The Peril Of The Cascade Consensus
A very surprising article in today’s Pravda on the way herd mentality and public fear of rebuke, and frankly very sloppy and lazy ‘research’, led to widely praised “consensus” that was, well, wrong
In 1988, the surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, proclaimed ice cream to a be public-health menace right up there with cigarettes. Alluding to his office’s famous 1964 report on the perils of smoking, Dr. Koop announced that the American diet was a problem of “comparable” magnitude, chiefly because of the high-fat foods that were causing coronary heart disease and other deadly ailments.
He introduced his report with these words: “The depth of the science base underlying its findings is even more impressive than that for tobacco and health in 1964.”
That was a ludicrous statement, as Gary Taubes demonstrates in his new book meticulously debunking diet myths, “Good Calories, Bad Calories” (Knopf, 2007). The notion that fatty foods shorten your life began as a hypothesis based on dubious assumptions and data; when scientists tried to confirm it they failed repeatedly. The evidence against Häagen-Dazs was nothing like the evidence against Marlboros.
The article describes quite clearly how this came to be, and how the ‘researchers’ all either relied on one flawed report or simply caved in to peer/media pressure.
I found it exceedingly interesting that the author never even hints at the 800 pound Gorezilla in the room, as instructive as this story is relative to the current Global Warming climate.
(h/t Insta)
Gorebal Warming, Politics | Mr. Bingley | 
October 9, 2007 10:18 am
Subscribe
This is actually the most interesting post you’ve made in years, and a profoundly important one as well. It’s strange that David Lee Roth gets more comments.
(Because David Lee Roth looks better in tights than Gorezilla, duh. The thought of that kicking a leg up behind its head is…frightening. And I DON’T thank you for making me think of it.)