Wikipedia

(Jack Brien) #1

Just having a read of how Wikipedia describes a keto diet. First up if you look at the ketogenic diet stub, it tells it’s only related to the treatment of epilepsy and directs you to the low carb stub. Reading briefly through it, it seems that much of what is written is coming from a somewhat biased angle.
Maybe someone or a group of people (with more time than I have) could give it a bit of an update and maybe a slightly more positive slant?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #2

I gave up on Wikipedia years ago. I suspect that what will happen is that if someone were to re-write the article to give a more accurate perspective on nutritional ketosis, an irate member would, within days, re-re-write the article, not only restoring the original ignorance and bias, but going out of their way to make the article even more slanted against the whole idea of fat-burning.

(Jack Brien) #4

I was thinking more of a few subtle tweaks, than rewriting the whole thing. I thought the point of it was that anyone could add or correct stuff, but you’re right any mainstream bias is going to reassert itself at some point

(Jack Brien) #5

White tech dudes probably make up a significant proportion of ketoers! I think if it’s being cited within school work, it’s just as a stop gap, to show that kids are looking stuff up, I know when I was at uni, if you tried to cite anything like that, you’d be laughed at. I do look at it myself from time to time for anything I want a quick explanation of though.

#6

As far as the kids go, yeah, the crash in critical thinking skills and rise of anti-science/magical thinking/biophobia is of great stress to many a professor and child advocate these days, and of great concern in terms of social health…

And the disproportionate number of white tech dudes in all panels and academies is obviously very much an issue needing remedy :smiley:

On my planet, I often forget them - as most of the LCHF folks I know personally or tune into for research are females or people of color or non-Americans. Jacqueline Eberstein, R.N, Martina Slajerova, Megan Ramos, Lierre Keith, Mary Dan Eades MD, Daisy’s Keto Woman podcast, and Karen Berger’s Ketowoman website and FB group for Midlife Women. Then there’s Jason Fung MD, an Asian-Canadian. I also appreciate non-American voices like Irish Donal O’Neill (who directed and wrote the keto films The Cereal Killers and Run on Fat) and Finnish Sami Inkinen and Romanian Christi Vlad Zot.

And of course elders Stephen Phinney MD, Tim Noakes MD, Michael Eades MD and some others as subject matter experts are much appreciated, along with the community service and testimonials of the Two Keto Dudes.

LCHF/instinctual keto and fat-satiated fasting - in one form or another - as we know is actually the food culture of the vast majority of human history (over 90% of which was egalitarian hunter-gatherer aboriginal peoples, according to Elizabeth Pennisi’s meta analysis of anthropological studies published in Science
(23 May 2014: Vol. 344 no. 6186 pp. 824-825) going back to the original birthplace of humanity in north Africa.

So when I think ketoers I think Black & Brown people myself. Sally Fallon in her book Nourishing Traditions and the work of the Weston Price Foundation documented bioregional traditional non-industrial (mostly global south) food ways for answers to modern diseases.

Modern industrial African-American and Indigenous Native American health though is a disaster zone of industrial diseases/cultural genocide - and I think it’s very wonderful that Virta Health (the Phinney, Volek, and Inkinen collaboration that offers an online clinic and digital coaching tools - social impact tech, such as this forum) features a Black woman on their homepage and her real testimonial video in their video section.

(Olivia) #7

I could not agree less. Wikipedia is an excellent free resource, which aims at giving you a good oversight into a topic. It’s purpose is for sure not to replace a university education. Despite this, I am sometimes overwhelmed with the amount of information and detail. I know fellow researchers who have edited or written articles in their specialty and I believe their alterations of existing articles required citations and had to be reviewed. However, this process might depend on the country.
In the past, I have found more dated and even factually incorrect information in printed encyclopedia than in wiki-articles.

(Naomi Brewster) #8

I started following Susan gerbic of guerilla skepticism fame as I heard a talk by her and thought she sounded sane and interesting. Eventually after reading a few of the articles she referenced I backed off a little - the guerilla skeptics have a very strong agenda and seemed to me to be quite biased in applying science to what they did and their attitude to non-skeptics was problematic and very patronizing.

Anyway having said that they may get it more right than wrong. But i guess in an environment that can so easily be skewed to extreme edges it is good to have people from both extremes and hope that somehow they can meet in the middle.

I was quite amused to read in the article on ‘Human spontaneous combustion’ this little gem…
“Brian J. Ford has suggested that ketosis, possibly caused by alcoholism or low-carb dieting, produces acetone, which is highly flammable and could therefore lead to apparently spontaneous combustion“. Really!!! Anyone spontaneously combusted recently?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #9

As far as I am concerned, it’s worth what you pay for it. In the subjects of which I have knowledge or experience, it is a very poor resource. Relying on Wikipedia for accurate information is just begging for trouble.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #10

Lol! I’m really burned up by this, does that count?

(ETA: Of course, there was that little bacon grease fire the other day, but let’s not talk about that . . . )

#11

In the domains I am familiar with, it is still better than any paper encyclopaedia, but the quality of articles vary a lot. If an article has proper citations, you can easily assess its quality.

(Olivia) #12

What are your areas of expertise? I mostly spend my time in the natural sciences section and have edited one or two little things. Have you considered editing some articles yourself?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #13

Yes. I tried editing the article on Gregorian chant, a subject I have studied and which I also know from personal experience of chanting during my time as a Benedictine monk. My changes to the article, which were largely aimed at bringing out the rich complexity of the development of the chant and which mentioned in passing that other Christian denominations besides Roman Catholicism find the repertoire valuable—edits which I had carefully explained, point by point, on the article’s discussion page, and which were justified with references to the scholarly literature—were rejected without explanation, and the article was re-edited to claim the chant repertoire as the exclusive property of the Roman Catholic Church. None of the people who had supported my changes earlier were any longer in evidence at that point.

The moral of the story is that a simple, basic story, no matter how wrong, beats a complex, nuanced account hands down—as, indeed, we have seen with Dr. Keys and the American dietary guidelines. Fortunately, the Interwebs give us access to sources of information that are far more reliable.

(Naomi Brewster) #14

The problem is that we tend to only see/read the things that we already agree with. I noticed that on facebook and even google searches that is only gives me what I’ve already seen. This was made very clear to me when I sent a couple of youtube video links to a cousin who is vegetarian (has been his whole life) and he sent back his own sources - all very scientific and interesting (here’s an example of what he sent - https://nutritionfacts.org/). I realised I hadn’t seen the whole discussion and it was quite disturbing how myopic we all are as a result. Even if I don’t agree with it, I want to at least have the opportunity to understand what the full argument is which was the promise of Wikipedia - a promise that has failed unfortunately

(CharleyD) #15

I only read the Wookiepedia.

It is clinically proven to lower my cortisol levels.

(CharleyD) #16

You can disagree with Dr Greger, he’s on the board of the Humane Society and will never endorse a diet that includes something with a face. :roll_eyes:

I’m willing to listen to reason but I’m sorry, I will never buy in to a theory that we are not evolved to eat meat.