EAT! DRINK! BE WARY!
Today is my luckiest day and must be a day of rejoicing for people the world over. First, the news that it's okay to eat fat. The "scientific" data we've been reading for years is incorrect! Dead wrong! It turns out that the so-called sound scientific research on which it was based was incorrect! The first thing I did after reading it was to search out an Argentine barbecue recipe - here it is:
http://bbq.about.com/od/beefrecipes/r/bl60622c.htm
Enjoy!
This article explains that some food scientists for years have been claiming that beliefs that fat caused premature heart disease and death did not have a sound
scientific foundation, but were voices crying in the wilderness.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html?
pagewanted=1&ei=
5087&em&en=9f36687fe8aef756
The then Surgeon General Koop informed America that the proof that a diet of high-fat food caused deadly diseases was based on excellent science. But this was a false assumption, as an author
"...demonstrates in his new book meticulously debunking diet myths, “Good Calories, Bad Calories” (Knopf, 2007). The notion that fatty foods shorten your life began as a hypothesis based on dubious assumptions and data; when scientists tried to confirm it they failed repeatedly. The evidence against Häagen-Dazs was nothing like the evidence against Marlboros."
But in my opinion the most fascinating part is the explanation of how false or mistaken beliefs are propagated. It seems to be caused by something called Cascade Theory. According to this quote from the abstract of an article*:
"An informational cascade occurs when it is optimal for an individual, having observed the actions of those ahead of him, to follow the behavior of the preceding individual without regard to his own information. We argue that localized conformity of behavior and the fragility of mass behaviors can be explained by informational cascades."
A quote included below the above is extremely apt:
Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind
lead the blind, both fall into the ditch. [Matthew 15:14]
Certainly our health is important to us but so is the well being of our nation. Do our leaders deliberately mislead the public, or are they too suffering from the cascade effect? If so, who feeds them misleading information? The public surely is blinded by the informational cascade on many vital issues. In such a situation even critical thinking will be of no avail (although I recommend that more people start exercising it) when the facts are simply not accessible to most people. Who can we believe? How do we avoid being victims of the cascade effect?
As for freedom from fear of alcohol beverages, I wish...... But read this amusing parody to learn that alcohol is good for you and will even enhance your cognitive processes.
http://chocolatecity2.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E3A5A45BAC8F91AD!290.trak
*Full article is from The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 100, No. 5 (Oct. 1992} but only the abstract is available to the general public on the website. The author of the article is Sushil Bikhchandani et al.
http://bbq.about.com/od/beefrecipes/r/bl60622c.htm
Enjoy!
This article explains that some food scientists for years have been claiming that beliefs that fat caused premature heart disease and death did not have a sound
scientific foundation, but were voices crying in the wilderness.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html?
pagewanted=1&ei=
5087&em&en=9f36687fe8aef756
The then Surgeon General Koop informed America that the proof that a diet of high-fat food caused deadly diseases was based on excellent science. But this was a false assumption, as an author
"...demonstrates in his new book meticulously debunking diet myths, “Good Calories, Bad Calories” (Knopf, 2007). The notion that fatty foods shorten your life began as a hypothesis based on dubious assumptions and data; when scientists tried to confirm it they failed repeatedly. The evidence against Häagen-Dazs was nothing like the evidence against Marlboros."
But in my opinion the most fascinating part is the explanation of how false or mistaken beliefs are propagated. It seems to be caused by something called Cascade Theory. According to this quote from the abstract of an article*:
"An informational cascade occurs when it is optimal for an individual, having observed the actions of those ahead of him, to follow the behavior of the preceding individual without regard to his own information. We argue that localized conformity of behavior and the fragility of mass behaviors can be explained by informational cascades."
A quote included below the above is extremely apt:
Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind
lead the blind, both fall into the ditch. [Matthew 15:14]
Certainly our health is important to us but so is the well being of our nation. Do our leaders deliberately mislead the public, or are they too suffering from the cascade effect? If so, who feeds them misleading information? The public surely is blinded by the informational cascade on many vital issues. In such a situation even critical thinking will be of no avail (although I recommend that more people start exercising it) when the facts are simply not accessible to most people. Who can we believe? How do we avoid being victims of the cascade effect?
As for freedom from fear of alcohol beverages, I wish...... But read this amusing parody to learn that alcohol is good for you and will even enhance your cognitive processes.
http://chocolatecity2.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E3A5A45BAC8F91AD!290.trak
*Full article is from The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 100, No. 5 (Oct. 1992} but only the abstract is available to the general public on the website. The author of the article is Sushil Bikhchandani et al.
Labels: Cascade Theory, heart disease, high fat diet, scientific proof
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