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posted by janrinok on Wednesday February 04 2015, @03:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'll-never-close-my-eyes-again dept.

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame writes on his blog that science's biggest fail of all time is 'everything about diet and fitness':

I used to think fatty food made you fat. Now it seems the opposite is true. Eating lots of peanuts, avocados, and cheese, for example, probably decreases your appetite and keeps you thin. I used to think vitamins had been thoroughly studied for their health trade-offs. They haven’t. The reason you take one multivitamin pill a day is marketing, not science. I used to think the U.S. food pyramid was good science. In the past it was not, and I assume it is not now. I used to think drinking one glass of alcohol a day is good for health, but now I think that idea is probably just a correlation found in studies.

According to Adams, the direct problem of science is that it has been collectively steering an entire generation toward obesity, diabetes, and coronary problems. But the indirect problem might be worse: It is hard to trust science because it has a credibility issue that it earned. "I think science has earned its lack of credibility with the public. If you kick me in the balls for 20-years, how do you expect me to close my eyes and trust you?"

 
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  • (Score: 4, Touché) by pnkwarhall on Wednesday February 04 2015, @09:57PM

    by pnkwarhall (4558) on Wednesday February 04 2015, @09:57PM (#141329)

    I trust doctors' opinions or perspectives on health about as far as I can throw 'em. Why someone who's focus is on disease and injury give me a unbiased and realistic perspective on health and wellness? When the general stereotype of doctors is that they fix "problems" by throwing pills at them, it's probably not a good source of information about what else I should put in my body on a regular basis.

    For some reason, this attitude is not respected by the majority of folks.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday February 04 2015, @11:13PM

    by sjames (2882) on Wednesday February 04 2015, @11:13PM (#141348) Journal

    That's probably because most people don't see how severely the profession has decayed in the last few decades.