"Every day is April Fool's in nutrition."
September 25, 2022 6:38 AM Subscribe
Bitter chocolate tastes bad, therefore it must be good for you,” he said. “It’s like a religion.”
"But most disappointing? No one dipped into our buffet of chocolate music videos. Instead, they used vaguely pornographic images of women eating chocolate. Perhaps this music will take on a life of its own now that the truth is out:"
The Chocolate Transformation (rap)
The Chocolate Transformation (acoustic)
"But most disappointing? No one dipped into our buffet of chocolate music videos. Instead, they used vaguely pornographic images of women eating chocolate. Perhaps this music will take on a life of its own now that the truth is out:"
The Chocolate Transformation (rap)
The Chocolate Transformation (acoustic)
It likes to a Gizmodo article and then two YouTube music videos.
That article talks about how a false story about chocolate aiding weight loss was spread in the media.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:48 AM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
That article talks about how a false story about chocolate aiding weight loss was spread in the media.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:48 AM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Bitter chocolate doesn't taste bad so how can I trust anything else this person says?
posted by escabeche at 6:56 AM on September 25, 2022 [51 favorites]
posted by escabeche at 6:56 AM on September 25, 2022 [51 favorites]
OK now I read the article. My first reaction, to be honest, is that this was kind of unethical! Should I have a second reaction?
posted by escabeche at 6:59 AM on September 25, 2022
posted by escabeche at 6:59 AM on September 25, 2022
I suppose the point was to expose how easy this is? Unethical but corrected somewhat by coming clean?
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:09 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:09 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Have they spent as much time and effort exposing the bad science reporting practices as they did in promoting it?
No?
Than, yeah, I'd say it's unethical. Admitting you've done something wrong is only the first step in making amends.
posted by oddman at 7:16 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
No?
Than, yeah, I'd say it's unethical. Admitting you've done something wrong is only the first step in making amends.
posted by oddman at 7:16 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I would agree it's unethical but it doesn't ruffle my feathers too much. Maybe jaded because I don't believe any headlines or much "science" reporting.
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:25 AM on September 25, 2022
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:25 AM on September 25, 2022
I love how the singers dig deep into their feelings about the chocolate and its health benefits, kind of like Weird Al: Think about nutrition, wonder what's inside it now
posted by nicolaitanes at 7:27 AM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by nicolaitanes at 7:27 AM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
damn.
(puts down funnel loaded with vahlroha chips that I was gavaging myself with)
posted by lalochezia at 7:30 AM on September 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
(puts down funnel loaded with vahlroha chips that I was gavaging myself with)
posted by lalochezia at 7:30 AM on September 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
Double, and there's a pretty good discussion of the ethics in that thread.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:30 AM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:30 AM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Wow damn, thanks. Didn't see this was from 2015.
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:39 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:39 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
This was bad practice when the Sokal hoax did it (for very nefarious ends) and it's still bad when used for a seemingly noble purpose (expose p-hacking in health research).
posted by dantheclamman at 8:22 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by dantheclamman at 8:22 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Calling the Sokal thing “very nefarious” seems like an overstatement. The James Lindsay version, sure.
posted by atoxyl at 10:26 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by atoxyl at 10:26 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Bitter chocolate doesn't taste bad so how can I trust anything else this person says?
I mean, I do not believe the folks who swear they only eat 80%+ dark chocolate because it "tastes better." Clearly something is going on there! But yeah, there's a lot of tasty stuff in the 40-75% range. A random bar of dark chocolate is more reliably delicious than a random bar of milk chocolate.
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:28 AM on September 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
I mean, I do not believe the folks who swear they only eat 80%+ dark chocolate because it "tastes better." Clearly something is going on there! But yeah, there's a lot of tasty stuff in the 40-75% range. A random bar of dark chocolate is more reliably delicious than a random bar of milk chocolate.
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:28 AM on September 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
I've conditioned myself to prefer dark chocolate because it contains less sugar. A vegetarian I know does the same, but because less dairy.
posted by Rash at 10:45 AM on September 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Rash at 10:45 AM on September 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
I mean, I do not believe the folks who swear they only eat 80%+ dark chocolate because it "tastes better."
As someone who has been on both sides of this, I can attest that there is nothing objectively better about one or the other. It's entirely about what you're used to.
In the past, I've had times that I've preferred 70-75% chocolate, because that was what I was used to and 90% was too bitter. Now, I'm used to 90% and 75% tastes unpleasantly sweet. I can see that for people who are used to very sweet milk chocolate, even 70% dark chocolate is too dark! There is no objective truth here.
posted by ssg at 11:06 AM on September 25, 2022 [9 favorites]
As someone who has been on both sides of this, I can attest that there is nothing objectively better about one or the other. It's entirely about what you're used to.
In the past, I've had times that I've preferred 70-75% chocolate, because that was what I was used to and 90% was too bitter. Now, I'm used to 90% and 75% tastes unpleasantly sweet. I can see that for people who are used to very sweet milk chocolate, even 70% dark chocolate is too dark! There is no objective truth here.
posted by ssg at 11:06 AM on September 25, 2022 [9 favorites]
bitter chocolate fondue for burning those calories right off
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 11:11 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 11:11 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Cocoa butter disagrees with me, and I’ve never liked the taste of it anyway.
But hot chocolate made with a good cocoa powder, no sugar, and ultra-pasteurized whole milk (much sweeter than ordinary pasteurized whole milk) is divine.
posted by jamjam at 11:39 AM on September 25, 2022
But hot chocolate made with a good cocoa powder, no sugar, and ultra-pasteurized whole milk (much sweeter than ordinary pasteurized whole milk) is divine.
posted by jamjam at 11:39 AM on September 25, 2022
At least I give a shit about the stuff I eat,
Yeah I care about nutrition!
posted by kaibutsu at 11:52 AM on September 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
Yeah I care about nutrition!
posted by kaibutsu at 11:52 AM on September 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
On one level, yes: conducting a bad-faith study to generate a false result is unethical.
On another level, if the point is that nearly every study like this is done in bad faith—that you essentially cannot trust anything you read about diet health unless you are genuinely well-educated—then doing one more bad-faith study isn't going to poison the well any further. And for me—YMMV—criticizing the ethics of the person attempting to help educate people about the deep immorality of an entire industry while blithely overlooking how many people do the same thing without publicly stating it, thus drawing equal criticism their way, feels well-intentioned and technically accurate, but not effective or useful.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 12:18 PM on September 25, 2022 [18 favorites]
On another level, if the point is that nearly every study like this is done in bad faith—that you essentially cannot trust anything you read about diet health unless you are genuinely well-educated—then doing one more bad-faith study isn't going to poison the well any further. And for me—YMMV—criticizing the ethics of the person attempting to help educate people about the deep immorality of an entire industry while blithely overlooking how many people do the same thing without publicly stating it, thus drawing equal criticism their way, feels well-intentioned and technically accurate, but not effective or useful.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 12:18 PM on September 25, 2022 [18 favorites]
Though I also think that Nathan Fielder is ethical and unproblematic, so you would be well-justified in dismissing my opinions on this subject outright.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 12:21 PM on September 25, 2022
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 12:21 PM on September 25, 2022
I mean, I do not believe the folks who swear they only eat 80%+ dark chocolate because it "tastes better."
Cluziel Noir Infini 99% is an experience. You do need to drink something with it though.
But I'm also up for milk chocolate with hazelnuts, or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups or whatever.
posted by Foosnark at 7:13 PM on September 25, 2022
Cluziel Noir Infini 99% is an experience. You do need to drink something with it though.
But I'm also up for milk chocolate with hazelnuts, or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups or whatever.
posted by Foosnark at 7:13 PM on September 25, 2022
Though I also think that Nathan Fielder is ethical and unproblematic, so you would be well-justified in dismissing my opinions on this subject outright.
eponysterical
I am having difficulty seeing how this could be unethical, if someone would be so good as to explain. In an environment where trust cannot be guaranteed, there's legitimate reasons to misrepresent yourself - for instance, sending white-hat 'scam' e-mails that, when clicked on, redirect you to a page explaining why you should not click on emails of this type.
Their contention is: a) most diet reporting is bad, b) many diet studies are bad, and the ones that aren't do not show the kinds of concrete 'how to lose weight' answers there is abyssal demand for, c) here is how this happens. I would also argue that d) it's not immediately obvious that the way we report on dieting is immediately broken - the general audience get the sense that there's something wrong, but assume it's because 'science is messy' rather than 'the entire system of reporting on this is broken', and reporters themselves don't appear to have any sense of hesitancy or shame over this. It's probably not helpful to break something to show the system is broken if it's obvious to everyone that the system is broken, but I think that's clearly not true here.
posted by Merus at 7:58 PM on September 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
eponysterical
I am having difficulty seeing how this could be unethical, if someone would be so good as to explain. In an environment where trust cannot be guaranteed, there's legitimate reasons to misrepresent yourself - for instance, sending white-hat 'scam' e-mails that, when clicked on, redirect you to a page explaining why you should not click on emails of this type.
Their contention is: a) most diet reporting is bad, b) many diet studies are bad, and the ones that aren't do not show the kinds of concrete 'how to lose weight' answers there is abyssal demand for, c) here is how this happens. I would also argue that d) it's not immediately obvious that the way we report on dieting is immediately broken - the general audience get the sense that there's something wrong, but assume it's because 'science is messy' rather than 'the entire system of reporting on this is broken', and reporters themselves don't appear to have any sense of hesitancy or shame over this. It's probably not helpful to break something to show the system is broken if it's obvious to everyone that the system is broken, but I think that's clearly not true here.
posted by Merus at 7:58 PM on September 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
Calling the Sokal thing “very nefarious” seems like an overstatement. The James Lindsay version, sure.
I mean the quote says “for very nefarious ends” and I think we can accept that was how things landed, even if Sokal himself just thought he was poking fun.
I think in some ways the whole thing touched off a legitimacy crisis in academia that inherently benefits the fascists, so . . .
posted by aspersioncast at 9:01 PM on September 25, 2022
I mean the quote says “for very nefarious ends” and I think we can accept that was how things landed, even if Sokal himself just thought he was poking fun.
I think in some ways the whole thing touched off a legitimacy crisis in academia that inherently benefits the fascists, so . . .
posted by aspersioncast at 9:01 PM on September 25, 2022
It doesn't taste bad. It doesn't taste as sweet as crap like Hershey's, but then it doesn't taste of vomit eithe due to the butyric acid
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:26 PM on September 25, 2022
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:26 PM on September 25, 2022
Merus, this is akin to an “election security” activist casting a double vote and then being offended that they might be punished for it.
Part of the safeguards in our system for understanding the world scientifically is that people are expected to publish things that they plausibly believe are true, and that they should expect to be criticized if they spread false information knowingly.
By choosing such a juicy fake idea, it was almost guaranteed to take off easily, and there is no way the retraction and media criticism will get the same coverage. The appropriate response is to treat this like anyone else who scams a journalist to get famous for putting out fake science that isn’t true.
The journalists involved should dig into this guy’s other work and see if it has also had dubious ethical standards. There should be no question that he should be subject to the general disapproval of anyone who knows about this, and we should also use this example to plug certain gaps, which are admittedly well-explained here.
I wonder whether his previous “sting operation” was also a sell-out hit job against open access publishing. Did he submit the same “research” to a control group of journals that charge their readers to see publications? Was he ethical in his molecular biology work? What other things has Gunter Frank been involved in? Really, anything any of them have a hand in in the future should get a lot of side eye.
In terms of plugging the gaps, it raises the possibility of creating a review system for evaluating the quality of journalistic output, and a browser extension for pulling in the impact factor of any journal that is cited in an article. There should be expectations for anyone who is quoted as a reference to have their twitter/blog/university website linked. People should follow science journalists they trust (I love Ed Yong) and build their feeds around individually reputable journalists whose credibility is on the line (importantly, eschewing the influence of click-baity titles added by the editors).
posted by puffinaria at 11:35 PM on September 25, 2022
Part of the safeguards in our system for understanding the world scientifically is that people are expected to publish things that they plausibly believe are true, and that they should expect to be criticized if they spread false information knowingly.
By choosing such a juicy fake idea, it was almost guaranteed to take off easily, and there is no way the retraction and media criticism will get the same coverage. The appropriate response is to treat this like anyone else who scams a journalist to get famous for putting out fake science that isn’t true.
The journalists involved should dig into this guy’s other work and see if it has also had dubious ethical standards. There should be no question that he should be subject to the general disapproval of anyone who knows about this, and we should also use this example to plug certain gaps, which are admittedly well-explained here.
I wonder whether his previous “sting operation” was also a sell-out hit job against open access publishing. Did he submit the same “research” to a control group of journals that charge their readers to see publications? Was he ethical in his molecular biology work? What other things has Gunter Frank been involved in? Really, anything any of them have a hand in in the future should get a lot of side eye.
In terms of plugging the gaps, it raises the possibility of creating a review system for evaluating the quality of journalistic output, and a browser extension for pulling in the impact factor of any journal that is cited in an article. There should be expectations for anyone who is quoted as a reference to have their twitter/blog/university website linked. People should follow science journalists they trust (I love Ed Yong) and build their feeds around individually reputable journalists whose credibility is on the line (importantly, eschewing the influence of click-baity titles added by the editors).
posted by puffinaria at 11:35 PM on September 25, 2022
I also see an interesting contrast-example in the NYT article by Kashmir Hill, This Surveillance Artist Knows How You Got That Perfect Instagram Photo, that was published on Saturday. Mr. Depoorter’s art pairs Instagram selfies and surveillance photos showing them being composed and taken.
Criticism in the article included “ “You don’t break into someone’s house to show them you can break into their house,” Mr. Venkatasubramanian said. “You shouldn’t do it unless they ask you to.” and “I don’t think ‘art’ gives you a free pass,” Mr. Maldoff said.
I actually think Depoorter got quite a bit right in thinking about the effects of his project, and will hopefully inspire other creative uses of public info (though I wonder if he hasn’t bitten off more than he expected with the fair use and GDPR legal fights). Hopefully he will raise awareness about surveillance just by having the NYT article about the concept, even if the video he produced has been yanked.
I think the chocolate project is more like unauthorized pen-testing that actually causes damage (in this case, millions of people erroneously believing that chocolate is healthy[1]). Depoorter’s project seems to have less of a downside, though perhaps I’m just not thinking hard enough about it.
I appreciate the way both Bohannon and Depoorter are able to think out of the box to drive the conversation, though it’s dismaying that Bohannon was apparently studying “the evolution of fame” at Harvard, which makes me think even more that he just wants to harvest attention, come what may. His current work, since at least 2018, seems to be Primer.ai, which has raised over $160M according to Crunchbase and is therefore probably not a prank entity. There’s a fun symmetry in some of the corporate espionage filings related to Primer that the CEO, Gourley, had been working on a “startup predictor” for a different data engineering company just before starting Primer.
Also looking at Merus’ comment and the article again, I think it’s the truth that science really is messy and there’s not a consensus here. I think the Gizmodo article is a little misleading in how it frames this. Peter Attia is complaining about the messy reporting because it (how?) makes it harder for him to raise money for his research [2], but he does also say that the last big billion-dollar research project didn’t produce any significant results. I’m not saying Merus and I necessarily disagree, but I think it’s likely that the reporting is broken *because* the science really is messy.
1- Though, Bohannon does say that they picked chocolate because it was an example that people already had a tendency to believe.
2 - Attia has apparently left medicine to work for McKinsey and do podcasts. His website says he’s the CMO of Biograph, a maybe imaginary (?) company, and he also is a co-chair of the board of a SPAC, which appears to have really raised over $200M
posted by puffinaria at 1:37 AM on September 26, 2022
Criticism in the article included “ “You don’t break into someone’s house to show them you can break into their house,” Mr. Venkatasubramanian said. “You shouldn’t do it unless they ask you to.” and “I don’t think ‘art’ gives you a free pass,” Mr. Maldoff said.
I actually think Depoorter got quite a bit right in thinking about the effects of his project, and will hopefully inspire other creative uses of public info (though I wonder if he hasn’t bitten off more than he expected with the fair use and GDPR legal fights). Hopefully he will raise awareness about surveillance just by having the NYT article about the concept, even if the video he produced has been yanked.
I think the chocolate project is more like unauthorized pen-testing that actually causes damage (in this case, millions of people erroneously believing that chocolate is healthy[1]). Depoorter’s project seems to have less of a downside, though perhaps I’m just not thinking hard enough about it.
I appreciate the way both Bohannon and Depoorter are able to think out of the box to drive the conversation, though it’s dismaying that Bohannon was apparently studying “the evolution of fame” at Harvard, which makes me think even more that he just wants to harvest attention, come what may. His current work, since at least 2018, seems to be Primer.ai, which has raised over $160M according to Crunchbase and is therefore probably not a prank entity. There’s a fun symmetry in some of the corporate espionage filings related to Primer that the CEO, Gourley, had been working on a “startup predictor” for a different data engineering company just before starting Primer.
Also looking at Merus’ comment and the article again, I think it’s the truth that science really is messy and there’s not a consensus here. I think the Gizmodo article is a little misleading in how it frames this. Peter Attia is complaining about the messy reporting because it (how?) makes it harder for him to raise money for his research [2], but he does also say that the last big billion-dollar research project didn’t produce any significant results. I’m not saying Merus and I necessarily disagree, but I think it’s likely that the reporting is broken *because* the science really is messy.
1- Though, Bohannon does say that they picked chocolate because it was an example that people already had a tendency to believe.
2 - Attia has apparently left medicine to work for McKinsey and do podcasts. His website says he’s the CMO of Biograph, a maybe imaginary (?) company, and he also is a co-chair of the board of a SPAC, which appears to have really raised over $200M
posted by puffinaria at 1:37 AM on September 26, 2022
60% is great
70-80% is vile. Pick a side. Sweet? Butter? Make up yo mind.
90% is ok as a garnish
99% is like eating delicious delicious dirt
posted by St. Peepsburg at 7:48 PM on September 26, 2022
70-80% is vile. Pick a side. Sweet? Butter? Make up yo mind.
90% is ok as a garnish
99% is like eating delicious delicious dirt
posted by St. Peepsburg at 7:48 PM on September 26, 2022
Haha typo. Bitter.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 7:59 PM on September 26, 2022
posted by St. Peepsburg at 7:59 PM on September 26, 2022
Okay, I'll bite: what was nefarious about the Sokal hoax?
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:05 PM on September 28, 2022
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:05 PM on September 28, 2022
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Wasn't trying to be mysterious, hope you enjoy the article.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 6:47 AM on September 25, 2022 [5 favorites]