One lesson to be drawn from the carbohydrate-insulin-model (for those who follow nutrition debates) is that scientific theories do not describe reality just because they seem plausible – or look to some degree elegant, simple, etc – on paper. This is why science isn’t conducted from the armchair. Theories must be tested to see whether the theory has been successful in its predictions. Naturally, any scientifically minded person would not only endorse that criteria but nod their head in agreement when reading the recent Science article criticizing the CIM because what we see in the data is not only not what we would expect if the CIM were true but the opposite, which counts against the CIM (even if it doesn’t logically disprove it).
Further, one knows the CIM is in troubled waters when proponents continue to bring in convoluted – and increasingly difficult to falsify – reasons for why their model fails to yield predictive fruitiness, on the one hand, or cannot to explain competing data, on the other. Ad hoc maneuvering is always a strike – albeit not necessarily a decisive one – against any proposed theory. And there’s much of that happening among low-carb-or-bust aficionados (just as there are among lockdown/mask proponents — i.e. “people aren’t compliant!”) made uncomfortable by the data which seem to refute their hypothesis.
Again, nothing so far said will strike any person familiar with science reasoning as being particularly controversial — or at least, it shouldn’t. So, why, then, are people who claim to be advocates of science so quick to issue condemnations and condescending dismissals to those who criticize the theories promoted to enact lockdowns and mask mandates? Granted some of these theories seemed plausible (just like the CIM), but what we learned is their predictions sucked — like, really sucked. What we saw (see) in the data was not only not what we would expect if lockdown/mask hypotheses were true but consistently the opposite, and it’s only when scientists forget to be empiricists (and become political activists instead) that this sort of pseudo-scientific twaddle is tolerated. (Now, to be fair to researchers, studies have been published highlighting the extravagant failure of both approaches, but are, unfortunately, and for reasons one is free to speculate upon, almost never mentioned in the mainstream media. Another reminder, as well, that there is no such thing as “The Science” or “The Experts,” there is just the scientific method and often experts disagree.)
Even more annoying, is when people criticize lockdowns/mask mandates they are met almost inevitably with charges of either wanting to kill grandmother or denying that COVID is real. But arguing against — not just effective, but positively harmful — policy is wanting the best for people, and those criticizing lockdown/mask mandates do not deny the reality of COVID. To show how mentally defective this criticism is, imagine somebody saying to those who critique the CIM that they must either not care about people suffering from obesity or that they must deny that obesity is real. That, my friends, is not only ad hominem, but a howling non-sequitur.
Here are some other similarities between the CIM and lockdown/mask hypotheses. Each of these theories sounds initially plausible. They tell a nice, clean story. They are simple, elegant, to some degree common sensical, and, of course, wrong. What’s more, they suddenly set out against a prior long-standing consensus (for no short period, the scientific consensus was against both lockdowns and masks). Now, it is true that science occasionally progresses by overturning consensuses, and that appeal to consensus, generally speaking, is not the strongest argument a person could make. However, whether appealing to a consensus is a fallacy depends upon what the consensus is and how it was formed and the argumentative context. Admittedly, some consensuses were not established because of independent converging lines of inquiry, but because of social pressure, political happenstance, etc – and if a person is arguing that much, then appealing to the consensus would indeed be fallacious, assuming to be true that which is under scrutiny. But other consensuses are formed precisely because a theory is so predictively useful and has consistently yielded results that it would be a miracle if it wasn’t an indicator of truthfulness. As one important paper points out, the reliability of a consensus increases to the degree that the consensus is formed by the independent and free deliberations of many.
The conclusion? If one thinks the Science article is rightfully skeptical of the CIM model because of what appears in the data versus what the CIM predicts, then consistency demands one should be equally skeptical of lockdowns/masks because of what appears in the data versus what those hypotheses predict. This is a fairly elementary point: 5th grade critical thinking, at most. The reason people miss this, of course, isn’t because they lack technical knowledge in a specialized field, but because as much as they love to advertise themselves as advocates of science (“Science is Real!” “I Believe in Science!” and so on), in reality they have little to no understanding of what scientific reasoning — and more generally, critical thinking — involves.
– Pat
PS – Point of clarification: the CIM criticism isn’t saying people can’t (or don’t) experience increased health benefits by cutting carbohydrates; rather, the criticism is against a particular model meant to explain obesity. Obviously, people (some, not all) can and do experience health benefits when following a lower-carbohydrate regimen but much of those benefits are the result of overall caloric reduction, which is why we see people experience health benefits from other dietary methods — including higher carb approaches — as well.
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