Oy, I forgot how hostile people are if the word science is mentioned around here. Everything tarred with the same brush.
I will try this one last time and then give up.
Anecdote can more-easily be mistaken than a well designed study can. Lighter things *don't* fall more slowly (if same shape) than heavy things; observing that birth rates in Sweden correlate with stork populations does *not* mean that storks actually bring babies; just because I wore my pink socks in the game we won last night does not mean they are lucky and MADE us win; it sure looks and seems like porcupines ballistically shoot their quills, except in reality they don't. Etc.
Certainly anecdote is "evidence" in the most general sense (as opposed to pure imagination, with no ground-truthing). But it is not nearly as GOOD OR USEFUL evidence as a well designed study, if a well designed study is actually available on the particular issue in question.
(That is the whole point of DOING a well designed study -- "well designed" and "study" mean that you actively do everything you can to collect additional information that will help you rule out (or in!) alternative explanations for the observed result. So that when you get your observed result, you can have as good a shot as possible at knowing whether it occurred because of the reason you THINK it did, versus because of some other reason and it just happened to coincidentally come out the way your theory had predicted even though your theory was wrong.
Anecdote can't do that hardly at all. A well designed study can do it fairly well, sometimes really really well. (THere are limits on how well designed a study can be, because some factors are easier to control or standardize or measure than others, and so forth)
So IF a well designed study is available, it is generally more informative and trustworthy than anecdote or poorly-designed studies.
Thing is, for most things in life, there will never BE a well designed study done, chiefly because there are WAY the heck too many questions in the world (especially when you consider how answer to questions can depend on what circumstances), and also to a lesser extent because there are certain things it is just not possible to DO (closely control randomized peoples' activities and diets; replicate the entire universe; re-run history; etcetera)
So what. That's fine. Contrary to what you seem to be reading into things, I =am totally not= claiming that we need scientific studies before we can believe things or make choices. In fact I think I said pretty much exactly that!
I would be happy to modify what I said (back in post #8) from "I think that quite frankly the research has not yet been done that would sufficiently clarify the issue for it to be more than a matter of more-or-less religious faith (rather than evidence)" to "(rather than
strong clearly-interpretable evidence)". Fair enough, I was sloppy in my original phrasing.
But I 100% still say that when it comes (specifically) to these three questions:
-- what role dietary saturated fat plays in maybe encouraging heart disease,
-- whether blood cholesterol levels (of whatever subtype of cholesterol) is or is not a meaningful warning factor for heart disease, and
-- whether or not it is worth eating differently to alter your blood cholesterol readings w/r/t trying to prevent heart disease...
....I think although everyone has opinions based on anecdote, peoples' anecdotes can be strongly contrasting so that no single clear picture emerges, and therefor the fairest thing to say is that
we don't know for sure in a strongly evidence-based way. ("Strongly" meaning "evidence coming from situations that allow you to rule out alternative interpretations/mechanisms")
As it happens, though, this is mostly just an inconvenience in terms of understanding what's going on.
In terms of knowing what's a good diet to eat, I think that it is pretty obvious and well-ground-truthed that traditional-style diets (practically *anyone's* traditions
) are way the heck healthier than the crap people eat today.
The real issue, IMHO, is not really "what should I eat to be healthy". Deep in their hearts, I think people kinda pretty much KNOW that.
The real issue is more along the lines of "how much can I cheat on that, and in what directions, without getting into too much trouble"
(And for *that*, a good understanding of the underlying physiology/biochemistry -- which we still don't have -- and good controlled scientific studies -- which we still don't have -- is indeed important, because there *isn't* a good big track record of observational data to go off of, especially given that everyone has their own preferences of what ways they'd like to eat indulgently/unhealthily if it might be ok in the end
)
Pat
