Friday, May 24, 2013

Studies Show That Studies Show 0% Accuracy

"Back in 2007 when I first published Good Calories, Bad Calories I also wrote a cover story in the New York Times Magazine on the problems with observational epidemiology. The article was called "Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy?" and I made the argument that even the better epidemiologists in the world consider this stuff closer to a pseudoscience than a real science. I used as a case study the researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, led by Walter Willett, who runs the Nurses' Health Study. In doing so, I wanted to point out one of the main reasons why nutritionists and public health authorities have gone off the rails in their advice about what constitutes a healthy diet. The article itself pointed out that every time in the past that these researchers had claimed that an association observed in their observational trials was a causal relationship, and that causal relationship had then been tested in experiment, the experiment had failed to confirm the causal interpretation - i.e., the folks from Harvard got it wrong. Not most times, but every time. No exception. Their batting average circa 2007, at least, was .000."
http://garytaubes.com/2012/03/science-pseudoscience-nutritional-epidemiology-and-meat/

We used to say, because we like alliteration, "How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?"

Well, how about "How much truth could an epidemiological nutritionist find if an epidemiological nutritionist could find truth?"

Yes, I know, mega dork.  C'est la vie.


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