The fact that some practicisns aren’t sure about the right diet is an unrelated topic as you must know even if I understand that a painful first hand experience apparently has killed any trust you perhaps once had in science. Fortunately you are applying you doubts in equal proportion to the deniers and must understand that the odds they are wrong are even higher, right?
Bernard,
I'm surprised you're having difficulty in understanding the relevance of Alan's analogy of the claimed benefits and/or harmful effects of certain diets.
A huge food industry has been built to provide 'low fat' food products, on the basis of a 'consensus among medical experts' that consumption of saturated fats increases the risk of heart disease, arteriosclerosis, high blood pressure, cancer, obesity, and so on.
Following are some quotes from an academic summary of the situation.
https://academic.oup.com/jhmas/article/63/2/139/772615"Abstract
This article examines how faith in science led physicians and patients to embrace the low-fat diet for heart disease prevention and weight loss.
Scientific studies dating from the late 1940s showed a correlation between high-fat diets and high-cholesterol levels, suggesting that a low-fat diet might prevent heart disease in high-risk patients. By the 1960s, the low-fat diet began to be touted not just for high-risk heart patients, but as good for the whole nation. After 1980, the low-fat approach became an overarching ideology, promoted by physicians, the federal government, the food industry, and the popular health media.
Many Americans subscribed to the ideology of low fat, even though there was no clear evidence that it prevented heart disease or promoted weight loss. Ironically, in the same decades that the low-fat approach assumed ideological status, Americans in the aggregate were getting fatter, leading to what many called an obesity epidemic. Nevertheless, the low-fat ideology had such a hold on Americans that skeptics were dismissed. Only recently has evidence of a paradigm shift begun to surface, first with the challenge of the low-carbohydrate diet and then, with a more moderate approach, reflecting recent scientific knowledge about fats."However, the above article is a bit dated, published in 2008. A more recent view is expressed in the following video, which is very long, consisting of 3 sections. The speaker is a very qualified medical practitioner with post-graduate degrees in Neuroscience and Nutrition.
"Published on Jan 5, 2017
For the last 40-50 years, we have fought against “bad” cholesterol and “evil” fats. Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride explains how useful and healthy cholesterol is for us: it reduces the risk of heart attack, prevents arteriosclerosis and can even increase fertility.
Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, Cambridge, England at the
21st International "New Scientific Outlook" World Congress 2016,
Ulm, Germany, 04.11.2016."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7OQT1SHf9w&feature=youtu.beIn case the relevance of this analogy, comparing the complexity and uncertainty of diet with the complexity and uncertainty of the world's climate system, is still confusing for some of you, I'll try to elucidate.
All the applications and products of scientific research, that impress us and contribute to our prosperity and well-being, are required to be thoroughly tested to ensure that they work. A new drug that is claimed to cure a disease, has to go through a long process of testing procedures, usually beginning with creatures that have a short life-span, such as mice and rats, then sometimes followed by tests on creature more similar to us, such as rabbits, dogs and monkeys, and finally on groups of humans, provided the previous tests showed benefits and no harm.
The results of such tests can be observed in a relatively short time, ranging from a few days to a few weeks to a few months. However, the long term effects of certain drugs taken regularly are not initially known, and only come to light years later. Such drugs are then withdrawn from the market. The experiment is over.
James Lovelock described our planet as a complex, living, self-regulating organism or system. He gave it the name 'Gaia', which is ancient Greek for the goddess Mother Earth, or Mother of all Life.
I think that is an apt analogy also. The human body naturally adjusts to slight changes in diet and environmental circumstances just as our planet does, with no harmful effects.
I'm genuinely puzzled why anyone would believe that a 50% increase, over a 150 year period, in a trace gas which is absolutely essential for all life, and which has been proven to increase plant growth and help green the planet, could be considered a pollutant.
If CO2 were a poisonous chemical like Arsenic, which can be tolerated only in very small quantities, then I could appreciate that raising levels by 50% or more could be dangerous. But obviously CO2 is nothing like Arsenic. It's more like a water-soluble vitamin, such as Vitamin C. There is a recommended minimum dosage required to prevent scurvy and other diseases, just as there's a recommended minimum quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere to prevent biodiversity collapse. However, taking more than the recommended minimum dosage is most likely beneficial in general.
I would suggest that you 'climate alarmists' do a bit of reading on the history of science and the 'methodology' of science, which requires repeated experimentation under controlled conditions, changing one variable at a time to observe its effect.
There is a distinction to be made between a 'faith in science', and a 'faith in the
methodology of science'. Can you see the distinction, Bernard?