Warning: This post is smack dab in the middle of Snarksville, so if you don't want to be caught in that bad neighborhood, better to take the next train out while there is still some daylight.
Well, the Ancestral Health Symposium was really fun, but the weeks beyond, the aftermath of the Taubes/Guyenet smackdown, has been painful, or pitiful, depending on how you look at it.
Lots of the hoopla happened over on Guyenet's blog, which has since been scrubbed considerably and on several levels. Some of the discussion has been moved over to Hyperlipid. ("Use your quiet indoor voice, or I'll have to send you all outside!") I had a few of Guyenet's minions really go after me on another board, and I don't even really post that much. So yea, I would have to agree with some others that people need to do more reading, or at least get a life.
Guyenet seems like a nice guy in person, but after his post against Taubes, I'll have to say he has a bit of a passive-aggressive streak going there. Good thing he edited, I guess. Here are the clif notes of the controversy.
Guyenet on his blog:
1. Hi, I'm Dr. Guyenet, and I have a PhD
2. I am interested in obesity, and I have thought about this alot.
3. I have REALLY thought about this for a long time, and it makes lots of sense, so I am sure I am right.
4. Fat people are fat because they eat too much
5. Fat people eat too much because they like tasty food
6. Like I said, I know I am right, because even though I haven't actually ever really talked to or listened to fat people, or ever been fat myself, I have a PhD, and I have looked at lots of rat studies and listened to alot of rats.
7. Rats like chocolate, and so do fat people.
8. If fat people quit eating packaged food and chocolate and quit putting seasonings on it, they would be thin like me and my thin paleo peeps.
Inthewoo2 and others on Guyenet's blog:
9. Guyenet, you ignorant slut!
Guyenet's peeps on Guyenet's blog:
10. Inthewoo2 and others, you are just 2-bit tarts and bargain basement sluts!
11. We have PhD's from fine universities and you don't
12. Since we have PhD's like Guyenet, we have also thought about this alot and we know he is right.
13. He da man! you are wrong.
14. You are just a fat person with no PhD.
15. If you say he's wrong, that just proves how much you misunderstand these lofty PhD-type concepts.
16. Now run along before somebody drops a house on you
Taubes at the AHS11 meeting to Guyenet:
17. Guyenet, you ignorant slut!
18. Fat people aren't fat because they eat too much!!!
19. You're not a scientist, you're just a farmer.
20. You're a cherry picker
Guyenet's paleotards all over the internet:
21. It's gettin' real in the Whole Health Source parking lot.
22. Taubes, you ignorant slut!
23. Our homie Guyenet has a PhD so he must be right, despite your so-called evidence.
24. We are sick of hearing N=1's from fat people, after all, they lie and cheat on their food logs.
25. From now on, the sum of all the N=1's from fat people equals 0.
26. We hate puffy, old, red-faced, low-carbing, metabolically-deranged fat people who drag our cult down and raise our insurance rates and eat too many omega 6's and then lie about it!
27. Itsthewoo2, you are still an ignorant slut but we are scrolling past all your uninformed posts anyway. Thought we would announce it right here, to you and everyone else anyway.
Itsthewoo2 on Guyenet's blog:
28. It's like insulin resistance around here.
29. If your cells won't listen, then I'll just yell even louder!
30. GUYENET YOU IGNORANT SLUT!!!!!!!!
Guyenet on his blog a few days after AHS11:
31. I've had time to think and reflect
32. Taubes, you are still an ignorant slut.
33. I was being nice before cause I thought you were one of my peeps
Sooooooo......here's MY blog and here's what I have to say about it.
First, I AM a two-bit researcher from a podunk university (OK, a bunch of them, and some of them not so podunk), so lets just get that out of the way early. I don't give a rodent's-behind how many letters people have behind their names. Since I am into data, I really like the N=1's. I like my own N=1. I might not know all the causes of my N=1, and might not be able to tease out all the factors, but that does not make my N=1 any less so.
DATA DATA DATA! I cannot make bricks without clay!
My N=1 beats out anybody's clinical study. My N=1 beats out anybody's ratscapades. N is for Narcissist. Period.
Here's the original video.
(next: part 3, my N=1)
So my takeaway from this is that Guyenet pulled a Don Matesz and significantly edited and/or deleted one of his posts without acknowledging that fact? Because that would make me instantly lose all respect and trust for him.
ReplyDeleteAll I know is that itsthewoo2 complained about being kicked off and her posts removed. When I went back to take a look, I found lots of things removed. I also couldn't find the part where he mentioned prior dealings with Taubes. Maybe I just missed it. Personally, I think the edit gene is a good one. My beef is mainly with his homies. Guyenet has been careful to clarify certain points in later posts, and that is also a good thing.
ReplyDeleteThe paleo homies need to understand how this kind of fat trash talk affects newcomers and people who can receive the most benefit from switching to a paleo-style diet.
ReplyDeleteMy main concern (and I can rant endlessly in the comment section of my own blog he he) is that I can't send my fat friends over to the paleo sites because of the current hostility towards fat people on low carb diets. I'm pretty mentally tough, so when someone like Dr. Harris just brushes detractors away, I can just blow it off. But, for new people who are still being scolded by others, it doesn't look good. Dr. Oz and his team have an entirely different message, but he's so nice!
ReplyDeleteA paleo newbie who has recently escaped from conventional diet thought might think they have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. It takes alot of energy to hop the fence and run from prison, but you don't want to run into more men with guns right away, at least.
ReplyDeleteAt least Mark Sisson is always friendly and positive. But I can see how you'd want to get the most hardcore helpful science into the hands of others without the occasionally accompanying attitude. For me, all that matters is accuracy and honesty. In my experience, people don't even listen, let alone change, until they've already decided to -- "when the student is ready, the master will appear" kinda deal. Anyway, if Guyenet edited or deleted comments by others instead of his own posts, that's a lesser "crime", but unless the commenter in question has absolutely nothing to contribute to the discussion, it's still a non-starter in my book. And Woo definitely had less vitriol and more rationality than the supposedly sane one.
ReplyDeleteHa Ha! I wasn't bothered by the Woo at all because to me, the posts just read like intense frustration due to not being heard. I think many of Guyenet's homies do really think that Woo had nothing at all to add to the conversation. And that part is sad.
ReplyDeleteI told Dr. Mary Dan Eades that I just loved their easy book, right on the cover it says, "The book that just tells you what to eat" or something like that. I know many who aren't interested in science. They say, "No time, just tell me what to eat." That's why I started the Quilt Cliff notes.
ReplyDeleteHa ha, quite accurate resumé of the situation. I have Guyenet's blog in my rss feeder and I get all the comments and blog posts, so that even if he removes them afterwards they can still be consulted. What strikes me odd is the viciousness with which the carb-rehabilators try to defend their point. The funny part is that most low-carbers do not really object to the point they make. If you look at the Don Matesz' last meals he showed on his blog, there's nothing that would tick off an Eades, an Atkins or a Lutz. Conversly, if you look at Richard Nikoley's food-porn, there's nothing that would really put off one of the Taubes detractors. It's almost as if they forgot what the real enemy is, the SAD which is so out of whack that even deficient vegan fare represents a amelioration.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with ItstheWoo is not the content of her posts that is a problem, but the sheer size. Every comment she makes is a 4 part comment wall of text, that demand lots of effort to read. It's often interesting but even I, with my legendary patience, have to skip them regularly.
Super funny and pretty accurate take! I shot that video btw
ReplyDeleteHi Gallier2 and grass fed mamma. Thanks for visiting! I find it sad that it just takes a few controversies and all this hatred of fat people comes out of the woodwork. And I also object being pigeon-holed. Just because I reject Guyenet's theories does not mean I fully embrace what Taubes has to say about it. People don't seem to understand that at AHS11, Taubes attacked Guyenet's stance. It does not follow at all that if you reject one theory, you automatically have to accept any of the Taubsian alternatives. I doubt if many read the last chapters of GCBC, where he laid out several theories.
ReplyDeleteI'll admit that in the later posts, I did scroll through some of itsthewoo's stuff, just like I initially skipped through some of Taubes' chapters the first time around. I did read through all what she had to say on the initial food reward posts on Guyenet's blog. I do think she should put it in her own blog, and then I could read it in a more effective order than what I am finding in various comment threads.
ReplyDelete