Month: March 2013

Seoul Restaurant Story

Seth Roberts5 Comments

I was in Seoul for a few days. I wanted to go to a really good Korean restaurant. I did a lot of research. Finally I returned to where I started — an article about “the ten best restaurants in Seoul” — and carefully picked one of them: Yong Su San.

I phoned the restaurant, got directions. It was almost dinnertime. To my surprise, it was only a mile away so I decided to walk. I didn’t have a map but I could aim for the nearest subway station. I walked toward that subway station for a while, then asked someone for directions. She said another branch of that restaurant was closer to where I was. It was as if after extensive research I had decided that the best meal in New York was at McDonald’s.

The restaurant was extremely good. For only $60 I had a fascinating and delicious meal. At the end they give you a choice of “main food”. I chose bibimbap. Bibimbap is all cheap ingredients (rice, vegetables, sometimes egg, hot sauce, sometimes a small amount of meat or fish) and strikes me as the best possible way of combining those ingredients. This is an eternal question — given a small amount of money, what’s the best you can do? It’s surprising that the best answer comes from a small country (Korea).

“Most [Scientists] are Trapped”

Seth Roberts20 Comments

We need personal science, I say, because professional scientists lack freedom and have goals (e.g., status) other than progress. Art Robinson agrees:

“Most [professional scientists] are trapped,” [he said.] Trapped by government money. Filling out grant requests, politicking to be well-liked, serving on grant review boards, going to the meetings to be seen by others, will take half your time. The project itself had better be popular. “You’re only going to get the money for something that everyone has heard of and thinks is the coming thing,” he said. As for politically sensitive areas such as global warming, “your research had better come up with the results they want.” At private research institutions, where half the money may come from private endowments, the research is nonetheless still held hostage. “Professors in these [institutions] who are candid with you will say, Well, we can’t really do what we want here because half of our money comes from the government so we can’t afford to put it at risk.”

He also agrees with me about the importance of hormesis.

In the 1970s, when he worked at the Linus Pauling Institute, Robinson did a mouse experiment that found at certain doses Vitamin C increased cancer. This was contrary to what Pauling had claimed, and he reacted badly. As Robinson tells it,

Pauling responded to the unwelcome news by entering Robinson’s office one day and announcing that he had in his breast pocket some damaging personal information. He would overlook it, however, if Robinson were to resign all his positions and turn over his research. When Robinson refused, Pauling locked him out and kept the filing cabinets and computer tapes containing nine years’ worth of research. They were never recovered. Pauling also told lab assistants to kill the 400 mice used for the experiments. Pauling’s later sworn testimony showed that the story about the damaging information was invented, while experiments by the Mayo Clinic conclusively proved that the theory about cancer and Vitamin C was wrong. . . . When he found himself locked out of his own office, Robinson sued Pauling for breach of contract, slander, and fraud. . . . The case was settled out of court with Pauling paying Robinson $575,000.

Pauling wrote a book saying that large doses of Vitamin C shortened colds and another book about Vitamin C and cancer. Long ago, I took large doses of Vitamin C when I got a cold. It was hard to tell if it helped. Later I tried zinc, which definitely helped. After I improved my sleep, however, I no longer got unpleasant colds. I stopped taking zinc. For me, Pauling’s belief that megadoses of Vitamin C reduce colds was a dead end. (And dangerous. It isn’t reassuring that Pauling’s wife, who took megadoses of Vitamin C for many years, died of stomach cancer.) Improving sleep isn’t hard, and I suspect a much better way to improve immune function than megadoses of Vitamin C.

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts5 Comments

Thanks to Rashad Mamood.

Two Cents about Renata Adler

Seth Roberts4 Comments

Renata Adler’s two novels, Speedboat (1976) and Pitch Dark (1988), have just been reissued by New York Review Books. I was pleased to see a recent New York article about her. Here is my two cents:

1. Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker (2000) is one of my favorite books. It can be summed up like this: Genius corrupts. I first came across it in the Berkeley Barnes & Noble. I couldn’t stop reading it. When I left the store hours later my scooter had a parking ticket.

2. Her libel lawsuit is described here.

3. She wrote a book about the Bilderberg Group called Private Capacity. It was announced then cancelled.

4. During a panel discussion televised on C-Span, she took a phone call. It appeared to be from her daughter.

5. For several years she taught journalism at Boston University. A student said she told great stories.

6. In a book review, she said that Woodward and Bernstein’s Deep Throat was made up. Apparently she was wrong about that.

7. During a dinner I had with Aaron Swartz last summer, he praised her article attacking Pauline Kael (“The Perils of Pauline”, 1980).

8. When her article about Kael came out, a friend of mine said, Now she’ll be known as the person who attacked Kael. My friend was wrong. She is better known as the person attacked by eight articles in the New York Times when Gone was published. One short non-best-selling book, eight negative articles from the most powerful pulpit on earth.

9. Gone and some books by Jane Jacobs were the only books I took to China. I also adore Totto-Chan but I suppose I have memorized it. I mostly read books by men, so I am puzzled that all my most favorite books are by women. A Chinese friend of mine stayed in my Beijing apartment while I was gone. Her English isn’t very good but she praised Gone, which she called Lost.

DIY Medicine

Seth Roberts2 Comments

A medium-length article in The Scientist describes patients with fatal diseases taking their treatment into their own hands. Here’s what happened with lithium and ALS:

Humberto Macedo, an ALS patient in Brazil, started a Google Docs spreadsheet to track self-reported ALSFRS-R scores. And Karen Felzer, a research scientist on the US Geological Survey’s Earthquake Hazards team whose father had ALS, built a website to host the project. At 3 and 6 months, Felzer, who has a background in statistics (normally devoted to analyzing earthquake aftershocks), examined the data. Both times, she found no evidence that lithium slowed progression. By November 2008, when Felzer posted her second report on the project’s website, most patients had stopped taking the drug.

Drug companies don’t like the new movement:

Drug companies are understandably wary of any movement that could jeopardize their chances of success, including patient-initiated trials. Drug developers go to great lengths to control the variables in clinical trials, to optimize the dosing and the treatment window in order to reduce side effects while maximizing therapeutic gain, and to monitor patients’ health. If patients outside the clinical research system start taking experimental drugs on their own, the likelihood of something going wrong is greatly magnified. And if something does go wrong—something that may not have been caused by the drug at all—entire drug development programs could be shut down prematurely.

The author of the article, Jef Akst, was impressed enough to start a blog about the subject.

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts1 Comment

Thanks to Paul Nash and Adam Clemens.

Omega-6 is Bad For You

Seth Roberts14 Comments

For a long time, nutrition experts have told us to replace saturated fats (solid at room temperature) with polyunsaturated fats (liquid at room temperature). One polyunsaturated fat is omega-6. Omega-6 is found in large amounts in corn oil, soybean oil, and most other vegetable oils (flaxseed oil is the big exception). According to Eat Drink and Be Healthy (2001) by Walter Willett (and “co-developed with the Harvard School of Public Health”), “replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats is a safe, proven, and delicious way to cut the rates of heart disease” (p. 71). “Plenty of proof for the benefits of unsaturated fats” says a paragraph heading (p. 71). Willett failed to distinguish between omega-3 and omega-6.

A recent study in the BMJ shows how wrong Willett (and thousands like him) were. This study began with the assumption that omega-3 and omega-6 might have different effects, so it was a good idea to try to measure the effect of omega-6 separately.

They reanalyzed data from a study done in Sydney Australia from 1966 to 1973.The study had two groups: (a) a group of men not told to change their diet and (b) a group of men told to eat more omega-6 by eating more safflower oil (and reducing saturated fat intake, keeping overall fat intake roughly constant). The hope was that the change would reduce heart disease, as everyone said.

As these studies go, it was relatively small, only about 500 subjects. The main results:

Compared with the control group, the intervention group had an increased risk of all cause mortality (17.6% v 11.8% [emphasis added]; hazard ratio 1.62 (95% confidence interval 1.00 to 2.64); P=0.051), cardiovascular mortality (17.2% v 11.0%; 1.70 (1.03 to 2.80); P=0.037), and mortality from coronary heart disease (16.3% v 10.1%; 1.74 (1.04 to 2.92); P=0.036).

A 50% increase in death rate! The safflower oil was so damaging that even this small study yielded significant differences.

The authors go on to show that this result (omega-6 is bad for you) is supported by other studies. Walter Willett and countless other experts were quite wrong on the biggest health issue of our time (how to reduce heart disease, the #1 cause of death).

The Climategate Leaker Speaks

Seth Roberts1 Comment

The person who assembled and disseminated the Climategate emails has now explained his or her actions:

The first glimpses I got behind the scenes did little to [increase] my trust in the state of climate science — on the contrary. I found myself in front of a choice that just might have a global impact.

Briefly put, when I had to balance the interests of my own safety, privacy\career of a few scientists, and the well-being of billions of people living in the coming several decades, the first two weren’t the decisive concern.

It was me or nobody, now or never. Combination of several rather improbable prerequisites just wouldn’t occur again for anyone else in the foreseeable future. The circus was about to arrive in Copenhagen. Later on it could be too late.

Most would agree that climate science has already directed where humanity puts its capability, innovation, mental and material “might”. The scale will grow ever grander in the coming decades if things go according to script. We’re dealing with $trillions and potentially drastic influence on practically everyone.

Wealth of the surrounding society tends to draw the major brushstrokes of a newborn’s future life. It makes a huge difference whether humanity uses its assets to achieve progress, or whether it strives to stop and reverse it, essentially sacrificing the less fortunate to the climate gods.

We can’t pour trillions in this massive hole-digging-and-filling-up endeavor and pretend it’s not away from something and someone else.

If the economy of a region, a country, a city, etc. deteriorates, what happens among the poorest? Does that usually improve their prospects? No, they will take the hardest hit. No amount of magical climate thinking can turn this one upside-down.

It’s easy for many of us in the western world to accept a tiny green inconvenience and then wallow in that righteous feeling, surrounded by our “clean” technology and energy that is only slightly more expensive if adequately subsidized.

Those millions and billions already struggling with malnutrition, sickness, violence, illiteracy, etc. don’t have that luxury. The price of “climate protection” with its cumulative and collateral effects is bound to destroy and debilitate in great numbers, for decades and generations.

Conversely, a “game-changer” could have a beneficial effect encompassing a similar scope.

If I had a chance to accomplish even a fraction of that, I’d have to try. I couldn’t morally afford inaction. Even if I risked everything, would never get personal compensation, and could probably never talk about it with anyone.

I took what I deemed the most defensible course of action, and would do it again (although with slight alterations — trying to publish something truthful on RealClimate was clearly too grandiose of a plan ;-) .

Even if I have it all wrong and these scientists had some good reason to mislead us (instead of making a strong case with real data) I think disseminating the truth is still the safest bet by far.

From my point of view, the best thing about the Climategate emails is that they were more evidence that mainstream thinking about something can be grossly wrong — that a “crazy” position can be right. My self-experimentation taught me this over and over (e.g., the Shangri-La Diet).

The Pizza Paradox: Home Cooking and Personal Science

Seth Roberts26 Comments

Last week I had pizza at the home of my friends Bridget and Carl. It tasted divine. The crust was puffy, chewy and the right amount. The thin-crust bottom was slightly crunchy. The tomato sauce had depth. The toppings (two kinds of mushrooms, Jerusalem artichokes, zucchini, onions, goat cheese) were tasty, creamy and a little crunchy. It was pretty and three-dimensional. It was easily the best pizza I’d ever had, the best home cooking I’d ever had, and much better than the lamb I’d had at Chez Panisse the night before, although the lamb was excellent. The pizza hadn’t been hard to make nor were the ingredients expensive. Do other people wonder why this is so good? I asked my friends.

At some level I knew why it was so good — why the sauce was so good, for example (see below). The puzzle — let me call it the Pizza Paradox — was that commercial pizza, even at fancy restaurants (such as Chez Panisse), is so much worse. In restaurants, pizza-makers make dozens of pizzas per day. Business success is on the line. That should push them to do better. Professional cooks study cooking, have vast experience. They use a pizza oven. My friends have never studied cooking, never cooked professionally. They might make pizza once/month. Nothing is on the line. My friends don’t have a pizza oven. High-end restaurant pizza should be much better, but the opposite was true.

In my experience, high-end restaurant food usually is much better than home-cooked versions. Why is high-end pizza a big exception — at least, compared to Bridget and Carl’s version?

My explanation has two parts. First, the concept of pizza is brilliant. It taps more sources of pleasure than any other food I can think of. Chewiness from crust. Fat from cheese. Umami, sweet, and sour from tomato sauce. Protein from cheese and meat. Complexity of flavor from sauce and toppings. Variety of texture from toppings and crust. Variety of flavor from toppings. Attractive appearance from toppings and bright red tomato sauce. Most foods fail to tap most of these sources. For example, a soft drink isn’t chewy, doesn’t have protein, doesn’t have fat, doesn’t have variety of texture or variety of flavor, and isn’t attractive.

My friends had one goal: to make the best possible pizza. It couldn’t take too long or cost too much but they weren’t trying to save time or cut costs. Over the years, they tweaked the recipe various ways and their pizza got better and better. Experimentation was safe. If a variation made things worse, it didn’t matter. It would still taste plenty good. (Due to the brilliance of pizza.) Variation was fun. After making pizza in a new way, they’d eat the pizza themselves (with guests) and find out if the new twist made a difference.

Professional pizza makers don’t do this. After a restaurant opens, they make pizza roughly the same way forever. The pizza at Chez Panisse, for example, looks the same now as many years ago. The owner might want to make the best possible pizza but is unlikely to experiment month after month year after year. The actual cooks just want to make satisfactory pizza. Making the best possible pizza is not part of the job. The owner might benefit from better pizza but the cooks would not. They’re cranking it out under time pressure (watch Hell’s Kitchen). They do what they’re told. Owners fear experimentation: It might be worse. It won’t be what’s expected. Don’t mess with success.

This illustrates what I’ve said many times: job and science don’t mix well. To do the best possible science or make the best possible pizza, you need freedom to experiment. People with jobs get stuck. All jobs — including professor at research university, rice grower, and pizza maker — depend on steady output of the same thing again and again. Trying to maximize short-term output interferes with long-term improvement. To do the best possible science or make the best possible pizza, you also need the right motivation: You care about nothing else. People with jobs have many goals. This is why we need personal science: To overcome the (serious) limitations of professional science.

All this should be obvious, but curiously isn’t. Long ago, philosophers such as John Stuart Mill claimed that people “maximized utility”, apparently not realizing that maximizing output (which happens when people work “hard”) slows down or prevents innovation. Later thinkers, such as Frederick Hayek and Milton Friedman, glorified markets. They too failed to grasp, or at least say anywhere, that market demands get in the way of innovation.

The recipe for my friends’s pizza had several non-obvious features:

1. Pizza dough from Trader Joe’s. At Chez Panisse and other high-end restaurants, this would be taboo. It might produce better results — you still couldn’t do it.

2. Pizza stones above and below the pizza. My friends use an ordinary oven. Maybe an ordinary oven with two pizza stones produces better results than a pizza oven.

3. Balsamic vinegar in the tomato sauce. They got the idea from a friend. American cooks, including professional ones, routinely fail to understand how much fermented foods (such as balsamic vinegar) can improve taste. My friends also use more traditional flavorings (marjoram, basil, and garlic) in the tomato sauce.

4. Plenty of goat cheese. They scatter goat cheese slices over the top of the sauce.

There you have the secret of Bridget and Carl’s Pizza.

Assorted Links

Seth RobertsLeave a comment

Thanks to Alex Chernavsky.