight. What are you complaining about?
FWIW, research from the National Weight Loss Control Registry apparently indicates that the rare people who lose the weight and keep it off generally eat low fat diets.
Cite: http://www.nwcr.ws/Research/
My personal theory is that fat is not inherently unhealthy; it's just that if you eat a healthy diet you will naturally end up eating a diet which is low in fat compared to your typical American. In other words, I think fat is a somewhat useful proxy. But if you just focus on reducing fat intake, you will end up eating a lot of low fat potato chips and ice cream and drinking a lot of soda. Not good.