[extropy-chat] Failure of low-fat diet

[Samantha Atkins]

On Feb 23, 2006, at 9:14 AM, Robin Hanson wrote:

> At 12:01 PM 2/23/2006, you wrote:
>> It shows graphs of the mortality rates as a function of time.  There
>> isn't much apparent effect at the time when famous vaccines were  
>> introduced.
>>
>> But you didn't answer my question. What do you think stopped people
>> dying of those diseases, if it wasn't the vaccines?
>
> There are lots of logical possibilities, and my state of belief is
> that I am very uncertain about which one it might be.

Which is most consistent with the sum of our scientific knowledge  
about the the causes of various diseases?  That should be a useful  
criteria for sorting among hypotheses.  It is standard practice to  
choose those hypothesis most consistent with things we already have  
pretty good certainty on.  Would you proceed using some other  
metric?  If not then please show why alternative explanations are  
preferable starting from what or incorporating and perhaps more  
fruitfully explaining the phenomenon in question.

> You said
> before that you couldn't believe the evidence I pointed you to,
> because you had a mountain of contrary evidence, but at this point it
> looks like you just have a presumption and lack of imagination.

But imagination without reference to the sum of what we know would  
get us nowhere.

- samantha