Health Science Sunday. #0. An introduction to the new health science articles.

Before I began writing about Covid, I wrote about nutrition misinformation from an evidence-based perspective. I noticed that the amount of nutrition misinformation online was catastrophically large. This made making policy—coming to consensus—impossible.

This was especially a problem when it came to obesity science and the obesity pandemic. We could not solve the obesity pandemic if we could not come to a consensus about how to address it.

Thus I became concerned with nutrition and other health misinformation. This characterized much of my social media activity for the past 10 years.

Since the year and a half ago when I started mainly writing about Covid, things have not changed in the online nutrition space. Things are in fact as dumb as ever.

But here’s the thing. I have changed. And I cannot spend my time debunking nutrition misinformation.

For one, what I debunked was never really strictly misinformation. In fact, much of what I debunked might even be right.

Rather, what concerned me was the torture of information. The application of faulty standards to come to conclusions that were not warranted.

Nor can I follow the formula that many other nutrition writers follow: advocating for this or that idea.

Because I am a scientist. And as a scientist, I have to acknowledge that my own views could always be wrong.

So, instead, I am going to do something unusual.

I am going to set forward my own ideas while also simultaneously explaining and exposing their weaknesses:

I am going to explain the latest developments in science, where they could be wrong and what their weaknesses are, but why I think which are right regardless of this uncertainty.

I am going to go against the grain of what is today called “science communication.”

As this field “science communication” is taught in the universities, when explaining science to the public, science should be simplified. Uncertainty should be minimized. Confidence should be overstated.

It’s an ethical catastrophe.

This currently dominant conception among academics ignores Feynman’s dictum that “the easiest person to fool is yourself.”

And eventually, as in everyday life, lies become indistinguishable from reality.

The judgment of scientists—which is just as corruptible as the judgment of laypeople—becomes fused with scientific fact. Fads and hysterias become a part of the dominant scientific discourse. Science becomes politicized. And nobody but a small coterie of scientific dictators, so to speak, at the top of the relevant fields determines what is acceptable discourse—even if what is called acceptable is fused with questionable political or cultural assumptions whose validity should be subject to the examination by the public—but whose examination is forbidden.

In short, instead of scientists serving as the humble advisors to the public…

The background assumptions of scientists—who come overwhelmingly from one particular social class and who share certain common assumptions not widely shared in society at large—begin to play a growing role in the public discourse about science.

And that isn’t the communication of science. That’s politics by scientific means.

In short, the currently dominant conception of science communication in the universities results in the politicization of science. And it degrades the name of science and destroys trust, while setting up scientists as the political judges of science—robbing the public of its input and autonomy in the implementation of scientific findings in society’s policies.

The dominant view of science communication is fundamentally deceitful and anti-democratic.

So I am going to do the exact opposite of what this dominant view prescribes.

I am going to explain what I really think. I am not going to hide it and tell you the message that I think you are supposed to hear.

I am going to do this while also doing what I do best: debunking. But I am going to debunk myself. And explain why my debunkings are wrong. And so on.

Sounds funny, doesn’t it?

But by the end of this back-and-forth, we will have a clear system of what we can know and why. Where the solidity is, and where the loose ends are.

Those familiar with certain styles of philosophy will recognize something here. We might call this something reminiscent of what the German philosophers called dialectic.

Dialectic consists in the progressive demolition or building up of an idea based on careful back-and-forth examination, where the fate of the idea is determined by how the idea does when there are no moves remaining in the process.

This style is not for everyone. It won’t be a popular one. Some people will want to just skip to the final section. The reader can certainly do that. The final section—the recommendations (or lack thereof)—will be based on a very careful consideration of the facts, which I hope in every case will be exhaustive.

But readers can also stay and learn not just what what a certain subfield actually says and what its problems and limitations are—but also the proper way to think through scientific questions generally.

Some rare readers—those who have been with me for a long time—may note that this style is reminiscent of many of the long threads that I used to do years ago on Twitter explaining this or that scientific topic.

I am delighted to bring this back on the appropriate long-form platform.

And this, I believe, is the best and indeed the only appropriate way to communicate science to the public—though quite probably a rarefied one.

The plan is to release one post every week or two weeks. In a particularly rough period, that can be extended to once per month.

This coming weekend, we start with the science of the manipulation and optimization of blood pressure using nutritional principles—what we know and don’t know, what the benefits are, and what the potential downsides are.

To the few:

See you soon.

Kevin