The reason people are skeptical to believe the gospel I preach is that they have always believed and trusted in the medical system and their doctors. Unfortunately, these very people are the ones lying to us every day (doctors, researchers, science, the government, etc.). In many cases it's not intentional, but the lie has been propagated so much until it has become an undeniable truth in society that no one questions it, not even most doctors. Sadly, it reminds me of the fiction novel 1984 by George Orwell. In this book, the entity of "Big Brother" (i.e., the government) continuously rewrites history to conform to the current ideology, and does away with the true historical records so as to brainwash people so they forget their real memories of what truly happened.
What some researchers on this topic have done within the last 100 or so years is this very thing. They have tried to prove an untruth, and the only way they have "proved" it is by omitting data that contradicted their hypothesis simply because the data didn't "fit" their model. This goes against the very scientific method they are supposedly using. A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a particular circumstance. It is not true until it is proven. In fact, when using the scientific method, you specifically look to disprove your hypothesis. If you cannot disprove it by any way, then you know it is true. Let's go through an example. There's a lot that goes into research, but for the sake of saving time, we'll make it simple. So let's say there was a hypothesis that stated "goats always get rashes when they eat poison ivy." You, as a researcher, would then take goats and feed them poison ivy (of course, in accordance with the scientific method). Let's then say that, of the goats that ate poison ivy, half of them got rashes, but the other half did not get rashes. According to the scientific method, you have disproved the hypothesis because your study did not show that all the goats got rashes. In fact, half of them did not get rashes. You would have to then formulate a new hypothesis about what was going on with goats and poison ivy, if there was such a hypothesis to make (because perhaps there was another factor you were not seeing that was causing the goats to get rashes, not necessarily the poison ivy itself). Again, with your new hypothesis in hand, you would try to disprove it and continue the scientific method until you found a hypothesis that you could not disprove.
Another important part of the scientific method is to remove one's personal emotions and partiality from the hypothesis and to look at both sides without becoming biased toward one side or the other. Unfortunately, researchers of the topic in question have also been so smug to believe their hypothesis is correct, so much that they look for ways to prove it. If they find data in their studies that doesn't match, they think it must be some rare anomaly, and they throw it out. (That's like saying "all goats absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, get rashes from poison ivy, and the ones that don't are some rare anomaly). The sad part is that all their data seemed to have these "rare anomalies" they had to throw out. To this day, they have never been able to prove their hypothesis. Why did it reach the stature of "truth" you ask? The reason that it was propagated as a truth was that the media got wind of the hypothesis and they disseminated false information without further research and proof. This misinformation spread like wildfire until even the whole world today believes this way. We used to be able to rely on the generation that still knew the truth, but as the older generation has passed away, they've taken with them the memories of what truly happened, and society has forgotten some basic principles we always knew to be true.
Another important part of the scientific method is to remove one's personal emotions and partiality from the hypothesis and to look at both sides without becoming biased toward one side or the other. Unfortunately, researchers of the topic in question have also been so smug to believe their hypothesis is correct, so much that they look for ways to prove it. If they find data in their studies that doesn't match, they think it must be some rare anomaly, and they throw it out. (That's like saying "all goats absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, get rashes from poison ivy, and the ones that don't are some rare anomaly). The sad part is that all their data seemed to have these "rare anomalies" they had to throw out. To this day, they have never been able to prove their hypothesis. Why did it reach the stature of "truth" you ask? The reason that it was propagated as a truth was that the media got wind of the hypothesis and they disseminated false information without further research and proof. This misinformation spread like wildfire until even the whole world today believes this way. We used to be able to rely on the generation that still knew the truth, but as the older generation has passed away, they've taken with them the memories of what truly happened, and society has forgotten some basic principles we always knew to be true.
The Truth is Out There
In this blog, I do not intend to argue to prove my point. The point has already been proven by many others. My intention is, and has always been, to give the good news and to tell others about how it's helped me. If you want to know what I'll be discussing in my blog, I urge you to start by watching the documentary by Tom Naughton, "Fat Head" (free on Hulu, also on Netflix Instant Play). It's an eye opener, and it is the very movie that turned my life around. Once you've seen the movie, the first book I recommend reading is "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. In this book Gary starts by providing countless reports of studies that "researchers" threw out, but he goes on to explain many important aspects of nutrition including topics about cholesterol, fat, triglycerides, carbohydrates, sugar, insulin, and topics about such things as aging, dementia, and cancer and how nutrition affects these things. It's a big book, but don't be intimidated. If all you get from reading this book is understanding how your body works with regards to nutrition, it was worth it.
For more suggested reading material, visit the "Fat Head" blog. The reason I suggest material by Tom and Gary is that, first of all, their material is what led me to truth, second of all, the material is in a format that is relatively simple to understand. These men are not doctors nor are they medical professionals, but they are humble seekers of truth, and their research has led them to unashamedly expose what has happened. I say they are humble because they have not kept this information to themselves, but they have shared it with the world, understanding they too would be shunned and made a laughingstock. Nevertheless, in order to understand their own questions about nutrition, they consulted and interviewed doctors and other medical professionals. In some cases, these medical professionals had published material related to the topic in question and were shunned from the medical/pharmaceutical community. Unfortunately, there is no room to mention all of these medical professionals in this small blog post of mine, but if you too are a seeker of truth, you will find it. I personally don't claim to know it all; I am, however, willing to learn.
For more suggested reading material, visit the "Fat Head" blog. The reason I suggest material by Tom and Gary is that, first of all, their material is what led me to truth, second of all, the material is in a format that is relatively simple to understand. These men are not doctors nor are they medical professionals, but they are humble seekers of truth, and their research has led them to unashamedly expose what has happened. I say they are humble because they have not kept this information to themselves, but they have shared it with the world, understanding they too would be shunned and made a laughingstock. Nevertheless, in order to understand their own questions about nutrition, they consulted and interviewed doctors and other medical professionals. In some cases, these medical professionals had published material related to the topic in question and were shunned from the medical/pharmaceutical community. Unfortunately, there is no room to mention all of these medical professionals in this small blog post of mine, but if you too are a seeker of truth, you will find it. I personally don't claim to know it all; I am, however, willing to learn.
I have also learned that you can take a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. One must be mentally ready to do anything. I am a case in point. I have always eaten whatever, whenever, and it wasn't until I gained weight and didn't know how to lose it, that I began to search for answers. I knew all those crash diets and diet pills weren't doing anything for people, and in some cases, exercise was overrated, too. The truth was out there... I just had to find it.
Update: 3 July 2012
Gary Taubes has written a condensed version of the 600-page book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" (GCBC) called "Why We Get Fat" (WWGF), and I highly recommend this book as an alternative to GCBC as it relays the same important message that GCBC does in a more reader-friendly way, whereas GCBC is more geared to the medical professional, researcher, or the seeker of "evidence" to prove the point in question.
I've read The Great Cholesterol Con by Dr. Kendrick. He goes in-depth about exactly what you're talking about; the studies done on heart disease as it relates to cholesterol. It is true that researchers have deliberately cherry-picked data which supported their theory and deliberately ignored data to the contrary. Why? Profit. As Tom says in Fathead "Follow the money."
ReplyDeleteGreat article!