Those are at best half truths and misconceptions. Cholesterol metabolism is indeed more complex than simply treating a number, but high LDL cholesterol indeed leads to cardiac events, and statins lower that risk. statins these days are pretty much generic, and costs per month about what a cup of coffee at Starbucks runs.
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Well … sure. If that’s all faith is to you … trusting your eyes to tell you the truth most of the time, then everybody operates on that level of faith. We all have faith that we aren’t just having a dream and that there actually is a reality outside ourselves to explore. And others are experiencing that reality the same way … as in … we all bump up against the same sorts of things which gives us a whole lot of confidence that those are very real things to bump into and measure. You can insist it’s all just in your head or my head if you want to, but assuming there are real facts out there to collectively discover together has served science really, really well. Denials of those same things can and does get people killed.
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Recent studies and not so recent that were suppressed for decades, demonstrate that sugar and not fat lead to cardiac events. In fact mortality is inversely proportional to cholesterol levels.
Google Dr Robert Lustig. (Pronounced Lustig as in Ludvig, not “Lastig”) Means happy in German 
I give you a few links.
Yes Mervin, we all operate that way, knowingly or otherwise does not matter.
For our own mental sanity we assume that what we touch, what we see, what we hear is all there for us.
And it is ok to go all our life with that assumption. No harm done.
However when it comes to making grand statements of academic knowledge I think it is important to be humbe and to realise that we don’t know much at all, not even if what we see is there or just a creation of our brain.
I like to think I am in my own minuscule way, a co-creator with God.
Yes, we get this.
Maybe we are housed in towering pods tended by mech’s who feed impulses to our brains. Perhaps a dead civilization has commandeered us as a remembrance of what their lives were like. We could be avatars in some kid’s video game. Or it is all just a very realistic dream. None of these camp fire musings can be disproved. Ergo sum, twiddly dum.
Another option that cannot be disproved is that our world is real, with the mundane and the measuring tapes and all, and that not only are our senses generally reliable to communicate reality, but do so quite unavoidably. Just because there is a subjective element does not mean it is hopeless and all assertions are of equal merit.
Besides, it does not much matter. If it is a simulation, it is realistic enough to play along with.
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A good example of the need to be discerning in who you trust, and not depend on appeals to authority… I see that he has good work in glucose and fructose metabolism, and is a pediatric endocrinologist. But see no real expertise or research in lipids. He also has received a fair amount of criticism for some of his positions. One critical review: https://foodinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Dr-Kern-Review-of-Fat-Chance-2.pdf
To the point of this thread, it is a good example of how science should be open to new ideas and critical examination, the critics must also be subject to the same process, and use good science in their responses.
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You seem to mix facts and interpretations based on hypotheses and theories in this matter. The measured cholesterol or sugar level in the blood is a fact, as is the number of cardiac events per time unit, etc.
If we think that there is a connection between the sugar or cholesterol levels and the probability of a cardiac event, that is not a fact, it is an interpretation or conclusion based on some hypotheses or theories. If the theory is replaced by another that can explain the facts better, the facts do not change, only the interpretation changes.
Although the scientific explanations are not facts, some theories are more believable than others. Usually, the theory that explains the facts best is the one that receives most support from scientists. If you think these scientists are wrong, you need an alternative theory that can explain the data as well or better than the prevailing theory. Otherwise it is very difficult to convince the scientists that the prevailing theory is wrong.
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That’s not a fact. There are conclusions that lower LDL is better for your health, but those conclusions aren’t facts.
Like I said, what I hope people would have learned from high school science is the difference between conclusions and facts.
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Well I’m sorry to disappoint you, but science is a “numbers game” by its very nature. Measurement and mathematics are the very foundation on which science is built.
If you can’t stand the heat, then perhaps you shouldn’t be in the kitchen.
Isn’t that solipsism?
Well yes, some things that are thought to be facts at one point can turn out not to be facts after all. But that doesn’t give you a free pass to dismiss anything and everything that you don’t like as “so called facts”.
It’s possible that we might find out some day that covid originated in a lab rather than in a wet market. It’s not possible that we might find out some day that the Earth is flat, or six thousand years old, or the centre of the Solar System let alone the universe.
Counterexample: job interviews for any science or engineering based role.
In a job interview, you have to make judgments about candidates’ personal perceptions of reality. At least in the sense that their personal perceptions of reality have to match reality itself. If you didn’t, you would end up with them driving your company out of business and in some cases killing people in the process before they got through their probation periods.
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I think you misunderstood me, whether it was deliberate or not is hard to tell.
Inventing algorithms is an abuse of numeracy. Statistics can be used to give the wrong message.
2% in terms of genetic similarity means over 300 differences but that doesn’t sound so close does it?
Richard
PS I remember an algebraic proof which halfway through made 0=0 so that the rest was meaningless.(It was used to show the dangers of algebra)
I get your point. I did read How to Lie With Statistics when I was a teenager.
Yes it’s possible to give a wrong or misleading message with statistics. Yes it’s possible to fudge measurements, introduce mathematical errors and the like. But the correct way to respond to that is to point out precisely where the fallacies, fudging, errors and gaps in the logic are. Just dismissing the argument out of hand as a “numbers game” is hand-waving.
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Just to jump in with the real numbers . . .
As of the 2005 chimp genome paper, there are 35 million substitution mutations and 5 million indels that separate the human and chimp genomes. This is in line with what we would expect from neutral drift over 5-7 million years. As a comparison, there are about 5 million mutations that separates any two random humans. So the difference between the chimp and human genome is about 8 times that seen between two humans.
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Yes but theirs is only scientific if you agree with their conclusions. If you do not, theirs is pseudoscience.
Incorrect.
It is science when it follows the methodological ideals of science: the honesty of testing hypotheses rather than trying to prove them, and the objectivity of written procedures anyone can follow to get the same results.
It is pseudoscience when it claims to be science but does not follow these methodological ideals.
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No Adam. It’s not the conclusions that distinguish between science and pseudoscience. Nor is it just a matter of subjective opinion. It’s the methods used to reach the conclusions. As I keep pointing out, science has rules, and it’s sticking to the rules that determines whether something is scientific or not.
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The historical record is eyewitness accounts recorded in literature.
If you are correct, my eyewitness is only valid if you prove it scientifically.
I challenge that you explain the miracles of Christ then?
You must conclude that they never happened.
Now move onto Christs statement in Mathew 24 that Noahs flood happened. Clearly it cant be proven by your scientific method, so Christ (God) is wrong.
Thanks for making that connection for me! I should have guessed. My last PCR experiment was in undergrad. That is very cool.
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Apples and oranges. History is not science. It is subjective and the conclusions of history are open to interpretation.
Eyewitnesses may be correct without dependence on objective evidence, but objective evidence (science) if you will, can be supportive, contradictory, or neutral. But again, they are not the same.
Jesus’ miracles? Few would claim they are subject to science, thus their truth remains dependent on faith.
Truth is not dependent on science, but science is dependent on truth.
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We have come to this point because I challenged the validity of so called facts.The mention of the dietary fat fallacy, is just an example to illustrate that what we at some stage take as gospel (pun intended) can prove to turn quickly into an ugly machination with an even uglier agenda. .
The critic you link is a party interested in maintaining the status quo that has prevailed for the last 70 years, and made the fortune of the food and the pharmaceutical industry. Dietitian are indoctrinated from the start of their career to predicate that obesity is the fault of the individual. "Eat less and move more is the mantra. "
Regardless of opinions or semantics on what is a fact, when my illustration is fast becoming vox populi and is long out of the periphery and into mainstream, to challenge this fact is not the point.
I see with sadness a massive lack of humility in this discussion. Arrogance to claim who is a valid interlocutor and who is not, followed by intricate skirmishes on semantics or far fetched points of debate. Each participant trying to steer the attention on some puntual argument they think they can defend successfully.
The classic example of experts making nonsense claims like geocentrism and even heliocentrism should be enough to call for caution when claiming absolute knowledge.
Facts, ( something that is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information ) rely on what we know or was proven at some point in time. Is that set in stone? Really? think again, history is a long string of lies omissions falsehoods and contradictions, not enough to prop up a so called fact with any certainty.
Socrates of perhaps Plato, (who knows), tell it much better:
Scio me nihil scire
Sounds like you are deeply invested in your narrative. I only ask that you examine his statements based on principles of good science. You are free to believe whatever you wish, however.
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