Big nutrition research scandal... again

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(Michel Labelle) #1

Another article about just how bad nutritional science is and the bias in some areas.

What amazes me is how this bias research ended up with conclusions like:

“He helped cook up the idea for the now ubiquitous 100-calorie snack packs, for instance. And he served up the suggestion to have fruit bowls placed prominently on our kitchen counters.”

Imagine having 13 of your studies retreated, and 15 edited after the fact.

“van der Zee and colleagues had identified at least 42 Wansink studies with alleged issues ranging from minor to severe. Those studies had collectively been cited by other researchers 3,700 times, been published in over 25 journals and eight books, and spanned 20 years of research, van der Zee noted.”

And we wonder why people don’t know what to eat!

(Running from stupidity) #2

Any danger that any of these people might apologise for their actions and the subsequent repercussions?

Wansink released a statement to Buzzfeed saying: “I have been tremendously honored and blessed to be a Cornell professor and especially to be the first John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management.”

Also, LOL at the caption on the first image

(Michel Labelle) #3

From my re-read it sounds very much like he leveraged this KXCD comic to come to his conclusions

curve_fitting.png620×984 87 KB

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #4

Seriously these bad people need to be bonked in the head.

(Central Florida Bob ) #5

Brian Wansink again. This guy is a one man junk science factory. He has turned out more crap than any other “scientist”. Well, anyone that I’ve heard of.

I started paying attention to him back in February

What he turned out being famous for was gathering a lot of data and trying to generate hypotheses it proved. That’s not how it’s supposed to be done and whether anything can be claimed from these “studies” is really an open question.

(Central Florida Bob ) #7

Peer review is broken. Maybe irreparably. In August of 2005, John P. A. Ioannidis published one of the most downloaded papers ever, “Why Most Published Research Findings are False”. About 70% of peer reviewed papers don’t replicate, use invalid statistics, or other improper techniques.

My favorite quote: “I explained that we re-did their experiment 50 times and never got their result. He said they’d done it six times and got this result once, but put it in the paper because it made the best story. It’s very disillusioning.”

In my line of work, I’d think that in the one out of six where it “worked”. I did something wrong.

A rule of thumb among biotechnology venture-capitalists is that half of published research cannot be replicated. Even that may be optimistic. Last year researchers at one biotech firm, Amgen, found they could reproduce just six of 53 “landmark” studies in cancer research. Earlier, a group at Bayer, a drug company, managed to repeat just a quarter of 67 similarly important papers. … In 2000-10 roughly 80,000 patients took part in clinical trials based on research that was later retracted because of mistakes or improprieties.

Keep this in mind when you read about any study. Chances are it’s wrong.

#8

You blurred out “bonked”?
You have a dark soul, @daddyoh. :wink:

#9

@Michel_Labelle, @CFLBob Thanks for the links! I really appreciate your sharing these articles with people like me, who always miss the important stuff. :grin:

@daddyoh I’ve got my eye one you. :eye:

Seriously though, you’re a wonderful man.
Sorry I had to tease you with your use of tasteful censoring.

(Kerin ) #10

It is interesting to see how many of these ideas have played out in the homes and school system AND work environment!
For instance, keeping the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter, this is a sign of prosperity far back to our ancestors!
(even if it is fake, inedible fruit).
The idea of pre-order lunch in school is popular in my sons school!
A large bowl of snacks is popular with football get togethers, but funny looking for a group of 2 or 4.
Kinda feel bad for the guy, I wonder what pressured him to hurry the information. Furthermore, what ticked off the folks enough to redact!

(Kerin ) #12

:joy::joy::joy::joy::joy:
Statistical fishing trips leads to the redaction of Cornell professors research.
More at 11.

(Running from stupidity) #13

Ask Ancel Keys, eh?

(Running from stupidity) #14

Well, don’t. He’s a marketing guy, just doing marketing.

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #15

My stupid android phone has a news screen and it is always full of articles about how keto is so bad for us.

Grrrr.

#16

Seriously? Mine always posts positive keto articles. Weird. :thinking:

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #17

Its Google playing with my mind. :crazy_face:

(Running from stupidity) #18

I just keep forgetting to look at that screen, so I don’t know what it’s telling me :slight_smile: #somejournalistyouare

#19

God, you’re killing me! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

(Running from stupidity) #21

If he had been open to discussion about it, then yes. But it appears he was not, to the extent that he vigorously attacked any criticism/discussion/opposition to the theories on the basis that it was attacking him and his reputation. This is not how science is supposed to work. So no.

(Kerin ) #22

Switch to Bing or Yahoo. I’m totally done with Google and the twitter and facebook! I do YouTube though.
Also, it’s okay to ignore anything that makes you feel upset. The internet is exactly what we worried about, taking away written books.
As a lot of folks know, keto has proven to be a righteous diet since our great grandparents time (umm, at least my great grandparents) and those who are trying to debunk keto, are probably also not thinking about those who hunt game. Part of many ancestors of ours who did with good reason and reputable health results.

(Running from stupidity) #23

I’m not in that “we” at all. I guess you mean “printed,” and I’ll take PDFs/ebooks over paper any day.