Jun 28, 2021
Gary Taubes is an investigative
science and health journalist and a best-selling author. In this
podcast, Gary explains how he developed a healthy skepticism for
science as he was transitioning from being a
physics major to beginning
as a science journalist. He
talks about how he was particularly drawn to sussing out
“pathologic science,” telling the stories behind his books on the
discovery of the W and Z bosons and cold fusion,
emphasizing the need for researchers
to perform a thorough background analysis. Gary then describes how
his work came to focus on public health, nutrition, and obesity. He
provides a great historic overview of obesity research and provides
his explanation for why the conventional wisdom today is
incorrect.
We
discuss:
- Gary’s background in science and
journalism, and developing a healthy skepticism for science
[2:20];
- Gary’s boxing experience, and the
challenge of appreciating behavioral risk
[8:40];
- How Gary developed his writing
skills, and what the best science writers do well
[16:45];
- Example of how science can go
wrong, and the story behind Gary’s first book, Nobel Dreams
[25:15];
- Theoretical vs. experimental
physicists: The important differentiation
and the relationship between the two
[36:00];
- Pathological science: research
tainted by unconscious bias or subjective effects
[40:30];
- Reflecting on the aftermath of
writing Nobel Dreams and the legacy of Carlo Rubbia
[49:45];
- Scientific fraud: The
story of the cold fusion experiments at Georgia Tech and
the subject of Gary’s book, Bad Science [53:45];
- Problems with epidemiology,
history of the scientific method, and the conflict of public health
science [1:09:00];
- Gary’s first foray into the bad
science of nutrition [1:26:45];
- Research implicating insulin’s
role in obesity, and the story behind what led to Gary’s book, Good
Calories, Bad Calories [1:36:15]
- The history of obesity research,
dietary fat, and fat metabolism [1:46:00]
- The evolving understanding of the
role of fat metabolism in obesity and weight gain
[1:55:15]
- Mutant mice experiments giving
way to competing theories about obesity
[2:04:00]
- How Gary thinks about the
findings that do not support his alternative hypothesis about
obesity [2:08:00]
- Challenges with addressing the
obesity and diabetes epidemics, palatability and convenience of
food, and other hypotheses [2:14:45];
- Challenging the energy balance
hypothesis, and the difficulty of doing good nutrition studies
[2:25:00]; and
- More.
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