[ExI] Good Calories, Bad Calories

Harvey Newstrom mail at harveynewstrom.com
Sat May 7 21:11:37 UTC 2011


Jeff Medina <analyticphilosophy at gmail.com> wrote,
> On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 7:27 AM, Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> > What is funny is that I don't think you realize that Taubes would disagree with you.  He would argue that total calories don't matter
> 
> You are arguing against a straw man / cartoon version of Taubes.
> 
> He certainly would never suggest a 25,000 calorie per day fish &
> coconut oil diet would lead to better health or weight loss as
> compared with a 1,500 calorie per day high carb (based on, let's say,
> fruit/veg/whole grains/legumes) diet, for example.
  If that is incorrect, then what is Tabues' big alternative hypothesis
he claims mainstream science will not accept?
Is this not an accurate description of Taubes' hypothesis?

Unless I totally misunderstood Taubes, I believe this is exactly what he
is saying.  The whole premise of "Good calories, Bad calories" is that
carb calories make you fat no matter how few you eat, and that fat
calories won't make you fat no matter how many you eat.

> Conversely, I don't think you, Harvey, would suggest that 1,500
> calories per day of Snickers bars supplemented with vitamins/minerals
> would lead to equivalent health outcomes as 1,500 calories per day of
> your current diet.
Yes, real challenges and quack challenges look the same.  They have to
be distinguished by scientific testing.
Good start.  But then he fails to identify how we distinguish science
from pseudoscience, and he fails to then perform the necessary steps to
But then he fails to go on and perform the science Agreed.  So where is
his evidence to prove he is not a quack?  The fact that he recognizes
that he comes from a quack-like position does not mean he is not a
quack.  Show me the evidence.



If by "health outcomes", we are still talking about "weight gain" as in
the first paragraph, then yes.  I assert that 1500 calories of Snickers
equals the same weight gain as 1500 calories of my current diet.

> About five paragraphs down on
> http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/07/gary-taubes-goo.html there are
> some examples of scientific misconduct that indicate why Taubes has
> the conspiracy theory vibe.

Yes.  But proving other people wrong does not mean Taubes is right.  The
best his arguments do is tear down the opposing side so that we are
starting from scratch.  He still doesn't have any good science built up
on his side.

> "When people challenge the establishment, 99.9 per cent of the time
> they are wrong. If I was writing about me, I’d begin from the
> assumption that I am both wrong and a quack." - Gary Taubes

Yes.  All science begins with this assumption.  Then science uses the
experimental method to determine the truth.  Until Taubes performs this
next necessary step, he is still at the quack stage.  Other people have
performed these experiments and have concluded that Taubes is a quack. 
We are still awaiting any counter evidence that Taubes wants to present.
 But he seems better at writing conspiracy theory books than doing
actual science to prove his hypothesis.

--
Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, <www.HarveyNewstrom.com>
CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP






More information about the extropy-chat mailing list