Beefy Arguments for Libertarianism

This report has layers of flaws and is the most egregious abuse of evidence that I have ever seen,"said Walter Willett of Harvard. "Their recommendations are really irresponsible,"said Frank Hu of Harvard. A contrarian would immediately assume, therefore, that the study in question must be marvelous. Is it?Well, it represents part of a new wave in nutrition, in which a group of scientists who have no financial ties to the food industry set themselves up, like the justices of the Supreme Court, to adjudicate as a panel  on a field of research. And, again like the justices of the Supreme Court, they are not frightened from disagreeing with each other and from voting differently from each other. That represents a useful advance in science, as scientists move away from papers that present a monolithic consensus to p apers that admit a more conflicted recognition of doubt.How did the scientists in this new study vote? Well, in essence, they agreed that the evidence just isn't very good. It's probable that both ordinary meat and processed meat might be bad for you, but they don't seem to be very bad, and the authors of the paper suggested that their badness does not justify the disruption of a person's lifestyle by their going vegetarian, let alone vegan. Also, the authors suggested, switching from meat to other foods (pizzas for example) might incur other risks.My own feeling is that this new study is less important than the media reports suggest. Everybody agrees that the eviden...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs