When I was younger, I was convinced that my vegan diet was best in every way. Everything I read in the "mainstream media" seemed to validate this, and there was nothing I saw that contradicted it in any way. I simply could not imagine that there was anything major wrong with that diet. Now that I understand a great deal about various health and medical issues, I realize how "closed" my mind was, though it was due to ignorance. With the internet, I was able to take a look at "alternative" notions, and I felt that I had no choice when my doctors could not help me. When I encountered some things written by people like Ray Peat and Mary Enig, I did not dismiss their ideas out of hand, because I was trained (in graduate school) not to do this, especially when reading work by people with relevant credentials.
Unfortunately, I often encounter people today who are seem to be emotionally disturbed by the possibility that something they've taken for granted for years might not be correct. In social science, this is called "cognitive dissonance." There seems to no good vaccine against it. Indeed, this kind of thing is what Enlightenment "philosophes" feared greatly. With all the scientific evidence that already exists (and is generally very good), it's likely that most of our scientists should take some time to read the works of people like Voltaire rather than continuing to do largely irrelevant "studies" and make promises that never come to pass. However, because there are no incentives to doing this, they will likely do "more of the same."
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