Hopefully by now you can begin to see why I’m not a big fan of epidemiological research. It has its place (for example, determining the origin of viral epidemics, and those most susceptible to them), but most epidemiological research conducted nowadays is largely useless money-wasting nonsense. It certainly keeps many researchers in paid employment, but its contribution to the betterment of public health is next to zero. In fact, looking back over the last several decades, one can see that it has produced/furthered several highly counterproductive falsehoods that have gone on to gain global acceptance (cholesterol and vegetarian myths, anyone?)
AC is not my favorite blogger, as he can be like a nasty little terrier gnawing a bone when he gets riled up about a topic (like low carb diets), in which he obsesses over some detail or another while sometimes seeming to miss the larger points. But ... he does have a way with words! And he's dead on the money in his assessment of the utility of epidemiological studies, aka observational studies.
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