ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
He actually gives exact reasons for that though. "Whole-wheat bread has health benefits while chips don't" but he doesn't do that with Sucralose.
I know, and he should. He relies too much on the knowledge of his viewers, but there's too much context that people miss. And not everybody is going to have watched enough of his videos to understand his nutrition philosophy.
You're taking everything he's doing out of the context of his philosophy: Which is absolute optimization of nutrition and minimization of disease risk (not elimination, because it's not possible for most diseases).
Outside of that context, it seems wildly impractical, and grasping at straws: Which IS what it is. It's not meant to be practical, and it's meant to be on the edge of modern research, which is why he changes his mind on things so often when new studies come out.
Where there's solid evidence, he works with that. Where there's one tenuous study, he tentatively works with it -- and updates if more evidence comes in.
It IS true that splenda may be a little unhealthy. It IS true that is has no real health benefits compared to, say, drinking your coffee black (just learning to like it that way: I do).
The notion that people like sweet coffee, and that splenda is better than sugar, is lost on him because he doesn't understand why you don't just drink it black or sweeten it with some exotic berry that costs $30 an ounce.
THIS is the problem with Greger. THIS is the criticism to make. Not strawmanning him for things he's said taken far out of context like you're doing, or complaining about the way he says something because you think it's too sensational and he shouldn't be trying to get people excited... because you don't like it, and stupid people will supposedly misunderstand it?
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
And if you're right, and he "doesn't understand the benefits of sucralose" then maybe he shouldn't be talking about it at all. He's supposed to be a science researcher, not an activist researcher.
You miss the whole point of his videos/site. He talks about the newest evidence for each thing constantly. He even switches his rulings on things as new evidence comes to light.
His site is about IDEAL diet in terms of fighting disease, not adequate nutrition or practical nutrition. People who follow him know what he's about. He basically has a zero tolerance policy for junk food -- it's something I don't agree with him on.
In the very least, he needs to make that more clear regularly so people stop taking him out of context and misunderstanding what he's doing.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
Shocker shocker, the group of highly supplemented high-plant-based healthy fortified people with did tons more exercise, and even meditation, everyday, had healthier blood then the control group. Therefore all vegans? Including junkfood vegans? High-fat low-carb vegans? Lazy sedentary vegans? He takes the entire study full of confounding factors and states
" ...the blood of those on a vegan diet was dramatically less hospitable to cancer. Even the blood of those on a standard American diet fights cancer; if it didn’t everyone would be dead. It’s just that the blood of those eating vegan fights about 8 times better.
The blood of those on the standard american diet slows cancer growth rate down about 9%. Put people on a plant-based diet for a year, though, and their blood just tears it up. The blood circulating within the bodies of vegans has nearly 8 times the stopping power when it comes to cancer cell growth."
That sounds rather trustworthy, right?
Yes, it sounds fine. He cited the study so you can see for yourself, and It was a clever catch phrase that was qualified and expanded -- he made it clear that ALL diets "kill cancer", that is slow the growth rate, and that vegan diets in this study just did so more.
Greger is not exactly a journalist, but even if he were, that would be a fair headline to sell papers as long as the article explained clearly.
Greger has spoken against potato chip vegan diets in the past, and it should have been obvious to any competent viewer that he wasn't talking about that since he was referencing a lifestyle study: researchers would NOT have prescribed a nutritionally inadequate diet.
It should be obvious enough that wasn't the case.
Anybody who was curious could look at the details.
HOWEVER, if you want to complain that not all of his audience is competent, and thus will be misled? Sure! I complain about that too. He needs to be more clear about what he's saying because others will parrot him without citing the study. I'm very critical about that. That's one of my main criticisms of his work --
he assumes WAY too much of his audience.
This is not an issue of his honesty, this is an issue of underestimating human stupidity. Which you have also done in this thread with regard to smoking and statistics (as we will see).
It would be good if he talked about the kind of diet a bit more, but it's likely the sort of diet he tends to recommend (although he hates recommending supplements, aside from B-12 -- that's another one of the things I don't agree with him on), but I'm not going to call him a liar for not going into absurd amounts of detail about the couple supplements and yoga or whatever.
It wasn't a great study (a lot of variables), but I can tell you most of the things they did likely had no effect on cancer growth rate. They did not do "tons" more exercise, and it's unlikely that the supplementation or yoga/meditation did much either. The only thing they changed that has significant evidence is diet -- and that probably comes down mainly to methionine restriction, and increase in vegetable consumption.
All of these criticisms look like similar issues. Greger makes a headline claim, and then explains it more conservatively but since he doesn't read the entire paper word for word and give every detail (despite clearly linking it), and expects a little too much from his audience, people cry foul.
Should he do that? Maybe not, but it seems to catch attention so it may be effective. Should he explain things better for the more dogmatically inclined in the audience? Yes, I think so.
I'm not going to call him a liar for doing what pretty much everybody does,"clickbait", and showing his sources so people can get more details. At worst he has omitted likely irrelevant details and occasionally used a more limited study because there just wasn't anything better available (that's his whole thing, he always tries to find the latest studies, and go over them even if the evidence is still coming in and the conclusions are not yet clear -- again, why he changes his stances on things).
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
Not entirely true, on both Nutritionfacts.org and his own website, Drgreger.org, it states "All speaking fees and proceeds Dr. Greger receives from the sale of his books and DVDs are donated to charity."
That's probably technically inaccurate. Read the tax forms.
He more likely assigned the royalties to the charity, or donated his TIME to the charity, which then earned money from it.
Donating money works differently in a legal/tax sense, and would have increased his tax obligation, so it's unlikely that he did that (it's also not what he has done in the past).
That line on the website was probably written by somebody who didn't understand the technicalities of taxation or non-profit law, and instead just wrote what was going on in generally understandable layman's terms.
The point is, Greger doesn't get any of that money, and can NOT get any of it.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
Meaning he donates them, because the funds are his royalties. And where does he donate them? His own 501(c)3 charity, which pays for him to speak, write books, and make DVD's. I call that Circular Funding.
I only had one form 990, but he received no compensation from the charity in any form, or any associated companies, in 2013.
So, no. The money is not going out one pocket and in the other. You just don't understand non-profit law.
Greger does not have control of that money -- it's not his, it belongs to the non-profit which runs the site, and has five board members (Greger is only one of them) who vote on expenditure, and it can NEVER be his money.
This could have changed in 2014 or 2015, but it's unlikely.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
He's earning publicity through circulating all the funds he receives back into allowing him to to get more publicity. And this isn't a dragon to slay, as I would feel better if he kept the money himself, than having him donate the money to himself.
That's perfectly fine. And I have no idea why you would feel better about that; that's absurd.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:Claiming that Nutritionfacts is separate from Greger is like claiming that Feminist Frequency is separate from Anita Sarkeesian, it's not.
You... just don't understand non-profit law. At all.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:And yes, he might spend 40 hours a week on it, and I spend about the same amount researching and writing for my blog, as well as juggling a relationship, family, a 25-30 hour a week job, nutrition planning for myself, and fitness. I guess I should start my own 501(c)3
Yes, you probably should. There are advantages and disadvantages to doing so, though, so research it carefully before you do, and make sure you're earning enough revenue to do so.
You will lose most control over the money you get, will be limited in what you can pay yourself, and may not save anything on taxes if you're a small company, and the IRS will hit you with a very heavy hammer if you break the rules; which could mean jail time if there's evidence of intentionally doing so. You'll also lose the ability to comment strongly on politics or support a political party or candidate.
Don't do it unless you're making good bank, or need to encourage sizable donations with the tax deduction.
It's not free money. That's a common myth.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
Don't you think a lot of people, bad at weighing consequences, would take that minute benefit as a reason to just keep smoking, since they can't understand magnitude and cost benefit analysis?
No, actually. I have never met anybody that seriously believes smoking to be a healthy habit. Nor anyone who thinks Potato chips are a health food. What you have is a very bleak view of humanity.
There was a forum member not long ago who was arguing that smoking in moderation was healthy. You're just a bit sheltered.
Public perception in the U.S. has shifted, and I've only met a few U.S. citizens who believed that smoking wasn't harmful, or was healthy in moderation, and that's thanks to extensive government campaigning against it -- a campaign which didn't need to highlight the minuscule benefits of smoking.
Abroad, and particularly in Asia, Africa, and even South America and some of Europe the healthfulness of moderate smoking remains a persistent myth.
Anyway, my point wasn't regarding smoking in modern America, but regarding the attitudes about smoking when it was first discovered to be a problem. Cigarette companies and avid smokers alike would cling to any scrap of evidence about the benefits of smoking, however much it was outweighed by the cons.
The same is true of animal products now -- there is no reason to highlight supposed benefits of them, which are trivial, and can be better achieved with supplementation anyway. It's not about ignoring all of the evidence, it's about considering it rightly irrelevant and just confusionist, and not bothering your audience with it.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
Like the risks of implying that veganism will make you live forever? That's also what is implied in his new book "How Not To Die."
It's a headline/book title. Only morons take that stuff seriously. The thing Greger doesn't understand is that there ARE morons in his audience, and he needs to be more careful about it.
I like his title, "How Not to Die"
It's clever; and it's clearly not about immortality from the description.
He's talking about the ways we shouldn't kill ourselves -- it doesn't cover being hit by a bus, or any of the dumb luck of genetics or environment which may result in disease whether we like it or not -- just the dietary factors that improve odds.
The book summary from the site:
The vast majority of premature deaths can be prevented through simple changes in diet and lifestyle. In How Not to Die, Dr. Michael Greger, the internationally-recognized lecturer, physician, and founder of NutritionFacts.org, examines the fifteen top causes of death in America—heart disease, various cancers, diabetes, Parkinson’s, high blood pressure, and more—and explains how nutritional and lifestyle interventions can sometimes trump prescription pills and other pharmaceutical and surgical approaches, freeing us to live healthier lives.
The simple truth is that most doctors are good at treating acute illnesses but bad at preventing chronic disease. The 15 leading causes of death claim the lives of 1.6 million Americans annually. This doesn’t have to be the case. By following Dr. Greger’s advice, all of it backed up by peer-reviewed scientific evidence, you will learn which foods to eat and which lifestyle changes to make to live longer.
History of prostate cancer in your family? Put down that glass of milk and add flaxseed to your diet. Have high blood pressure? Hibiscus tea can work better than a leading hypertensive drug—and without the side effects. What about liver disease? Drinking coffee can reduce liver inflammation. Battling breast cancer? Consuming soy is associated with prolonged survival. Worried about heart disease (our #1 killer)? Switch to a whole-food, plant-based diet, which has been repeatedly shown not just to help prevent the disease, but arrest and even reverse it.
In addition to showing what to eat to help prevent the top 15 causes of death, How Not to Die includes Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen—a checklist of the foods we should try to consume every day. Full of practical, actionable advice and surprising, cutting edge nutritional science, these doctor’s orders are just what we need to live longer, healthier lives.
Every word true.
The vast majority -- yes, because the majority is heart disease, and that can be most easily prevented (compared to cancer, where it's not quite as strong, but still substantial given the dietary changes he's advocating -- which is not a potato chip vegan diet).
Largely a foodbourne illness -- true, it is LARGELY, though not entirely. Again, mostly thanks to heart disease.
I could go through every line. All true.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
Claiming that vegan blood, for example, kills cancer cells 8 times more often, gives people this crazy notion, like the way they did with Linus Pauling when he claimed that overconsuming supplements will cure cancer?
A great scientist, regarded as one of the greatest of all time. Yes, he made a mistake -- a big one, which is taking its toll.
But quacks will also inevitably latch onto any pseudoscience they can get their hands on. It's kind of like the argument against gun control; if you want to kill somebody, a knife will do too. That's no reason to provide people with more guns to make it easier, but it's something to consider. Giving birth accidentally to a pseudoscience is not necessarily much more harmful than not.
Greger should be more clear about some of these things. That doesn't make him a liar, or a zealot, it makes him unclear. It makes him a human being, and I would hope he deserves to be treated like one.
He has said a lot of things I disagree with. I could write pages of criticism easily -- and he definitely needs to be criticized. Mainly in terms of the impracticability of many of his ideals; he's dealing with optimizing nutrition and reducing risk as low as possible, budget be damned, taste be damned. I don't think that's as useful as what Norris or Messina do. But it's also garnered a lot more attention, so there's that.
But I still respect the man and the work he does, and I think he's a good person.
I'm not interested in attacking his character, and I take it as a sign of poor character from others when it seems that's all they're interested in doing. Not cool.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
and enact shame upon people who eat animal products, making the dying believe that their cancer, their heart disease, is their own fault, even when genetics plays a major role.
Heart disease? That's pretty much preventable regardless of genetics (just harder for some than others). Cancer is more random, but dismissing the fact that you can drastically reduce your odds of "getting it", and improve your odds of surviving it over time if you do, through diet and lifestyle is not helpful.
I'll note that I'm not that concerned with dying people thinking it's their fault: Look at that loon Jen with the breast cancer who skipped chemo and went for juice instead. She needs to know it WAS her fault for refusing treatment, and that she would be alive and have good prospects today if she hadn't been stupid. And other people need to know this too.
The important thing Greger needs to understand, or highlight more if he does understand it, is that it's only specific types of vegan diets that are particularly good at this, and that there are other important steps we can't be lax about. Complacency isn't helping anybody, and we need to be vigilant about more than just diet.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:Need I remind anyone, removing processed and red meat from your diet lowers your absolute risk of developing colon cancer by less than 1% in your lifetime
No, this is not useful. AND it's deceptive to say. I would even call you a liar for saying it. Or I would, if I went by the same standards you're holding Greger to.
You see, "1%" is technically accurate, but it paints an inaccurate picture and misleads people. People can't understand numbers like this. You're lying with statistics and making it appear less significant than it actually is -- as much or more than Greger has.
Ginny Messina wrote:
The bottom line though, is that some vegans—including those who are doing all the right things as far as we know—get cancer. It’s popular to say that a vegan diet will make you “bullet proof” against disease. And it’s possible that some vegans become complacent because of this. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that removal of polyps through colonoscopy (advised for everyone after the age of 50) could reduce colon cancer risk by as much as 50 percent. Vegans who erroneously believe that their diet guarantees that they won’t get colon cancer might not bother with this exam, thereby increasing their risk.
This IS useful.
And this is a good thing to remind Greger of. He should always talk about colonoscopy and its even larger reduction in risk -- and that even a vegan diet isn't 100% -- when talking about colon cancer.
However, he isn't a PSA, and he has no obligation to do so. While I would like him to, and really think he should, I'm not going to fault him for not doing it.
If he doesn't, we just need to try even harder to make sure to get the word out there.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:It's called "Lying With Statistics." And yes, as a researcher, he has to take into account that his audience isn't well-versed in statistical analysis, and not to take statistics that blow up his figures to amounts far beyond what is seen
Like it or not, that's exactly what you're doing when you say the reduction in risk is only 1%. People are morons, and they will discount 1% because it sounds like nothing.
It's the same reason that products that say "99% fat free!" can sell as well as 100% fat free products. They're still 1%, and can be pretty damn significant, but to most people 99% is almost the same as 100% because of the way they see numbers, and 1% is the same as nothing.
You are in effect telling people it's useless to care about diet in preventing colon cancer -- because that's what they'll take away from it when you phrase it like that. It's absolutely not useless.
18% increased relative risk per 50g portion is very meaningful, and when you phrase it like that the psychological effect in terms of risk perception lines up more closely with the actual risk, which makes that phrasing actually LESS deceptive than trying to minimize the numbers by talking about absolute risk (which will cause them to be ignored).
There are better ways of expressing these numbers accurately (and achieving a good understanding of them) than either of those methods, but they're also more cumbersome.
For example:
"One in ten people will die of this cancer, and eating 200g of processed meat a day (about four hot dogs or the equivalent) will more than double your risk of contracting it."
Note how I had to increase the amount, in order to get up to double risk -- this is easier for people to understand in relative terms rather than an arbitrary percentage. I also expressed the death rates, which is important to understand that it's not the #1 killer, so the overall risks are lower, but it's still very significant.
Anyway, can you see what I'm getting at here?
The glass is half empty. The glass is half full. The glass is at 50% capacity.
All of these can be true, and are basically saying the same thing, but perception is different. None of them is necessarily the "proper" unbiased default way to deliver this information, and all contain pros and cons in terms of perception and psychology.
If Greger is a liar for the way he expresses statistical information for it being sub optimal, then so are you (my way of expressing it is superior to both of yours in terms of layman comprehension, so you can all suck it).
Or, maybe, they're just different ways of presenting the same data that have advantages and disadvantages, and nobody is actually trying to lie?
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:which is why he should also not claim a vegan diet will make you live forever.
Hello straw man. This is a claim I have not seen him make. His book title doesn't even say this, unless you misread it as "How to not die"
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:I am sorry that you believe everyone is as intelligent and well-verse in scientific and mathimatical literature as you are, cause they're not. For instance:
No, I explicitly said they were morons, and can't understand statistics. Particularly the difference between absolute and relative risk, and they will fail to understand the actual cumulative magnitude of absolute risk.
When you express something to the public, you have to do it in the way that is:
1. Technically accurate (it has to be true).
2. More useful to them (in terms of encouraging healthier/better behavior that is good for them).
3. For people who aren't complete morons: At least easy to understand the general idea of it.
4. Doesn't look transparently wrong and attract undue criticism (#3 can help with this, but sometimes people will shit on you no matter what you do or how hard you try to make something understandable).
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
This graph makes many believe that the sale of meat has plummeted, due to the extremely steep deline slope, when in reality, the slope has only declined about 7% if the numbers started from 0, and not 180. For instance:
1. Yes
2. I'm not sure how it would be.
3. Yes
4. No, it's kind of weird. Particularly given #2, it probably isn't very useful.
They should have instead focused on the bottom line, that people were eating something like 20 pounds less meat each year. That's both likely more useful than a chart, and less likely to attract criticism.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
Is this important? Yes. Global Warming Deniars, Anti-vaxxers, Creationists, and many other distortion-loving groups love to bend the graphs and statistics to drive the not very knowledgeable fanbase in their favor. So claiming that "this will double your risk" instead of claiming that "this will increase your risk from 0.3 to 0.6%" is something that Yellow Journalism does often.
It's irrelevant who uses particular framings of statistics to get their points across or propagandize/sell papers. You're making the fallacy of guilt by association. "Hitler did it, so it's bad".
You can frame things to confuse people further and promote ignorance, OR you can frame them to correct for an intrinsic tendency toward poor understanding of statistics and risk to achieve a more accurate perception of the overall idea than the viewer would looking at a different framing.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
I usually write nasty things about news articles that claim that "Increasing your intake of processed meat increases your risk of cancer by 18%". The claim might be helpful, but it is misleading, and that is wrong.
You shouldn't. It's less misleading than the way you frame it, so you're in the wrong here.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
50 grams of processed meat consumed daily increases your risk of colon cancer by an absolute risk over the course of a lifetime, from 4.5% to 5.3%. That might not sound as flashy, but it's more accurate.
No, it is not. It's equally accurate, but more misleading because of the way people read and misunderstand numbers. Framing it in that way is your own version of lying with statistics, which will simply lead people to ignore a risk which is represented as a small looking number.
Yours are misleading for the same reason something that says "99% fat free!" or worse "90% fat free!" is misleading. It discounts something serious by framing it to look very very small.
The difference is that I'm not inclined to write nasty articles about those who say it increases lifetime risk from 4.5% to 5.3% or call them liars for doing it.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
So no, since Lying is what is one of the many factors which is causing veganism to remain stagnant instead of increase, lying to the public in the hopes of helping a few people drawn to you looking for the Philosophers Stone is not a helpful practice.
I agree with this, but you're just wrong about how statistics work, and how they're perceived by the public. There are two sides to presenting statistics, and you're assuming a default of presentation which is NOT the only honest way to do it -- and I would say is quite misleading in practice.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
Actually this kind of criticism is 100% helpful, because misrepresenting studies, not reading his own studies, and flat out lying to the public, is a source for criticism.
It is useless when you accuse him of that. Pot calling the Kettle black much?
He has no more lied than you have. Given your broad misrepresentations of him, I would say much less. I don't know what led you to these conclusions, but you're taking him out of context and are far too high on that pedestal of yours to see clearly the complex issue that is presenting statistics to the public. You need to come back down to Earth, and consider that you may have
misunderstood.
Addressing the real issues is much more useful than stimulating infighting over straw men.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
But you have a lot of... what did you call them? "Morons," who suckle his teet and drink every last drop that comes out as if Greger is a god and everyone else is wrong if Greger says so.
That's a problem, which is why we need more people making LEGITIMATE criticism of Greger that isn't transparently biased and misrepresentative of him. Otherwise, all you're doing is polarizing things more than they already are, and closing those followers off from hearing further criticism.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
That would be fine if he didn't advertise himself as a cult leader. He acts as if he is an expert on anything he is writing, and he is not even a Dietition. In fact, he often gets his facts wrong, but criticizing him for getting his facts wrong is seen as Blasphemy.
I don't think he does advertise himself like that, and he says he doesn't know about things quite often. Watch more of his videos.
Sometimes he gets things wrong, but if people aren't receptive to your criticism, consider the fact that YOU might actually be wrong, and misrepresenting him. Don't be surprised if they don't take you seriously as you slay the straw dragons.
ThatNerdyScienceGirl wrote:
If claiming those FACTS are an unjust vilification, than fine. But Greger is not MY god, I owe him nothing.
You owe yourself enough intellectual honesty to look at the other side of the story, and consider the possibility that you may be jumping to conclusions, and taking some things out of context.
You owe him only the respect we should owe to any human being. Give him the benefit of the doubt and try to understand where he's coming from. I do, I don't always agree (I often disagree), but I understand why he's saying what he's saying, and I can at least respect him for the work he's trying to do even though he makes some mistakes (and needs to be called out on them when they're legit).
It's the crazy ones doing it that bothers me.
