From: Ramez Naam (mez@apexnano.com)
Date: Mon Apr 21 2003 - 10:24:12 MDT
From: gts [mailto:gts_2000@yahoo.com]
> With respect to "burden-of-proof table tennis", the main bone
> of contention here, the burden of proof is always on those
> who would challenge the status quo, i.e., it is always on
> those who would offer some new theory that they think should
> better explain the empirical data.
>
> With respect to this thread, my point is simply that
> according to me and other people who embrace paleodiet
> theory, paleodiet theory really ought to be the null
> (working) hypothesis for optimal diet.
That's fine for you, gts, but it doesn't convince me.
If you want to convince someone else, you always have to present
enough data to overcome their own existing belief.
My belief, founded on the latest and largest studies of the
correlation between diet and health, is that a diet of infrequent lean
meat, low saturated fat, lots of fruits and vegetables, and a
reasonable amount of high-fiber whole grains is the best we know of in
terms of longevity.
To support my claims I can point to substantial data collected in the
/current environment/.
To support the paleo diet you have two things:
1) An application of evolutionary theory which I find extremely
questionable. (Our paleolithic ancestors almost never experienced
aging, so why would we think that their diet was optimized for slowing
down the aging process.)
2) Historical data on the decreased health of early farmers vs. the
hunter-gatherers that immediately preceded them.
Frankly, I find #2 far more convincing than #1. And with #2 there are
still many confounding factors: farming led to greater population
density which increased disease; early farmers may have eaten a
smaller variety of food than today; the first farmed-versions of many
foodstuffs lacked many of the qualities we've bred into them over the
past several thousand years; etc...
So, basically, until you have a large amount of data /in the current
environment/ to back up your claims, they're just not going to be as
convincing as alternative claims that do have that large experimental
data backing.
mez
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