John Tukey and the Shangri-La Diet

About ten years ago, John Tukey, the great statistician, gave a talk at Berkeley. After his talk, I went up to him.

“The tools you’ve invented have been really helpful to me,” I said.

“If they work just some of the time, we should be pleased,” he replied.

A curious answer, I thought. But I found myself thinking the same thing when a woman named Darkhorse on the SLD forums said something similar to what I said to Tukey:

As of today, I am one pound below my original arbitrarily chosen “goal weight,” and some 40 lbs. lighter than I was one year ago. No one is more surprised than I am . . . SLD is exquisite in its very simplicity, and I saw no need to complicate it. Best of all, it works!

If SLD works just some of the time . . . Thanks, Darkhorse.

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