Two years later, how much progress have we made? Not enough, I think.
Category Archives: Science And Society
Uncle Sam, The Nutritionist
He’s a terrible one:
Here’s a bet: someday saturated fats — full fat butter, whole milk, tallow, and other animal fats — will be welcomed back, just as cholesterol has been. Until then, plenty of damage will be done to our health and the way we eat.
The American Heart Association and the U.S. government have been recommending a low-cholesterol, low-saturated fat diet for more than half a century. In 1961, when the AHA’s guidelines first came out, one in seven Americans were obese. Now one in three are.
As I’ve often noted, these quacks killed my father thirty-five years ago.
The New Cholesterol Guidelines
This is progress, but it’s still unscientific advice:
In December, the advisory panel said in its preliminary recommendations that cholesterol is no longer “considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.” That would be a change from previous guidelines, which said Americans eat too much cholesterol. This follows increasing medical research showing how much cholesterol is in your bloodstream is more complicated than once thought, and depends more on the kinds of fats that you eat. Medical groups have moved away from specific targets for cholesterol in the diet in recent years.
It’s unclear if the recommendation will make it into the final guidelines. Dr. Robert Eckel, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado in Denver who is a past president of the American Heart Association, told Reuters that there’s not enough evidence to make good recommendations on cholesterol right now, but “no evidence doesn’t mean the evidence is no.”
People can enjoy high-cholesterol egg yolks in moderation, but “a three- to four-egg omelet isn’t something I’d ever recommend to a patient at risk for cardiovascular disease,” he says.
Junk science.
And then there’s this:
Of course, all fat must be consumed in moderation, which is why many dieticians recommend eating only a few egg yolks each week. And for patients with a history of vascular disease, keeping track of the eggs they eat is critical to their health. A study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that patients with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease should limit their cholesterol intake from foods to about 200 milligrams a day.
Despite their fat and cholesterol content, egg yolks are a good source of vitamin A and iron, along with a host of other nutrients.
It’s not “despite” that. Saturated fat is good for you. It’s the healthiest kind of fat, and trying to replace it has been a public-health disaster. One battle at a time, I suppose.
Wolves
How they change rivers.
Popcorn
An investigation into the physics, with slo-mo video.
On Climate Change
…the science battle rages.
It would sure be nice if some of these self-identified climate “scientists” would learn some statistics. And stop calling people who understand statistics names like “denier” and “anti-science.”
[Monday-morning update]
Inside the latest global warming scandal:
This kind of thing is going on all over the world. It is one of the reasons why the satellite data (which, however, go back only to 1979) are so important: they have not been corrupted.
Yup.
[Bumped]
[Update a few minutes later]
Soviet-style disinformation dominates the climate “debate”:
Why is it that when a political figure makes a misstatement about a global warming-related issue, which happens many times every day, no government scientific agency or leading university scientist ever corrects them?
For example, all climate modelers correctly label their speculations of future world temperatures as “projections,” meaning that they have no validated forecast skill. Yet politicians, mass media, and the public treat the models as providing temperature forecasts or predictions. Because this misusage is never corrected, politicians cheerily continue to base expensive public policy on it.
Another example: carbon dioxide, as an essential factor in photosynthesis, is the elixir of planetary life, yet politicians dub it a “pollutant.” Similarly, badging the theoretical global warming problem as a “carbon” issue represents scientific illiteracy because it fails to distinguish the element “carbon” from the molecule “carbon dioxide,” and deliberately encourages the public to confuse a colorless, odorless, beneficial gas with soot. Again, climate-alarmist scientists say little or nothing to correct these mistakes.
Many in the public understand that Hendricks’ behavior is typical of politicians everywhere. But most people do not recognize that fraud is also being directly committed in support of this travesty by many of today’s self-appointed “leading climate scientists.” For when they are not directly massaging the data relied upon in their scientific writings, these scientists often report their findings in ways that are intended to deceive the reader into believing that dangerous global warming exists, or will shortly exist. The UN’s climate reports are the magnum opus of this style of operation.
Yes.
Strength Training
I think that women should do it, as well as men, because as Mark Rippetoe says, strong people are harder to kill. But I’m particularly in favor of vaginal weight lifting.
The Psychology Field
It has a political diversity problem.
Leftists worship “diversity,” as long as it involves skin color and gender, not opinion.
The Climate-Modeling Paradigm
How robust is it?
Not very. Certainly nowhere near enough to base policy on it.
I was very impressed by Bakker’s intellectual integrity and courage in tackling this topic in the 11th hour of completing his Ph.D. thesis. I am further impressed by his thesis advisors and committee members for allowing/supporting this. Bakker notes many critical comments from his committee members. I checked the list of committee members, one name jumped out at me – Arthur Petersen – who is a philosopher of science that has written about climate models. I suspect that the criticisms were more focused on strengthening the arguments, rather than ‘alarm’ over an essay that criticizes climate models. Kudos to the KNMI.
I seriously doubt that such a thesis would be possible in an atmospheric/oceanic/climate science department in the U.S. – whether the student would dare to tackle this, whether a faculty member would agree to supervise this, and whether a committee would ‘pass’ the thesis.
Epistemic closure.
[Update a few minutes later]
The alarming thing about climate alarmism:
In short, climate change is not worse than we thought. Some indicators are worse, but some are better. That doesn’t mean global warming is not a reality or not a problem. It definitely is. But the narrative that the world’s climate is changing from bad to worse is unhelpful alarmism, which prevents us from focusing on smart solutions.
A well-meaning environmentalist might argue that, because climate change is a reality, why not ramp up the rhetoric and focus on the bad news to make sure the public understands its importance. But isn’t that what has been done for the past 20 years? The public has been bombarded with dramatic headlines and apocalyptic photos of climate change and its consequences. Yet despite endless successions of climate summits, carbon emissions continue to rise, especially in rapidly developing countries like India, China and many African nations.
Because all of the hysteria, name calling and outright lies have appropriately destroyed their credibility.
Use Of The Word “Denier”
It is both a fascist tactic to shut down debate, and an indication of the fundamentally religious nature of the climate “believers.”
[Update a few minutes later]
It’s not our fault, they MADE us make beheading jokes. They were just asking for it.