I never really liked English class when I was in High School. As a Science/Art geek, I was just never into fiction.
Even now, I’m a pure non-fiction type of guy…(Unless we’re talking about the diet books I have to review for this blog, they’re almost all fiction 
)
So when I was in high school and found out I needed an extra English class to graduate, I took creative writing.
So you can blame my High School Creative writing Teacher for this post…
Scientific Research can best be described as measuring your shadow.
With some very simple tools (a measuring tape and a friend to do the measuring) you can get a very accurate measurement of the length of your shadow.
And this measurement will be correct, however it will only be correct within the confines of it’s context.
In other words, the measurement will be correct for that specific time, in that specific location…and only to you.
It won’t be correct 3 hours later, or on an angled surface. And it certainly won’t be the exact same length if it’s someone else’s shadow and that person happens to be a foot taller than you.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s all relative.
And this is exactly what scientific research is…relative.
When it comes to research done on people, it’s relative to the people in the study (their age, sex, race, training status, disease state, even mood state), relative to the measuring technique (these evolve and change all the time), relative to the specific time and place the measurements were taken (subjects in a weight loss study 30 years ago may have approached the study differently then the subjects in a study going on right now).
To take one piece of research and try to say that it’s “true” in all cases and all circumstances for all time will always be false.
The bottom line and the reason for this post – The findings of scientific research will always be relative.
This is why any new health blurb that starts with “research proves X” is almost always wrong in some situations. It’s just like saying “Your shadow is 5 feet long”.
Just something to remember the next time your skimming the fitness magazines while waiting in line at the grocery store checkout.
BP
As a medical man myself, I really appreciated this post!
Any medical study (even the most earth shattering study ever) is FULL of flaws. Most health studies that aren’t sponsored by big pharmaceutical companies can’t afford to recruit enough people to get a decent sample. And even if they get a decent sample, it’s really hard to control for every factor that might affect the result.
As a result, when you read about a study with 27 people that “proved” something controversial, best to just move on, nothing to see here folks!
Great post!
Hey Brad, I love your book Eat Stop Eat.
Hopefully you could help me out with my quest for physical fitness and health. Currently I am 20 years old, around 12-13% bf 6’0 and 163 pounds. I am down from 172 after a few month layoff of lifting because of some health problems, etc. I was wondering if it possible to gain size (through lifting/increasing weight) while following eat stop eat to lose bf. Obviously nothing extreme is desired. Just mostly goals outlined in the Adonis effect (broader shoulders). Or, is the case that I merely will not lose any of this lean mass I currently have. Or, conversely, would you recommend something entirely different.
Thanks so much and keep up your groundbreaking work.
I’ve been considering this for awhile. I wonder if it’s just because of the complex systems involved. Not only are our bodies complex, but the food we’re eating is complex, and varies in what it contains.
My other issue with scientific research is that it’s built off of other scientific research. I remember reading something about this ruler in Egypt that a major archaeologist in the 1930′s didn’t like and just completely omitted him. Books to this day still omit this ruler, even though he existed and there’s proof of it. Now there’s researchers basing their research off of people like Ancel Keyes, who had fundamentally flawed research.
Excellent post, Brad.
As you pointed out, even if a study is well designed and researched, the results won’t apply to everyone. Then, of course, you have the media inevitably misinterpreting something and reporting that to the masses.
This blog suggests there is no prove in any scientific research…. I find that a gross oversimplification. Sure there are some limitations, and sure reporters get things ass-backwards when extrapolating in vitro findings on rats to the general population at large, but still,… scientific research has it’s merit.
I read this story once in which there were people who had as sole job interpreting scientific research because otherwise people hadn’t got the foggiest what those scientists were blabbering about. Maybe we need more critical people interpreting and explaining scientific findings.
Hey Wazzup,
It’s not that Scientific Research has no merit, it’s that any single study is only relevant within its own assumptions and limits. This is why we need large bodies of research in any one field.
The point was I want people to be aware of the limitations and assumptions that go into any clinical trial design.
The skills for understanding research are daunting for most people. So they rely on skimming and rior expectations and soundbite summaries. Often this gives a completely erroneous impression. To read researh you need not only critical thinking skills in general but also general familiarity with types of methodologies and protocols, a reasonable grasp of statistics, and some background in the line of research that led up to the study you are reading. And you have to want to learn something from the evidence, not just be reading it because you don’t like the conclusion and want to debunk it. These are pre-requisites for science literacy just as important as reading science textbooks.
There’s a need for scientifically trained journalists and science writers to help translate the work of researchers accurately, because not all scientists are effective at writing for the general audience. This level of science writing has unfortunately gone down along with the level of political journalism. There are a few good sources left but you have to know how to identify them. Filtering well is one of the keys to living in an age of information surplus.
There should be more courses on the skills for understanding research because it over time becomes crucial for our understanding of ourselves. In site of being so fond of tech, and science headlines the current level of science literacy, in both the most basic sense of textbook knowledge and my extended sense above, it pathetic in my opinion.
That’s why I admire Brad, he is one of the folks that can serve as a bridge from researchers to the rest of us.
Thanks for this post, and for the excellent work you do, Brad!
It bugs me how people just take the research as the gospel without looking into it past the few manipulated percentages. @Kaizan was pretty on point.
I think there would be much better information out there if people weren’t too busy keeping their ego from getting hurt. People have to admit that they’re wrong, that what you think is true today might be challenged tomorrow. “All I know is that I know nothing”, Socrates said. This is what I tell myself all the time.
If you want to be truly stunned, check out the health care ‘research’ that spews out of politically motivated and paid for organizations. One of the more quoted pieces is the U.S. is 37th in health care. Our infant mortality is worse than (insert insanely poor 3rd world country here).
Just for kicks, I looked into infant mortality in detail. What I found regarding how babies are counted, when they are not counted and how the stats are fudged just shocked me. Not so much that this was done (after all, it’s politics) but that no one bothered to point out the glaring flaws that destroy any of the regurgitated stats.
I see this in economics as well. Depending on who we are trying to demonize, we merely look up a few stats and rip away. To anyone with any education in economics, it’s painful to listen to. I’ve heard things that are so absurd that it actually makes my stomach hurt. And it goes on ad nauseam.
I imagine anyone with education or interest in a certain field finds their neurons assaulted when reading through the studies and the reports that arise from those studies.
Brad,
Know what you mean. At San Francisco State University I’ve had the opportunity to be directly involved with research projects and it can leave you wondering how researchers ever come to any accurate conclusions. More often than not, we find out more about what we DON’T know than what we DO.
Another nail on the head. And a great allegory to the shifting relativity of so much in life altogether.
Plus a great admonition about the skipped hearbeats with each new health headline at the checkout stand!
Salud,
Lani
Great post Brad. Excellent analogy with the shadow. It reminds me of something that my martisl arts teacher said to me years ago. He said “In the beginning, God spoke the truth in a circle of 360 people. They all heard the Same Truth, but each on saw it in a different way from the other.
Hey Brad, deep stuff man, the truth can never be answered for everyone and there is only one true expirment that can work for each individual. That experiment as we all know, is trial and error. Through time and dedication, manipulation and alteration. We can test ourselves to the limits and apply new routines when all else fails.
I love your posts Brad! With all of the conflicting information out there, I was wondering if I need to worry about eating too FEW calories. I am not talking about anorexia or anything that drastic. I have heard that if you eat too few that your metabolism slows dramatically. Reason I ask is that I have been using the ESE for a while and can not seem to break past 214.
Thanks!
Michael
brad, this is exactly the way to reach the younger, more insulin sensitive crowd. please keep up the good work, it could save a generation! if this info had reached me at 28 instead of 40, oh what a different life i would have had. keep on keepin’ on
I’ll do my best!
B