Lumifer comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (7th thread, December 2014) - Less Wrong

16 Post author: Gondolinian 15 December 2014 02:57AM

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Comment author: Lumifer 29 January 2015 05:50:41PM 1 point [-]

No, I do not. I actually read the papers and see if they make sense. One of my long-standing complaints is that in medical research no one releases the data -- it would be very useful to reanalyze it is a bit less brain-dead fashion.

Comment author: [deleted] 29 January 2015 05:56:36PM 0 points [-]

Then why'd you recommend Minger's criticism? Because as far as I can tell it doesn't make sense.

Comment author: Lumifer 29 January 2015 05:59:17PM 1 point [-]

Makes a lot of sense to me. What is it that doesn't make sense to you?

Comment author: [deleted] 29 January 2015 06:02:44PM *  0 points [-]

Let's start with the sturm and drang over Tuoli, I suppose. Why aren't they an obvious outlier?

Comment author: Lumifer 29 January 2015 06:14:19PM 2 points [-]

Um, it is.

To quote Minger

Using the data set with the flawed inclusion of Tuoli, Campbell cites a strong association between animal protein and lipid intake as a reason to implicate animal foods with breast cancer. Yet using the revised data set, animal foods do not contribute significantly more fat to total lipid intake than do plant oils. As a result, any association between breast cancer and dietary fat could be linked to either animal or plant-sourced foods, and there is no justification for indicting only animal products.

Also, to continue quoting Minger,

..meat was not the dietary feature noted in my discussion of Tuoli: dairy was. Both the three-day diet survey and the frequency questionnaire reveal high intakes of dairy for Tuoli citizens, with the questionnaire indicating milk products are consumed an average of 330.3 days per year, and closer to 350 in one township.[98] In addition, despite Campbell’s comment that the Tuoli migrate seasonally and consume more vegetables and fruit for part of the year, the China Study frequency questionnaire indicates Tuoli’s vegetable intake is only twice per year and fruit intake is less than once per year on average.[99]

If Campbell believes both the three-day diet survey and frequency questionnaire were in error, I must question why Tuoli county was not excluded entirely from the data set—especially given its pronounced influence on virtually all associations involving meat, dairy, and animal protein, many of which Campbell cited as verification for his animal foods-disease hypothesis.

Comment author: [deleted] 29 January 2015 06:31:21PM 0 points [-]

Yet elsewhere:

Why aren’t [the people who live in Tuoli] sick and diseased?

We have plenty of evidence showing hormone-pumped dairy, grain-fed meat, pasteurized and homogenized milk, processed lunch meats, and other monstrosities are bad for the human body. No debate there. But we do have a woeful lack of research on the effects of “clean” animal products—meat from wild or pastured animals fed good diets, milk that hasn’t been heat-zapped, antibiotic-free cheeses and yogurts, and so forth.

[...]

Is it possible the diseases we ascribe to animal products aren’t caused by animal products themselves, but by the chemicals, hormones, and treatment processes we expose them to? If the Tuoli are any indication, this may be the case. Hopefully future research will shed more light on the matter.

Or, you know, they're an insular minority with peculiar nutritional requirements.

Comment author: Lumifer 29 January 2015 06:54:10PM *  1 point [-]

You said that Minger's criticism of TCS "doesn't make sense". Did you actually have anything specific in mind?

I also don't see much problems with the passages you quoted.

Comment author: [deleted] 29 January 2015 07:22:36PM 1 point [-]

They contradict each other. Why isn't Tuoli an outlier?

Comment author: Lumifer 29 January 2015 07:27:27PM *  0 points [-]

They contradict each other.

You're quoting from the page which says right on top:

Important disclaimer: In light of new information, this post needs to be taken with a really whoppin’ huge grain of salt. It turns out Tuoli was “feasting” on the day the survey crew came for China Study I, so they were likely eating more calories, more wheat, more dairy, and so forth than they typically do the rest of the year. We can’t be completely sure what their normal diet did look at the time, but the questionnaire data (which is supposedly more reliable than the diet survey data) still suggests they were eating a lot of animal products and very little in the way of fruits or vegetables.

At any rate, I recommend not quoting this post or citing it as “evidence” for anything simply because of the uncertainty surrounding the Tuoli data in the China Study.

You seem to be more interested in creating gotchas than in finding out what's actually happening in reality.

Why isn't Tuoli an outlier?

I am sorry, did you miss that comment?

But if you want to pretend Tuoli doesn't exist, sure, you can pretend Tuoli doesn't exist. What next?

Comment author: [deleted] 29 January 2015 07:41:03PM *  0 points [-]

You're quoting from the page which says right on top:

I was kind of waiting for you to point that out. Notice it's a non-disclaimer anyway:

but the questionnaire data (which is supposedly more reliable than the diet survey data) still suggests they were eating a lot of animal products and very little in the way of fruits or vegetables.

In any case, I'm not using it as evidence for or against a particular diet. I'm using it as evidence of her research process. About a quarter of her criticism of TCS is based around Tuoli being an outlier, so it's interesting that she also thought that their diet didn't increase their rate of disease significantly, even before she found out the data was bad. It's a clear sign of motivated cognition.

You seem to be more interested in creating gotchas than in finding out what's actually happening in reality.

In general, you don't seem very good at ascribing motives to me. Recall you were the one that asked for an example of what I found confusing.

I am sorry, did you miss that comment?

No, I didn't.

But if you want to pretend Tuoli doesn't exist, sure, you can pretend Tuoli doesn't exist. What next?

That's not even remotely close to what I said, and doesn't really have anything to do with the point at hand.

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