
#167 - Gary Taubes: Bad science and challenging the conventional wisdom of obesity
from The Peter Attia Drive
by Peter Attia, MD
Published: Mon Jun 28 2021
Show Notes
Gary Taubes is an investigative science and health journalist and a best-selling author. In this podcast, Gary explains how he developed a healthy skepticism for science as he was transitioning from beinga physics major to beginning as a science journalist. He talks about how he was particularly drawn to sussing out “pathologic science,” telling the stories behind his books on the discovery of the W and Z bosons and cold fusion, emphasizing the need for researchers to perform a thorough background analysis. Gary then describes how his work came to focus on public health, nutrition, and obesity. He provides a great historic overview of obesity research and provides his explanation for why the conventional wisdom today is incorrect.
We discuss:
- Gary’s background in science and journalism, and developing a healthy skepticism for science [2:20];
- Gary’s boxing experience, and the challenge of appreciating behavioral risk [8:40];
- How Gary developed his writing skills, and what the best science writers do well [];
- Example of how science can go wrong, and the story behind Gary’s first book, Nobel Dreams [];
- Theoretical vs. experimental physicists: The important differentiation and the relationship between the two [];
- Pathological science: research tainted by unconscious bias or subjective effects [];
- Reflecting on the aftermath of writing Nobel Dreams and the legacy of Carlo Rubbia [];
- Scientific fraud: The story of the cold fusion experiments at Georgia Tech and the subject of Gary’s book, Bad Science [];
- Problems with epidemiology, history of the scientific method, and the conflict of public health science [];
- Gary’s first foray into the bad science of nutrition [];
- Research implicating insulin’s role in obesity, and the story behind what led to Gary’s book, Good Calories, Bad Calories []
- The history of obesity research, dietary fat, and fat metabolism []
- The evolving understanding of the role of fat metabolism in obesity and weight gain []
- Mutant mice experiments giving way to competing theories about obesity []
- How Gary thinks about the findings that do not support his alternative hypothesis about obesity []
- Challenges with addressing the obesity and diabetes epidemics, palatability and convenience of food, and other hypotheses [];
- Challenging the energy balance hypothesis, and the difficulty of doing good nutrition studies [];and
- More.
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