[Jake Neiffer]

[Cyclopath]

He writes:

[Randito]

IDK -- It's kind of like blaming science for the fact than less than 1% of the population understands quantum mechanics well enough to do the equations and make the calculations. In high school and even college, calculus is consider the realm of dweebs and dorks.l -- What fantasy made anyone think that the majority of the population would actually understand anything complex -- like the emotional and health relationship between humans and food. Kind of unrealistic expections -- especially when there are millions being spent on spreading all sorts of (dis)information about food and health in marketing campaigns from various companies and interest groups.

[nuclear_eggset]

I think the article over simplifies the problem. And the problem is over simplification. Though, to be fair, I think the examples Adams points to highlight that the oversimplification was first a problem on the part of the scientists. "They" thought they could answer, more or less, the question of whether, for instance, saturated fat was, in and of itself, good for the body or bad for the body. But the answer is more complex and depends on the rest of the diet's composition, the quality of the sources of food, and the genetics of the individual. The biology and chemistry (and agriculture!) involved in incredibly complex, and - in the attempt to study it simply - scientists oversimplified the problem to the point where they weren't studying what people thought they were studying. Namely, something relevant to our daily lives as humans living in the world. (As opposed to isolated, simpler creatures living in a lab.) But the scientists - and the media - sold the results as "The Answer". And when it turns out they were wrong (due to over simplification on both parts by this point), you get the repeated instances of the "science" being proven "wrong" that Adams refers to. And, honestly, I think a big part of the reason for the public in general being led down this line is that our primary and secondary educational systems do not do enough to educate then underpinnings of science. Most people aren't going to read a news article about a study about nutrition and say "huh, how did they control that test?" They probably won't follow up with reading the actual article (which may or may not be publicly available), with reading the actual study. And if they do end up doing that, they may not ask "what other variables were held steady in that test and how did they account for other ones? have they factored in all the influencing variables? are the underlying assumptions really reasonable for the conclusion they are drawing?" Because our primary and secondary education system doesn't teach science in that way. (You'll probably get that if you go to college in the sciences. Probably.)

[HitTheTrail]

He started out with a good train of thought and then went astray when he veered off on the climate thing. That whole debate seems to be less in the realm of science and more in the realm of ideology , politics and chasing research funding.

[Traildad]

My suggestion is to go back to the first topic and focus on why it is seemingly so difficult to get a truly correct answer on dietary issues. Probably the most relevant to the largest sector of society.

[Randito]

[Navy salad]

I have to admit I sympathize with his comments about all the contradictory information/advice on diet. It truly drives me crazy that we don't really know who, if anyone, to believe. But there is much we still don't know about the human body (and my bet is they will still be saying this 1000 years from now), so it's really no wonder that there are many uncertainties. But I don't blame science per se; I think it really just boils down to people jumping to conclusions and wanting to think they've got it figured out. Think about all the problems caused by this one tendency of ours! However, jumping to conclusions is NOT science, it's a departure from science.

[meandering Wa]

[Malachai Constant]

You cannot ignore that many "studies" are commercial efforts masquerading as science.

[Navy salad]

[CC]

Great, so now we have a business cartoonist critiquing science, joining the likes of: the evolution deniers, the vaccine deniers, and the ever-popular global warming deniers, 99.999% of whom know as much about the underlying science as a hog knows about Sunday. Yeah, I recognize some patterns. One is that the level of science illiteracy in what is already arguably the most scientifically illiterate developed country continues to increase. Another, as illustrated, e.g., by Inhofe chairing the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, is that we have become the world’s first self-satirizing society.

[Malachai Constant]

It is more than just ignorance. Global Warming denial is a well financed disinformation campaign to raise a controversy where none really exists by the same people who claimed tobacco does not cause disease. Anti vac started with a British Doctor who was paid by a lawyer to produce a study to justify a large class action suit. Evoluition was accepted by most of the U.S. in the mid 20th century until mega churches began a campaign and rich doners funded the Discovery Institute in Seatle to come up with "Intellegent Design". Media love to cover a contoversey as it boosts ratings encouraging false equalavancy e.g. If quantum physicists say an electron can move from one place to another without ever being in between and Joe Blow says it is nonsense you have a controversey. It is best regarded by the term truthiness where something is considered true because it feels true.

[HitTheTrail]

Science is a path not an end. The laws of physics have changed several times in the last half millennia and we still don't seem to understand much of it and are not any closer to a unifying theory. Also, we only know what 4% of the observable matter in the universe is made is made of. The other 95% is dark matter/energy that has us sort of baffled. I have a feeling we will look back a few hundred years from now and think we were about as uninformed as the ancient science experts who thought the four fundamental elements were earth, water, air and fire.

[nuclear_eggset]