- Non-traditional science. Interview with Michael Nielsen, a physicist.
- Nassim Taleb argues with a drug company employee about big pharma (on Facebook)
- Too many medical tests. Quite right!
- Paleo versus Vegan. I think this illustrates that data matters.
Thanks to Dave Lull and Alex Chernavsky.
The point about medical tests is valid.
However, in terms of cost control, you’re going to wrack up 75% of the costs in the last six months of life. A few tests or MRI are wasteful — but they aren’t what is driving the medical costs.
Most doctors aren’t healers. They are guardians of death. One big exception is psychiatrists, and like dentists, they should be excluded from most medical plans.
Not a reply on your posting, but did you see Panel Urges Cholesterol Testing for Kids in WSJ 11/12/11? Yikes.
The popularity of a diet has nothing to do with its efficacy, and if one were to look at correlations, it’s almost certainly an inverse relationship. Who would know this better than you!
And anyway, most of the vegans I know consider it an ethical diet, with any health benefits/risks of secondary importance.
I’m a vegetarian myself. I find the paleo diet very interesting and believe may be the most healthy for humans. But I also believe that animal suffering matters, so I do my best to approximate it without the meat.
(Off topic…kinda)
Have you looked into Reams Biological Theory of Ionization? Specifically with a homebase offshooting from Challen Waychoff and Matt Stone?
It seems it would be an interesting study as there are specific measurements to test against.(?) I am skeptical (perhaps because of my own bias) because of naturopathy influences.
I have heard just a little about the Reams theory. Don’t know what to make of it. If there are data about its effectiveness, that would be interesting.
@wr: I used to be a vegetarian, until I started looking into the egg and dairy industries. If your concern is with animal suffering, you’d be better off giving up eggs and dairy and continuing to eat flesh. There is more suffering in an egg or a glass of milk than there is in a steak. Better just to go vegan.
Seth,
As for Reams,
I think it’s mostly anecdotal as far as the human data go, but if you read up on it or read Matt Stone’s posts on it while he was interning there, you’ll see that it’s probably some of the most profound anecdotal data. I don’t think it’s the ultimate solution, but having just a few of these measurable quantities like saliva and urine PH and salts and sugars and making thousands of these comparisons and tests over time has produced some fantastic results.
RBTI for humans is based off of RBTI for agriculture and I think the data is more established there. At least the anecdotal evidence is also just as amazing as people report the tastiest foods of their lives incorporating this methodology.