With some of the things I have seen since coming back on Instagram, I think we will spend some time talking about scientific thinking, and how we might be able to do a better job of applying that to health, fitness, nutrition, etc..

 

One of the things that is very apparent is that most people, including fitness professionals, have no idea how to identify good vs bad information, or science vs pseudo-science… 

 

Example: “The Game Changers” caused quite a bit of fuss recently, even among fitness professionals, as people were left wondering “Is this true? What’s not true? How would I know?”. 

 

In the aftermath of that documentary, the most public refutation attempts were from individuals who were also not particularly scientific (Chris Kresser), which left the audience (viewers of Joe Rogan) to choose between the best of a bad bunch. Do I trust someone who clearly wishes to verify their suspicions about a plant-based diet? Or do I trust someone who is very clearly ignoring a significant portion of the scientific literature on nutrition and cardiovascular disease?

With that in mind, here is an excerpt from P.66 of Popper’s “Conjectures & Refutations”:

 

 

There is so much packed in there to chew on. Instead of simply repeating what Popper said, allow me to give you an example:

 

Scientific Thinker — When trying to make a decision as to whether or not saturated fat intake is a contributor to cardiovascular disease, one might ask: "what sort of evidence would I need to refute my current stance, i.e. that saturated fat is a healthful component of the diet that does not increase CVD risk?”.

 

Dogmatic Thinker — When trying to make the same decision, one might ask: “what evidence can I find to verify my belief that saturated fat is not a contributor to CVD risk?”.

The Scientific Thinker is making a concerted effort to refute their current position by asking what sort of evidence would be required for falsification. They are not seeking out particular conclusions, but instead thinking about how they would get on the path to truth. They are seeking truth, not a particular outcome. Their understanding of the world increases as they do this. 

 

The Dogmatic Thinker is simply trying to verify their current worldview. They are unlikely to be as concerned with scientific methodology, as they are simply seeking a particular conclusion. Truth is not as important to them, as they simply wish to confirm their worldview, and so their understanding of the world does not increase.

Real world examples of dogmatic thinking in action have been all over the place recently. Funnily enough, there are two fantastic examples on the opposite side of the nutritional spectrum. Nutrition is always a great case study for scientific vs dogmatic thinking, as nutrition is often treated like religion.

 

Example 1 - On November 19th, The Annals of Internal Medicine recently released "Unprocessed Red Meat and Processed Meat Consumption: Dietary Guideline Recommendations From the Nutritional Recommendations (NutriRECS) Consortium”, which was essentially pushed to the public as saying “red meat is off the hook”. Despite many flaws pointed out by nutrition scientists, many of my meat-eating friends were quick to share the study to their story as if to say “HA, got you!!”. This verified their world view — they did not attempt to pick apart the evidence, as it wasn’t a true truth-seeking attempt (I can’t speak for everyone).

 

Example 2 - On the same week and opposite side of the spectrum, "The Game Changers” was released, and so many vegans did the exact same thing and shared the documentary everywhere. It supported their worldview, and despite many underhanded, unscientific techniques used in the documentary, this was now presented as the thesis for ditching meat by many on a plant-based diet (not all, I have friends who do not eat animal products who laughed at how unscientific the documentary was — true truth-seekers).

We could stay here all day giving examples, but the key point here is the distinction between trying to verify vs trying to falsify a given position / your current worldview / a scientific hypothesis. If you can take just that much home for today, that would be a success. More discussion to come in later stories...