[joshuapants]

> I read a bunch of articles from John Douillard

> John Douillard DC is an Ayurvedic Practitioner

Maybe I'm weird, but I like my authoritative positions on human evolution to come from evolutionary biologists, not woo-peddlers.

At any rate, humans can eat a very diverse range of foods. Inuits eat a primarily animal-derived diet, supplemented with a meager amount of gathered plants during a small portion of the year. Then the spectrum moves all the way over to peoples that eat mostly plant-matter with few animal products. Humans adapt wonderfully, that's why we're so prolific. There is no magic diet that happens to be "right."

[dang]

> woo-peddlers

Please don't. "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[spacehome]

Thanks Dang. I generally agree with the guidelines, but in this particular case, I don't think joshuapants should be required to give a full refutation of Ayurveda in order to state his opposition to taking health advice from such a practitioner.

I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but the term "woo" is a pretty widely used term in certain circles to describe fields and ideas that, shall we say, may not be self-critical and self-questioning enough in the ways you need to be in order to get to the truth. (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo)

Thus, I'm not sure if I would even classify it as "calling names". Ayurvedic practitioners might find it derogatory; I'm not sure. But it's a clear communication to a certain population of the what category joshuapants believes Ayurveda belongs to, and also a hint of what qualities of these peoples' thought processes might make joshuapants nervous when it's applied to other areas.

[dang]

It's always possible to make one's point without using an intellectual slur like "woo-peddlers", which of course is calling names. None of us is immune to this bad habit, but we should all try to be. It doesn't matter how right one is; the mentality that thinks 'I'm right, therefore it's ok if I call names' is the problem in the first place.

[gburt]

In a space as high-dimensional and full of incorrect intuitions as nutrition science, credentialism is perhaps a worthy signal.

[dang]

I don't disagree, but calling names is noise, not signal. "Woo" is certainly one of those names. We just don't notice it because most of us happen to agree. But the mechanism is just as harmful here as it is anywhere else. It closes thought rather than opening it.

[joshuapants]

If I were referring to a scammer, a con-artist, or a black-hat hacker would I be calling names or merely describing their professions?

[dang]

I don't know.

[log_n]

Blind belief in credentials is just as wrong in nutrition science as it is in tech. Check out this amazing paper re-inventing calculus: http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/17/2/152.abstract

The author has a doctorate from NYU and the article was published in a peer reviewed journal.

That's just a funny example, but there are tons of poorly researched peer reviewed papers which makes it exceedingly difficult for me to accept credentialis as being a useful signal. I find it's much better to have ideas stand on their own merit, rather than on the shoulders of those who are espousing them.

[coldtea]

Actually we don't adapt so wonderfully. And historical times is not enough time to properly adapt evolutionary-wise.

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/81/2/341.full

[abledon]

> Humans adapt wonderfully, that's why we're so prolific. There is no magic diet that happens to be "right."

I totally agree! And a funny fact is that at the core of Ayurveda, the belief totally lines up too in that each individual is completely unique and must cater to their individual constitution or 'prakriti'. I agree that its a hard field to investigate rationally because so many of their concepts were recorded in sanskrit, a language built to express multiple meanings (some words have +20 meanings!).

A fun 'for instance' fact of sanskrit sometimes being 'unscientific' at first glance: a key component of health according to their science was the concept of 'agni' or digestive fire. So there were tons of passages referring to a great fire element inside our gut that cooks and refines matter. Of course we 'know' that no fire actually exists in our bellies, but it was a metaphor for what nowadays we understand as acids in our stomach, and our gut microbiome (composed of throngs of little organisms, eating, digesting, transforming, pooping so other microbes can eat that poop (yum!)). Little guys that can alter our mood, digestive capacity of vitamin absorption and a bunch of other important things that have been scientifically proven in the west.