Comments on: Ford vs. Roberts

by: Russell Nelson

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 18:13:30 +0000

Nobody caught Ford’s denigration of the rat obesity studies by calling them “old”. A study which has not been disproven is not made worse by age, but instead better. Nice try, Ford! Go back to making cars.

by: Mike Lambert

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:59:25 +0000

I came across Seth Roberts paper “What Makes Food Fattening? A Pavlovian Theory of Weight Control” long before the Shangri-La book came out. I wasn’t actively looking to lose weight but his theories seemed plausible. I began consuming fructose water at work. (I sit at a computer all day.) I lost 50 pounds and like Roberts himself had to put some back on as people started asking me if I was sick! I am completely confident that I could effortlessly “dial up” any weight I care to. Regardless of what Mr. Ford thinks, it works and it doesn’t get any easier than this. Dropping the extra weight lowered my cholesterol and blood pressure probably adding years to my life. Thank you Dr. Roberts!

by: Catherine Johnson

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 18:12:57 +0000

I’m a little taken aback by Dr. Ford’s essay.

First of all, the book is quite clear that the diet is based in a hypothesis or theory, not a fact or even a “finding.”

The evidence for the diet is also clearly stated:

1. Seth Roberts’ successful weight loss experience

2. the successful weight loss experiences of 2 or 3 of Seth Roberts’ friends and family members

3. converging lines of evidence in the form of peer-reviewed animal and weight-loss research consistent with the sugar-water regimen

Second, many or perhaps most physicians treat individual patients, not categories or classes of patients who can be studied in large double-blind trials. Expert physicians conduct “medication trials” - that is the term of art - with individual patients, trying drugs alone or in combination and evaluating the results based on patient report. One of our family doctors tells us that prescribing medication is “an art, not a science.” She doesn’t say this to denigrate her profession; she’s describing a core truth about treating patients whose conditions science does not yet understand.

Obesity is certainly a condition science does not yet understand. Treating physicians and overweight individuals must conduct “medication trials” like Seth Roberts’ sugar water regimen until such time that science does understand it and has effective treatments to offer.

by: AaronSw

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:15:25 +0000

Congrats! Anyone who’s earned an attack from TCS is obviously doing something right.

by: think mojo » Humility - Seth Roberts style

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 12:05:24 +0000

[…] Following the link I ended up here - Seth Roberts acknowledging that he might have had a little more grace in his initial reply to John Ford’s critique of his theory and book, the Shangri-La Diet. […]

by: think mojo » Seth bites back on Shangri-La

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 08:08:49 +0000

[…] Not surprisingly, Ford’s remarks have left Seth Roberts taking umbrage at this review of his work. […]

by: TCUDD

Wed, 31 May 2006 22:30:56 +0000

Dr. Ford’s criticism sounded to me a bit arrogant, I read the Shangri la diet and understood it for what it was. A new idea, there were no promises and it was not the least bit misleading. I felt insulted by Dr. Ford’s attitude that average (Non-Doctors) people like me couldn’t think for themselves or interpret new ideas. I don’t need years of expensive studies I have tried the diets based on the careful academic studies and years of trials and guess what, none of them worked. After reading the booking and carefully considering all the facts I see no risk in the diet and a possibility of a payoff. If the diet doesn’t work I am out 20.00 for a book and I will go on to try other diets and exercise regimens until I find one that works (I guess that would be self experimentation. I am starting it today and am looking for a place in the blogosphere to record the results if you have any suggestions let me know.

by: Dave Pollard

Sun, 28 May 2006 18:07:56 +0000

This is really an issue of what George Lakoff calls ‘frames’. To the scientific establishment, self-experimentation is unthinkable, threatening, even heretical. Seth, you’ve just got to let it run off you — they are never going to ‘get it’. Because of the Internet, self-experimentation’s time has finally come, and it will be up to the next generation of scientists to appreciate its superiority as a method of achieving useful results. About 85% of the comments I’ve received on my self-experimentation articles (e.g. http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2006/05/23.html#a1535 ) have been positive — it’s very empowering for people to overcome the learned helplessness that says they are too stupid to know how to manage their own bodies. About 15% have been almost hysterically negative. These are from very conservative people who believe fiercely in authority — it gives them comfort, something to follow, something to believe in. Anything that would seem to undermine authority is seen as subversive. There is a famous saying: You can accomplish anything as long as you don’t care who gets credit for it. You’re too far ahead of the curve to get credit from those in authority, but what you are accomplishing is unstoppable. Thanks for being a pioneer.

by: seth

Sun, 28 May 2006 03:16:30 +0000

If Ford had said that self-experimentation is “not completely accepted” or “controversial,” that would have been accurate. To say it “not accepted” is overstating it — it is to say that nobody who matters takes it seriously. And that isn’t true because a Nobel Prize winner in Medicine obviously matters. Self-experimentation was not the reason Marshall got a Nobel Prize, as you say — he got it because he was right.

by: Mark

Sat, 27 May 2006 14:53:28 +0000

I think you misrepresent Dr. Marshall’s Nobel Prize. He drank the bacteria culture in the process of formulating a hypothesis. The Nobel Prize was awarded in light of his later proof of the hypothesis via extensive lab work that isolated the bacteria in large numbers of ulcer sufferers, and failed to find the bacteria in those without ulcers.