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Yesterday I tweeted out an article, Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away From Bad Diets. The title, and frankly, the story is a bit slanted. I wasn’t totally comfortable about the piece…but I really hate the soft drink industry. So much of our obesity problem would go away if people stopped drinking the stuff. The funding does not necessarily entail a particular conclusion. Rather, conclusions can lead to funding. But, we’ve all seen the research which suggests that pharmaceutical companies do trials which have suspiciously high success rates. And scientists are human beings,and it seems that even unconsciously biases can slip in. We need to balance the tensions and not get carried away by an extreme perspective about the nature of human motivations. Scholars are no saints.
But the ultimate focus should be on the science. That’s really what’s at the heart of the matter. My friend Kevin Klatt, who studies nutrition at Cornell, outlines his own concerns at length about The New York Times piece, Funding: Tales of Defamation:
Until the industry funded research argument is balanced by an equally loud message that non-industry funding is highly limited, those shouting the loudest do little to address their own issue. This notion that researchers seeking industry money are doing conflicted research does little but subtly suggest that academic researchers find a new job or risk having their reputations threatened due to their funding source (no, I’m not being dramatic – go look at article’s written about Susan Jebb). Keeping up with the academia lifestyle is busy enough without a bunch of people who aren’t in your field telling you how you should fund yourself. If you get the time, I’d also urge you to consider educating individuals’ to encourage NIH to fund nutrition research that has been established as a priority by organizations like ASN. As evidenced by the seemingly consistent stream of low-fat vs low-carb studies in the literature, NIH doesn’t seem to be paying attention to these.
What’s a scientist to do? This is a fallen world, and we are of it. Obviously there are cases where the conflict of interest is extreme. But often funding from private sources is what researchers have to do to keep their work afloat. If money was what scientists were after…they would actually go work for their funders.
Second, I want to point you to what’s going on with Kevin Folta. He’s a passionate researcher at University of Florida who works on GMOs. You know where this is going. The Radical Activist Attack on a Teacher:
When asked about my speaker fees I always just say, “Take what you think would be customary and donate it to my outreach program.” We’re talking thousands of dollars here.
In Fall of 2014 the Monsanto company offered support for the program, and I thought that was great. Love ’em or hate ’em, my workshops were teaching everyone from kids to scientists, so I was glad to welcome their support.
It never was a secret. At universities, our records are public, and people know where our funding is from. You can probably find it online if you look hard enough, but just ask and I’m glad to tell you about who sponsors my research or who sponsors my outreach.
Last week the public information voluntarily hit the right activist ear, and they went ballistic. Screams of “Shill!” could be heard everywhere from drum circles, to hackeysack games, to the Whole Foods Gluten Free Bisque Repository. After all, $25K is a lot of money, so to most people this was the smoking gun of high collusion they always suspected. Heck, anyone that talks about science must be getting paid off.
Kevin’s been put on blast by activists. It’s Mon$santo all the time. He’ll persevere, because he didn’t do anything wrong and untoward. But now those who are not heavily engaged on the topic are going to have to discern whether Monstanto is poisoning our crops and buying our scientists.
I guess it shows that sometimes the substance of science matters less than style. No one really knows anything about nutrition. I exaggerate for effect, but you know of what I speak. In contrast, we know a fair amount about GMO. But in both cases there are passionate public debates, and egos being bruised and reputations shredded.
I’m glad I’m not very controversial!
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“so much of our obesity problem would go away if we stopped drinking the stuff.” How confident are you in your statement about reducing obesity by drinking less soda and why?
1. Wang YC, Bleich SN, Gortmaker SL. Increasing caloric contribution from sugar-sweetened beverages and 100% fruit juices among US children and adolescents, 1988-2004. Pediatrics. 2008;121:e1604-14.
2. Mozaffarian D, Hao T, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Hu FB. Changes in diet and lifestyle and long-term weight gain in women and men. N Engl J Med. 2011;364:2392-404.
3. e Koning L, Malik VS, Kellogg MD, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sweetened beverage consumption, incident coronary heart disease, and biomarkers of risk in men. Circulation. 2012;125:1735-41, S1.
4. Choi HK, Curhan G. Soft drinks, fructose consumption, and the risk of gout in men: prospective cohort study. BMJ. 2008;336:309-12.
5. Ebbeling CB, Feldman HA, Osganian SK, Chomitz VR, Ellenbogen SJ, Ludwig DS. Effects of decreasing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption on body weight in adolescents: a randomized, controlled pilot study. Pediatrics. 2006;117:673-80.
6. Vasanti S Malik, Matthias B Schulze, and Frank B Hu, Intake of sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain: a systematic review, 2006 American Society for Clinical Nutrition.
If you want actual data, on weight gain vs. sugary liquid caloric intake, I can provide data from my daughters' Ph.D thesis (granted the data has too many children, teenagers and women).Replies: @O'really
Ton of papers in literature relating obesity to sugar in sodas and fruit juices, and some fruits like banana :
1. Wang YC, Bleich SN, Gortmaker SL. Increasing caloric contribution from sugar-sweetened beverages and 100% fruit juices among US children and adolescents, 1988-2004. Pediatrics. 2008;121:e1604-14.
2. Mozaffarian D, Hao T, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Hu FB. Changes in diet and lifestyle and long-term weight gain in women and men. N Engl J Med. 2011;364:2392-404.
3. e Koning L, Malik VS, Kellogg MD, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sweetened beverage consumption, incident coronary heart disease, and biomarkers of risk in men. Circulation. 2012;125:1735-41, S1.
4. Choi HK, Curhan G. Soft drinks, fructose consumption, and the risk of gout in men: prospective cohort study. BMJ. 2008;336:309-12.
5. Ebbeling CB, Feldman HA, Osganian SK, Chomitz VR, Ellenbogen SJ, Ludwig DS. Effects of decreasing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption on body weight in adolescents: a randomized, controlled pilot study. Pediatrics. 2006;117:673-80.
6. Vasanti S Malik, Matthias B Schulze, and Frank B Hu, Intake of sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain: a systematic review, 2006 American Society for Clinical Nutrition.
If you want actual data, on weight gain vs. sugary liquid caloric intake, I can provide data from my daughters’ Ph.D thesis (granted the data has too many children, teenagers and women).
Ok thanks. I’ve seen those articles come out pretty consistently over the last few years and I was starting to become convinced but sometimes I think that it could be another “fat is bad” type deal. I know there is plenty of research on carbs but I guess because they don’t effect me at all I don’t feel a great deal of confidence about it. I thought I remembered Razib retweeting something from an obesity researcher last week that said he felt the connection was overhyped.
Sugary drinks-obesity connection is explained as: “the likely mechanism by which sugar-sweetened beverages may lead to weight gain is the low satiety of liquid carbohydrates and the resulting incomplete compensation of energy at subsequent meals”. This is independent of race, height and weight of the participants in the study. Until the events of the last few weeks, sugary drinks-obesity connection was not argued; but the mechanism of how liquid carbohydrates (with high sugar) led to weight gain, was argued widely.
I think much of our obesity problem would go away if (a) parents weren’t terrified of and prohibited from letting their children play outside unsupervised and (b) there wasn’t endless entertainment to enjoy seated in front of a screen. Children ate all sorts of sugary garbage in the 1960s and 1970s but also spent a lot of time playing outside because there were no computers, video games, smart phones, or cable television worth spending all day on. Yes, they may now be adults facing Type 2 Diabetes and may be obese adults, but far fewer of them were obese kids and it wasn’t for lack of sugar. Just look at all of the breakfast cereals that used to have “sugar”, “honey”, or “frosted” in their names.
“. . .to the Whole Foods Gluten Free Bisque Repository. . . .”
I know I’m nitpicking, but I get angry when it is implied that eating a gluten free diet is some sort of automatic indicator that the person is some sort of prissy, hippy weirdo. Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease. Sufferers don’t really have much of a choice about going gluten free. And sometimes the only place to get palatable GF foods is at Whole Foods. Making fun of people who eat gluten free is like making fun of those weirdos who take insulin and avoid sugar.
Sure, some people go GF as part of a fad diet. But about one percent of the US population has celiac disease, not to mention people with wheat allergies and gluten intoletance. The biggest driver of GF foods is medical need, not hippy fads.
And it especially pisses me off to read or hear subtle insults about people who eat gluten free when I have a little boy at home who already has to deal with never getting to eat what the other kids are having at the birthday party or at school and now
has to deal with hearing insults about the diet he has to eat because of a medical condition.
/rant
Otherwise, I agree with the pont Folta (and Razib) are making. No need to make fun of gluten free diets to do it.
Also, how did this trait survive among Europeans given that at one point wheat was 75% of the calories consumed over much of Europe? (For lower class in France in the 18th century it was 90% of calories).
All I can think, if this isn't hysteria, is that there is some toxin causing this sensitivity. But levels of most environmental toxins have been dropping in the United States for the past five decades.Replies: @Megalophias, @Rick
What is specifically worse now than in the 60’s and 70’s is that a large percentage of children have soda with every meal and with snacks between meals. 200 grams of corn syrup or cane sugar each and every day just from soda is common now. That’s about a full pound of pure sugar every two days.
This is partly driven by the decrease in the price of soda. A 2-liter of coke regularly goes on sale for 99 cents, sometimes a bit less, and there is basically always at least an off-brand coke for under $1 per two liter bottle. That’s the same price as when I first started helping my parents grocery shop more than 20 years ago. Off-brand 12-can-packs also go on sale for $9/4, or 18 cents a can.
Another change is that most vending machines now sell 20oz bottles of soda rather than 12 oz cans, and restaurant portions of soda have also roughly doubled in the past few decades.
While I don't know the consumption stats from the 60's and 70's, my understanding is that pop drinking among children is down substantially from 10 years ago. In my 70's childhood, I don't believe I ever saw a vending machine selling anything but pop. I now routinely see water in vending machines, sometimes as the primary offering filling more than one or two of the slots.
Are you suggesting that there is evidence cutting against the overall trend, whereby there are some children "drinking pop with every meal" even though their peers are drinking dramatically less?
What I see has changed is that I'd spend all day outside -- walking, running, climbing, riding bicycles, and so on (in the winter, shoveling and building with snow) and the common memory a lot of people have is parents saying "come home when it gets dark". Now kids can and do spend all day inside in a chair. You can eat a lot of sugar if you burn it off (and, yes, that varies by metabolism), but it doesn't take much to gain weight if you don't move.Replies: @Joe Dirt
I know I'm nitpicking, but I get angry when it is implied that eating a gluten free diet is some sort of automatic indicator that the person is some sort of prissy, hippy weirdo. Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease. Sufferers don't really have much of a choice about going gluten free. And sometimes the only place to get palatable GF foods is at Whole Foods. Making fun of people who eat gluten free is like making fun of those weirdos who take insulin and avoid sugar.
Sure, some people go GF as part of a fad diet. But about one percent of the US population has celiac disease, not to mention people with wheat allergies and gluten intoletance. The biggest driver of GF foods is medical need, not hippy fads.
And it especially pisses me off to read or hear subtle insults about people who eat gluten free when I have a little boy at home who already has to deal with never getting to eat what the other kids are having at the birthday party or at school and now
has to deal with hearing insults about the diet he has to eat because of a medical condition.
/rant
Otherwise, I agree with the pont Folta (and Razib) are making. No need to make fun of gluten free diets to do it.Replies: @Lot
So what were these 3 million people doing before around 2007 when “gluten free” started popping up everywhere? 1% of the population was just not eating anything in public?
Also, how did this trait survive among Europeans given that at one point wheat was 75% of the calories consumed over much of Europe? (For lower class in France in the 18th century it was 90% of calories).
All I can think, if this isn’t hysteria, is that there is some toxin causing this sensitivity. But levels of most environmental toxins have been dropping in the United States for the past five decades.
“No one really knows anything about nutrition”
Which is why I wish people like Bloomberg would stop being so desperate to pass soda bans/taxes in the name of public safety. Even if proven dangerous, its really none of their business. I don’t like tobacco companies and am personally repulsed by drug use. Doesn’t mean I want to deprive other people the right to do want they want with their bodies. They have the right to take those risks. I figure the science of these issues would be a lot less contentious if there weren’t so many “do something” laws implied in the conclusions. It weaponizes science into a political cudgel and essentially forces scientists into the role of legislative advocates.
Also, how did this trait survive among Europeans given that at one point wheat was 75% of the calories consumed over much of Europe? (For lower class in France in the 18th century it was 90% of calories).
All I can think, if this isn't hysteria, is that there is some toxin causing this sensitivity. But levels of most environmental toxins have been dropping in the United States for the past five decades.Replies: @Megalophias, @Rick
Celiac disease was first mentioned by an ancient Greek physician, Aretaeus. Prior to gluten-free everything, celiac sufferers ate food without gluten in it, i.e. practically anything. Before the discovery that gluten was causing it, there was a suspicion that starch was involved; a banana diet was one solution. Samuel Gee, who provided the first modern description, reported success with a diet of mussels, among other things. For the most part I think it pretty much sucked and a lot of children died (but a child dying of some diarrheal disease was not exactly news for most of history).
It seems that quite frequently the disease is dormant in the genetically predisposed until triggered by a viral infection.
One would certainly think there must have been strong selection against it in most of the Old World since the Neolithic.
(All from Wikipedia, of course)
Lot,
While I don’t know the consumption stats from the 60’s and 70’s, my understanding is that pop drinking among children is down substantially from 10 years ago. In my 70’s childhood, I don’t believe I ever saw a vending machine selling anything but pop. I now routinely see water in vending machines, sometimes as the primary offering filling more than one or two of the slots.
Are you suggesting that there is evidence cutting against the overall trend, whereby there are some children “drinking pop with every meal” even though their peers are drinking dramatically less?
Also, how did this trait survive among Europeans given that at one point wheat was 75% of the calories consumed over much of Europe? (For lower class in France in the 18th century it was 90% of calories).
All I can think, if this isn't hysteria, is that there is some toxin causing this sensitivity. But levels of most environmental toxins have been dropping in the United States for the past five decades.Replies: @Megalophias, @Rick
There has been a general increase in autoimmune disorders in recent decades.
1. Wang YC, Bleich SN, Gortmaker SL. Increasing caloric contribution from sugar-sweetened beverages and 100% fruit juices among US children and adolescents, 1988-2004. Pediatrics. 2008;121:e1604-14.
2. Mozaffarian D, Hao T, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Hu FB. Changes in diet and lifestyle and long-term weight gain in women and men. N Engl J Med. 2011;364:2392-404.
3. e Koning L, Malik VS, Kellogg MD, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Hu FB. Sweetened beverage consumption, incident coronary heart disease, and biomarkers of risk in men. Circulation. 2012;125:1735-41, S1.
4. Choi HK, Curhan G. Soft drinks, fructose consumption, and the risk of gout in men: prospective cohort study. BMJ. 2008;336:309-12.
5. Ebbeling CB, Feldman HA, Osganian SK, Chomitz VR, Ellenbogen SJ, Ludwig DS. Effects of decreasing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption on body weight in adolescents: a randomized, controlled pilot study. Pediatrics. 2006;117:673-80.
6. Vasanti S Malik, Matthias B Schulze, and Frank B Hu, Intake of sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain: a systematic review, 2006 American Society for Clinical Nutrition.
If you want actual data, on weight gain vs. sugary liquid caloric intake, I can provide data from my daughters' Ph.D thesis (granted the data has too many children, teenagers and women).Replies: @O'really
These papers hardly support the conclusion that “So much of our obesity problem would go away if people stopped drinking the stuff.” Effect sizes in randomized trials are small to moderate. I’m not sure why (actually, I have a theory), but nutritionism tends towards extreme conclusions on the basis of limited evidence. To wit: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/08/10/the-science-of-skipping-breakfast-how-government-nutritionists-may-have-gotten-it-wrong/
“Until the industry funded research argument is balanced by an equally loud message that non-industry funding is highly limited”
So then, unlike many libertarians, you support government funding of research? That is the (principal) alternative. 😉
So then, unlike many libertarians, you support government funding of research? That is the (principal) alternative. ;)Replies: @Razib Khan
i don’t consider myself a libertarian. i’m probably a libertarianish moderate conservative who is way outside the mainstream mostly on foreign policy (pretty much isolationist). but why do you think i agree with everything kevin believes just because i quote it? he’s a moderate liberal from what i can tell fwiw.
There is a tendency to assume that quoting someone means you agree with their general philosophy in terms of social signaling, but of course from a strictly logical point of view, you only have to agree with the person on the thing you're quoting. I actually think it's a great idea to learn from people who disagree with you.
So--you're an isolationist conservatarian? (More or less.) How *do* you think research should be funded? Are you fine with the private industry model?
I'm a heretical liberal, so I'm fine with more government funding. But given that you're both conservative (ish) and famously and intensely pro-science, I'm curious to hear what you favor.
While serving sizes have gotten bigger and I have no doubt some parents are feeding their children horribly, I think people inderestimate how much sugar many kids used to eat on the 1960s and 1970s. Look at Kool Aid, sugary breakfast cereals, punch drinks like Hawaiian Punch and Hi-C that were all around by the 1970s along with Coke, Pepsi, and so on. We went through 2-liter bottles of soda, boxes of cupcakes, and so on.
What I see has changed is that I’d spend all day outside — walking, running, climbing, riding bicycles, and so on (in the winter, shoveling and building with snow) and the common memory a lot of people have is parents saying “come home when it gets dark”. Now kids can and do spend all day inside in a chair. You can eat a lot of sugar if you burn it off (and, yes, that varies by metabolism), but it doesn’t take much to gain weight if you don’t move.
None of us are Caesar’s wife
I feel like the correct response is “We all Spartacus.”
None of us are Caesar’s wife
I feel like the correct response is “D'uh. We are all Spartacus.”
(I tried to edit with 2 minutes left, and was denied!)
None of us are Caesar’s wife
I feel like the correct response is “D’uh. We are all Spartacus.”
None of us are Spartacus. If one of us was like Spartacus, we wouldn’t be in the condition we are today.
I really don’t see cutting sugary drinks out of America’s diet as a panacea for obesity. I quit drinking sugary drinks of all sorts 10 years ago and it is only well after that I began to gain weight. For me personally it really seems to be what are called “fast” carbs that do it. I think we would have to do away with fast carbs nearly entirely to reduce obesity. The problem is that they’re included in 95% of a typical Americans diet and are the cheapest source of calories. Not only that but they seem to be as addictive as nicotine. I can drop the carbs lose cravings and lose weight, but start on the carbs again and I’m constantly craving food and will begin gaining weight as fast as I was losing it.
No one wants to be obese. But much of the population is obese because they find it difficult to control themselves. My bet, cut out sugary drinks and people will find that same sugar high in potato chips, noodles and bread.
yep. mental traits apparently much more predictive of obesity than any 'obesity gene.'Replies: @Senator Brundlefly
No one wants to be obese. But much of the population is obese because they find it difficult to control themselves. My bet, cut out sugary drinks and people will find that same sugar high in potato chips, noodles and bread.Replies: @Razib Khan
But much of the population is obese because they find it difficult to control themselves.
yep. mental traits apparently much more predictive of obesity than any ‘obesity gene.’
yep. mental traits apparently much more predictive of obesity than any 'obesity gene.'Replies: @Senator Brundlefly
So considering that mental traits are partially due to genetics, what do you think is the correct solution? As I stated above, being libertarian I find myself mostly opposed to taxes and Bloombergian bans but there are times where, when I’m honest with myself, I can see the other side. There are times where wonder that, if the morality of markets is contingent upon voluntary transactions, can I really consider it voluntary since it somehow exploits an aspect of us that hinders volition. But then again, its not cut and dry and varies from person to person so I tend to land on the side that gives more people more options.
“High Fructose Corn Syrup.” The people pushing this stuff (and their paid researchers) say that it’s the same as sugar, but the body metabolizes it differently. Hard to draw anything nonsubjective out of that at the current time, but the point is this: it’s cheaper. And research shows that the majority of people prefer sweeter, so in goes the cheap new sweetener, HFCS. It’s in everything. I kid you not, they even put it in canned corn. I’ve seen a number of companies ruin their salsa by putting HFCS in it.
But, we live in a country that consumes too much sugar and salt and still keeps pouring sports drinks down their gullet for “carbs and electrolytes” (commonly known as sugar and salt).
__________
Purely anecdotal:
I raise bobtail cats. It is not uncommon for bobtails to have intestinal problems due to insufficient tailbone structure for muscular attachment. But every single kitten I’ve had with this problem, I was able to clear it up by getting them on a gluten free diet and providing them with a water fountain (cats have a thing for running water).
Uh oh!
http://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2015-08-low-fat-diet-results-fat-loss.html
Says they’re roughly equal over the long term
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413115003502?via%3DihubAgain, I can't see the paper, but if this means what it seems to me to mean, then it's a definition of body fat loss that most potential dieters do not have in mind.Replies: @Robert Ford
http://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2015-08-low-fat-diet-results-fat-loss.html
Says they're roughly equal over the long termReplies: @Chrisnonymous
Actually, it doesn’t say they’re the same over the long term. It says the results supported the validity of a model that predicts they would be the same in the long term. Very different.
I didn’t buy the paper, but this from the summary:
“Body fat loss was calculated as the difference between daily fat intake and net fat oxidation measured while residing in a metabolic chamber.”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413115003502?via%3Dihub
Again, I can’t see the paper, but if this means what it seems to me to mean, then it’s a definition of body fat loss that most potential dieters do not have in mind.
My motto is to eat like Dr. Oz and think like Dr. Phil.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413115003502?via%3DihubAgain, I can't see the paper, but if this means what it seems to me to mean, then it's a definition of body fat loss that most potential dieters do not have in mind.Replies: @Robert Ford
ok, thanks. yeah, i just find it hard to start trusting nutrition science at carbs but not anywhere else. especially since fat was *just* exonerated (for now.) there are a lot of carb studies and also a few that say all diets are about the same. it’s hard to take any of it seriously yet.
My motto is to eat like Dr. Oz and think like Dr. Phil.
OK my brown cousin but certainly you can’t deny these two geniuses , right ?
If there was a god I wish I could get my hands around his neck . But it’s not to be alas .
Don’t be comin’ to B-more in your jeans bitch:
I tend to feel like overall food quality in terms of promoting satiety and not damaging the metabolic health cannot really be simply derived from a quantity of a few macronutrients in the foodstuff. And those are the key to obesity. Sugary drinks are pretty bad for those though – you can eat quite a lot of them, physiologically, quite easy and they so weird and new on thr biological scale that your metabolism will find it hard to cope.
Mental variation matters as well as body. I think of that as relating to higher (arguably “healthy”) levels of specific anorexic or “gymorexic” personality traits though, rather than willpower or self control as such. Also a disinterest in eating and food as a sort of general psychological dullness might help and so on.
Hey , hey , hey
That’s how it always started , but it ended like this :
G’nite buddy .
Razib, I believe you miss the point about conflicts of interest. In an earlier time (the one I grew up in), academics and other professionals avoided not only conflicts of interest but PERCEIVED conflicts of interest. The avoidance in both was to ensure that their professional lives were not corrupted by thinly-veiled bribes and payoffs as well as the PERCEPTION of thinly-veiled bribes and payoffs. Both would bring an academic’s good judgement and professional opinion into question.
Given Monsanto’s reputation, an academic who takes money from Monsanto under any circumstances deserves the disdain of his associates, the media, and the public … end of argument. If the retort is that an academic has to take money from Monsanto because no other source of funding was available, this only points to the sad state of the universities and research in the United States. (Yes, many academics only keep their jobs if they bring their funding with them … either from government or industry.)
The only solution: If an academic finds himself in the predicament of needing industry funding paired with an actual or perceived conflict of interest, he or she needs to find a new line of work.
What I see has changed is that I'd spend all day outside -- walking, running, climbing, riding bicycles, and so on (in the winter, shoveling and building with snow) and the common memory a lot of people have is parents saying "come home when it gets dark". Now kids can and do spend all day inside in a chair. You can eat a lot of sugar if you burn it off (and, yes, that varies by metabolism), but it doesn't take much to gain weight if you don't move.Replies: @Joe Dirt
High fructose corn syrup didn’t get into the diet until after 1976-so you were consuming sucrose. I don’t pretend to know whether that means anything but there are people that claim it’s significant.
You’re right–you *don’t* have to agree with everything someone you quoted says!
There is a tendency to assume that quoting someone means you agree with their general philosophy in terms of social signaling, but of course from a strictly logical point of view, you only have to agree with the person on the thing you’re quoting. I actually think it’s a great idea to learn from people who disagree with you.
So–you’re an isolationist conservatarian? (More or less.) How *do* you think research should be funded? Are you fine with the private industry model?
I’m a heretical liberal, so I’m fine with more government funding. But given that you’re both conservative (ish) and famously and intensely pro-science, I’m curious to hear what you favor.
Why is the weight of other men your concern? Why don’t you spend more time worrying about the condition of your soul?
I have a really good idea. How about we all mind our own business. A government that cannot control itself shouldn’t be spending the taxpayers money worrying about what people eat.