You on it? Ima gonna pass. Why Are So Many People Popping Vitamin D by Gina Kolata.
Related, below is an excerpt from an important new book by Richard Harris whose science reporting you may have heard on National Public Radio, Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions.
The Breakdown in Biomedical Research.
Makes one wonder, why do we tend to put scientists and docs on pedestals?
“The new status symbol,” according to a doctor at UC Berkeley, “is the single most effective thing you can do to reset your brain and body.” Can you guess? Need another clue?
“For years, studies upon studies have shown how bad sleep weakens the immune system, impairs learning and memory, contributes to depression and other mood and mental disorders, as well as obesity, diabetes, cancer and an early death.”
The rest of the story is here.
Layperson summary:
“New research carried out online has found that 59% of 28,113 respondents preferred to eat chocolate rabbits starting with the ears, 33% indicated that they had no starting point preference, and 4% indicated that they started with the tail or feet.”
I’m concerned that 41% of you don’t know the proper way to eat a chocolate rabbit. Anything besides the ears is just wrong.
“Researchers conducting the online search also found increased reports of confectionary rabbit auricular amputation-that is, ear amputations of chocolate bunnies-in late March through mid-April for each of the 5 years studied.”
Fav scientific phrase of all time. . . confectionary rabbit auricular amputation.
“. . . human adults and children appeared to be wholly responsible for the amputations. Although several reconstructive efforts might be used to re-attach the ears, this may be a futile effort, since often the rest of the rabbit soon succumbs to a similar fate.”
Compliments of John Gruber of Daring Fireball—“So-Called”.
If you believe that, you haven’t met Angelo Carusone, market force activist.
Carusone explaining his difference making to Eric Lach:
“When you create critical mass, even if other ads are still running, they just won’t pay the same rates. Bill O’Reilly is the Fox News standard-bearer, he’s still their highest rated program, their most valuable asset from an advertising-and-revenue perspective. An advertiser that’s going to stay is not going to pay the same, they’re just not going to do it. At worst, even if Bill O’Reilly stays on the air until he’s ready to leave, his advertising rates will diminish. And the more advertisers that leave, the more that will be affected. It’s market forces.”
When O’Reilly was harassing women at FOX he wasn’t thinking about smart, socially conscious people leveraging social media to shape public opinion. But maybe he should’ve been.
The title of a recent New Yorker essay by Jerome Groopman.
The problem with most diet books, and with popular-science books about diet, is that their impact relies on giving us simple answers, shorn of attendant complexities: it’s all about fat, or carbs, or how many meals you eat (the Warrior diet), or combinations of food groups, or intervalic fasting (the 5:2 diet), or nutritional genomics (sticking to the foods your distant ancestors may have eaten, assuming you even know where your folks were during the Paleolithic era). They hold out the hope that, if you just fix one thing, your whole life will be better.
In laboratories, it’s a different story, and it sometimes seems that the more sophisticated nutritional science becomes the less any single factor predominates, and the less sure we are of anything. Today’s findings regularly overturn yesterday’s promising hypotheses.
On top of that:
. . . research seems to undermine the whole idea of dieting: extreme regimens pose dangers, such as the risk of damaged kidneys from a buildup of excess uric acid during high-protein diets; and population studies have shown that being a tad overweight may actually be fine. Even studying these issues in the first place can be problematic. Although the study of the Mediterranean diet, for example, reflects randomized controlled experiments, most nutritional studies are observational; they rely on so-called food diaries, in which subjects record what they remember about their daily intake. Such diaries are notoriously inexact. No one likes admitting to having indulged in foods that they know—or think they know—are bad for them.
What to do?
Amid the constant back-and-forth of various hypotheses, orthodoxies, and fads, it’s more important to pay attention to the gradual advances, such as our understanding of calories and vitamins or the consensus among studies showing that trans fats exacerbate cardiovascular disease. What this means for most of us is that common sense should prevail. Eat and exercise in moderation; maintain a diet consisting of balanced amounts of protein, fat, and carbohydrates; make sure you get plenty of fruit and vegetables. And enjoy an occasional slice of chocolate cake.
The problem with that, common sense is not common.
For our International Honors program, an alternative general education program. January 2018
Economic Anxiety, Consumer Culture, and the Limits of Materialism
In this course we’ll draw on insights from economists, psychologists, humanists, and political scientists to better understand why economic anxiety is intensifying, how consumer culture reinforces materialistic values, and the negative consequences of both. We’ll also explore case studies of communities and countries that are intentionally pursuing pro-social values as we reassess and refine our preconceived notions about money’s importance. Ultimately, we’ll ask, what is the contrasting impact of materialistic and pro-social values on our fellow citizens, the earth, and ourselves.
Pressing Pause 