Gary Taubes: More A Scientist Than An Advocate

Gary Taubes (sfgate)

Science journalist Gary Taubes, author of Why We Get Fat and Good Calories, Bad Calories, founded the Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI) to sort through the deluge of often-conflicting information about diet and obesity.

or all the thousands of studies and billions of dollars we've spent on research, there is no agreement among the experts on why we've grown so much more fat and sick over the past several decades or what we should do about it.

For a subject so important to many millions of Americans, it's a wonder that disciplined diet and obesity research--beyond self-reporting and observational studies that confuse correlation with causation--has not been performed before. When he was beginning to write in 1984

Taubes was struck that science could be so subjective at the highest levels—that it's not just the big mistakes that scientists have to worry about but the numerous small ones that accumulate to support their misconceptions. “You can be fooled in a thousand subtle ways,” he says.

It makes this observer---and perhaps, you too, dear reader---skeptical about "the science is settled" declarations, especially from researchers who have an economic stake in the outcome. To Gary Taubes' credit, the results of NuSI's studies may well refute the sugar-is-poison thesis around which he has achieved his recent fame:

in the entryway of his home, just off the main foyer, there's a frame with two photos in it. In one, taken just before the start of an amateur boxing match, a young Taubes is standing, gloves at his side. In his tank top and boxing shorts, the muscular young man looks powerful enough to punch his way through anything. In the other photo, taken about two minutes later, Taubes is lying on his back unconscious. “It's my hubris protection,” Taubes says. “Whenever I think I'm so cool I can do anything, it reminds me that I am not and that this is real life.”