In science, it is often the case that the issue at
hand is not as simple as “go ahead, get in a plane,
fly around the earth, and see for yourself that the
world is not flat.�? Unless two people who disagree on
interpretation can agree on an experiment, the results
of which would demonstrate who is correct, one may be
faced with contradictory interpretations of the same
data. A major problem is that many people, including
scientists, become fixated on notions of “proof,�?even
though this is a concept for mathematics or formal
logic, and not science, social science, or just about
anything else. I have heard many talk about “proof
beyond a reasonable doubt�?in a criminal law context,
but this sounds like someone claiming to be “a little
bit pregnant.�?
Obviously, we are back to people
deciding what constitutes sufficient evidence to
justify an action or interpretation, and the term
“proof�?seems to be more about making the people who
made the decision feel good about themselves than
anything else. Instead, all one can do is to make a
case for his or her interpretation. In graduate
school, I was taught to do this in a specific way;
first, one explains exactly what he or she is
contending, in as much detail as possible. Then, one
can either review the existing interpretations or
present one’s evidence. Lastly, one explains exactly
why alternative interpretations fail to account for
the evidence. And once one is finished, there are
only a few options for those who remain skeptical: the
critic can attempt to demonstrate that the case
presented is one of “splitting hairs,�?that is, there
is no significant difference between the old
interpretation(s) and the new one being presented to
suggest that some sort of “paradigm shift�?is
required; the critic can present and argument about
how the new interpretation is based upon an inaccurate
understanding of the evidence; or the critic can argue
that there the issue is still “open,�?because the
evidence should be deemed inconclusive.
Unfortunately, few have been trained as I have, and I
have been criticized for writing paragraphs that were
deemed “too long�?by some or even for obvious
“typographical�?errors. But there are other
criticisms that are worth mentioning, and the most
useful one to discuss here is the presentation of a
piece of evidence (or, as is often the case, several
abstracts of scientific studies) that appears to
contradict a point that I’ve made. I can picture such
people smiling smugly as they hit their control-C and
control-V keys, thinking “check and mate�?as they
click on the “post�?or “submit�?buttons. What almost
all of these kinds of people don’t seem to be able to
comprehend is that while it may appear from a cursory
reading of an abstract that a point is directly
refuted, when one examines it closely, it is no such
clear demonstration.
An example of this could be the
following: let us say that a researcher takes two
groups of common lab rats, all of which have been
eating a diet considered “normal,�?but one that is
undeniably rich in omega 6 PUFAs. One group,
considered the “control,�?continues to be fed the same
diet, whereas the other group has its fat source
changed to fresh coconut oil. After a week or two,
the researcher in charge of the experiment notices
that some of the rats in the coconut oil group have
developed dry spots. Another week goes by and the
researcher sacrifices the rats and measures the fatty
acids in the rats�?bodies. He or she concludes that
because the rats that developed the dry spots did not
have omega 6 PUFAs in their bodies that this is a
clear demonstration of “essential fatty acid
deficiency.�? While this could indeed be the case,
when one examines the evidence as a whole it is clear
that this is a totally unreasonable view of the
results.
For one thing, rats were fed a totally
fat-free diet in experiments done in 1948, and no
problems were observed. Another important point is
that if one’s diet is changed significantly,
short-term effects such as the dry spots is not
uncommon, and so the experiment should have lasted
longer, until the rats died of natural causes (which
would allow us to know about the mortality associated
with specific kinds of diets). Moreover, if one does
have arachidonic acid (AA) in one’s cells, as the rats
would have had at the outset of the experiment,
changing to a diet with only coconut oil as a source
of fat would result in AA “liberation,�?which for a
short period of time could cause various symptoms,
unless the rats were fed a diet high in
antioxidant-rich foods that they would have access to
in the wild.
Unlike history, science is often contextual (in history, one can only assess what actually did happen, and setting up control groups is not possible). However scientists seem to be largely unaware of this point, even though there is the famous example of Newton's "laws of motions," which work well for us humans, but do not under conditions that we could not live under, as Einstein showed. In today's dietary studies, it is almost always assumed, whether or not the researchers are aware of it, that the subjects are consuming a diet rich in omega 6 PUFAs, and thus the findings are contextual, that is, they apply to people on such diets, but not necessarily to those, like myself, who are consuming a diet that is very different. As I learned in graduate school, it is unacceptable to find one piece of evidence that
appears to suggest that a particular interpretation is
inaccurate, cite it, and then ignore everything else.
Evidence must be examined in a comprehensive way, and this appears to be something many if not most
scientists have great difficulty doing, perhaps
because there is so much “specialization�?today.
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