The problem with science

I wouldn't say this is an issue with science but rather an interpretation of the study at hand. Many people fail to understand the parameters of what the study is being conducted.


CICO does account for hormones as hormones will affect the CO portion; more often, it's a deregulation of metabolism. People fail at CICO because they feel an online calculator is accurate. And many people assume they are equally as accurate in tracking CI, which statistically, even trained professions under report calories in by as much as 422 calories.

psulemon wrote: »

I wouldn't say this is an issue with science but rather an interpretation of the study at hand. Many people fail to understand the parameters of what the study is being conducted.


CICO does account for hormones as hormones will affect the CO portion; more often, it's a deregulation of metabolism. People fail at CICO because they feel an online calculator is accurate. And many people assume they are equally as accurate in tracking CI, which statistically, even trained professions under report calories in by as much as 422 calories.

^ The scientific method isn't what's flawed here. People's limited ability to conceive of what the results actually mean is. I'm frequently one of those people, so I'm not pointing fingers here, I'm just saying. The problem isn't with "science" it's with how it's communicated to the public that's to blame.

ETA: @psulemon I'm agreeing with the bolded and adding an addendum.

lissmayer wrote: »

The problem with science is all those pesky advanced-degreed researchers who think their peer-reviewed, evidence-based findings have more value than my personal beliefs (which are obviously more valuable because I thought them up with my very own head).

Honestly, it's a conspiracy to denigrate my personal specialness.

I know, right? How dare these people who spend all their time studying one subject in particular think they know more than me just because I don't have none of that fancy book learning?

Vortex88 wrote: »

2) Studies, by definition, publish averages.

No. Studies publish all data. Otherwise they get laughed at.

3) Science is just the latest opinion on a subject, albeit a hopefully very educated one. The "science" of weight loss is totally different today compared to 10 years ago. 10 years from now it will be completely different again. Don’t get *too” attached to the studies we have today

Nope. You should go back and re-read your first bullet point.

4) CICO is a great place to start for weight loss but it is definitely not an absolute. I work in the fitness industry and know professional physique athletes who dramatically *increase* their calories to get lean for a show. Now, for an average person with 30 lbs to lose this may or may not apply to them but some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less. (I recently came across a great article on this which I will try to find and post below.)

Yes, it is an absolute. Basic 2nd semester physics. You seem to be either a) confusing volume of food for Calories, or b) confusing people that eat more, yet burn more off.

5) The main problem with CICO relates to hormones.

Nope. Hormones are accounted for in the equation(s).

I have seen a few snarky comments on this forum say things like “oh so your body is breaking the laws of physics is it??” when one poster says that they lose more fat on higher calories (which I have observed in myself and others many times). The thing is that the person making the comment definitely isn’t a physicist (and doesn’t really understand the laws of physics) and isn’t a physiologist either

LOL. Yes, yes there are those here. And we sometimes say things to that effect.

Vortex88 wrote: »

Science has added *so* much to the fitness / weight loss / physique world and I feel very grateful that there are people out there publishing some really high quality studies which help us to get results but science is not the be-all and end-all that some people on these forums suggest so I wanted to mention a few points that I think it’s worth keeping in mind:

For example:

1) Science has been described as "observing the world around you”. That’s the best definition I have found. Notice it doesn’t say “listening only to people who observed results in laboratories”

2) Studies, by definition, publish averages. For example: 15 subjects did x and got y result. In reality, perhaps 8 of the subjects got almost identical results, 4 got results which were close to the 8 and 3 got totally different results. Those 3 are *20%* of the test group…. and their results are completely hidden in the averages.

3) Science is just the latest opinion on a subject, albeit a hopefully very educated one. The "science" of weight loss is totally different today compared to 10 years ago. 10 years from now it will be completely different again. Don’t get *too” attached to the studies we have today

4) CICO is a great place to start for weight loss but it is definitely not an absolute. I work in the fitness industry and know professional physique athletes who dramatically *increase* their calories to get lean for a show. Now, for an average person with 30 lbs to lose this may or may not apply to them but some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less. (I recently came across a great article on this which I will try to find and post below.)

5) The main problem with CICO relates to hormones. I have seen a few snarky comments on this forum say things like “oh so your body is breaking the laws of physics is it??” when one poster says that they lose more fat on higher calories (which I have observed in myself and others many times). The thing is that the person making the comment definitely isn’t a physicist (and doesn’t really understand the laws of physics) and isn’t a physiologist either (so definitely doesn’t understand how the laws of physics relate the the trillions of processes taking place in the human body every second) so their comment is a case of “a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing”. The confusion with CICO relates to CO. The body is actually very good at down-regulating fat loss when calorie intake is reduced (if you don’t agree, see point 2 . You are alive today because a few thousand generations of your ancestors survived on very little food for most of their lives. What often produces the result is the *change*. Moving from a long period of higher calories to reduced calories or moving from a long period of lower calories to high calories. So, when someone tells you they are losing more fat on higher calories, remember that you are not a physiologist; you are a weight loss forummer; and you don’t actually have enough experience to know if someone is absolutely wrong when they are observing their own body right in front of their eyes. It’s very important to keep our minds open in this field. I can guarantee that you will have a different opinion on this subject in 10 years so why assume you are 100% correct today.

Anyway, these are a few points I wanted to put out there in case someone finds them useful. I’ve been involved in the fitness / physique world for more than 20 years so I have seen a few things along the way and whilst the current trend towards science-based fitness is extremely positive, I personally feel that we mustn’t become a slave to it.

1) observing the world around you without applying the scientific method is what leads people to believe that the world is flat and the sun revolves around us.

2) scientific studies absolutely DO NOT simply publish averages...to be taken seriously they account for all outliers as well.

3) science does change to add more detail or figure out HOW something works but rarely (almost never) changes the common knowledge that preceded it.

4) I'm sure you know a person who loses weight by eating more and exorcising less...you should sign them up for a scientific study.

5) CICO is fact, what we don't understand is that IT IS AN ESTIMATE AT BEST. It is impossible to know exactly how much of your food you have actually digested (especially things like corn and beans), how your hormones have affected your rate of burn, whether you have a disorder that affects your CO like hyper/hypo thyroidism...that doesn't mean it doesn't all add up scientifically, it means we can't see it on our scale or predict it with online calculators.

As others have stated, the problem with science is not really with science at all, it's with a) how it's communicated to us through the media and b) our ability to understand what's being communicated.

The ultimate problem is that people don't understand what CICO means.

They think that they can exactly calculate calorie_in/calorie_out, and when they don't lose weight, well CICO must be wrong.

Umm no, your calculations are wrong.
Yes, eating more can temporarily rev your metabolism and make your body drop weight. (hence many people drop weight after eating a little more for a week). But guess what, this means that CO has increased. The formula is still correct. The problem is that you are assuming that your CI/CO is static.

Eat too little, and you become sluggish, and your calorie burn drops. Eat a little more, suddenly you have energy, and take the stairs, tap your feet while you work etc. Yes, all this adds up to more calories than your one hour workout which hasn't changed.....

CoffeeNCardio wrote: »

psulemon wrote: »

I wouldn't say this is an issue with science but rather an interpretation of the study at hand. Many people fail to understand the parameters of what the study is being conducted.


CICO does account for hormones as hormones will affect the CO portion; more often, it's a deregulation of metabolism. People fail at CICO because they feel an online calculator is accurate. And many people assume they are equally as accurate in tracking CI, which statistically, even trained professions under report calories in by as much as 422 calories.

^ The scientific method isn't what's flawed here. People's limited ability to conceive of what the results actually mean is. I'm frequently one of those people, so I'm not pointing fingers here, I'm just saying. The problem isn't with "science" it's with how it's communicated to the public that's to blame.

ETA: @psulemon I'm agreeing with the bolded and adding an addendum.

This.

I think PhD comics did a very good job depicting how science gets disseminated to the public these days.



The only thing I would add to this is another panel where 10 years later people smuggly point out that science was wrong all along and new findings show that A doesn't actually cause B like all the scientists were claiming 10 years ago (not realizing that the science never actually made that claim in the first place, the media and general public made that claim).

Aaron_K123 wrote: »

The only thing I would add to this is another panel where 10 years later people smuggly point out that science was wrong all along and new findings show that A doesn't actually cause B like all the scientists were claiming 10 years ago (not realizing that the science never actually made that claim in the first place, the media and general public made that claim).

And to that, I add this rant I had a few days ago on another post:

Scientific claims aren't "always changing" the way they're being talked about here; they are in a constant state of refinement. We're not going to find out tomorrow that the sun revolves around the earth. It's just not going to happen. We may find out that it doesn't do this EXACTLY how we thought it does, but it still doesn't revolve around the earth. And that's no support for the idea that because "Science is always changing" that science is somehow unreliable or a waste of time. Science RARELY just up and changes it's mind on a set of facts. When science "changes" what it's doing is refining the statement it has made to be clearer, more correct, more accurate. But the basis of that statement remains true. We knew atoms existed before we could actually see them, and when we could finally see them, we confirmed a few things we believed about them as well as ADDED information that we didn't formerly have. But we didn't find out we were totally wrong and atoms do not in fact exist. We just found out more information about their existence That's what "science is always changing" really means. Not that we're gonna find out tomorrow the earth really was flat after all, but that maybe rather than perfectly spherical, it's a little oblong. Science changes by adding information to already existing bodies of facts, modifying them a LITTLE, not changing their minds entirely. The scientific method is the greatest tool we have for understanding the world around us. If there are errors it is self correcting. The only thing that will ever prove a scientific finding wrong is just better science.

When you read a "Shocking new discovery made by scientists!" in the paper, you're not hearing the Facts. You're not hearing something that is in line with the current model commonly accepted by the scientific community. You're hearing an over-stated, overblown, exaggerated all to hell HYPOTHESIS. The hypothesis is what the papers and magazines print because it's interesting. When a scientists says "hey I wonder if the coffee is what's killing them? Let's test that" the magazine reports "Coffee is killing us all! A shocking new study says that drinking coffee may be the reason you're fat and gonna die of heart disease!". That article may have NOTHING at all to do with the study, because what sells papers is that headline. The Hypothesis makes for the most interesting read, and science editors gotta make money, so that's what makes it into the article. Not the 30 following studies showing how the first study was totally flawed. Not the actual scientist who ran the study saying "but hey wait, I only tested 30 people, and even then there's a margin of error, and more importantly, I was trying to see if coffee is killing specifically this subset of people who consume fewer calories due to coffee, and specifically, those who are already underweight and at risk for X". When you see "Science is changing all the time" you're seeing *hypotheses* changing. Which they're supposed to do. What changes all the time (again, by design) are hypotheses -- not theories (a grouping of FACTS that describe one model of how X works, in science, theory means something very different from how we use it in the common tongue), and certainly not facts. A hypothesis is, after all, an early part of the scientific method; a tentative explanation for something which is then tested by experimentation and more observation. And science doesn't make claims about hypotheses, it TESTS them. Then, if the hypothesis can be repeatedly, rigorously tested and proven over and over and over again, then and only then, it can be accepted as a truthful statement about reality.

And most importantly of all, if you come across a "scientific claim" that seems to completely contradict an existing model (body of facts) stop for a minute and nerd the heck out of that claim. It is incredibly rare, so rare we're talking almost never (think back to Galileo), for some single new piece of evidence in some single study to completely change an already existing scientific model of reality. No one is gonna come up with anything tomorrow that will completely disprove CICO. All that will happen is that that portion of thermodynamics might be refined to be EVEN MORE accurate than it already is. We're REALLY SURE the earth revolves around the sun. Positive. If tomorrow something in science "changes" that, it will only "change" it in such a way as to make it more accurate than it already is. "The earth revolves the sun AND... BY... BECAUSE..." Science "changing" is simply the addition of a modifier, and is Frequently the addition of SUPPORTING evidence for the already existing model.

Vortex88 wrote: »

Some good points here.... and a lot of snarkiness (to be expected). Not going to argue the points because everyone is entitled to their opinion and we are, of course, all at different stages on this journey. Would certainly be interesting to see photos of the bodies on threads like this though. Not that having a great physique is necessarily a guarantee of anything but it's certainly interesting to see the physiques behind the opinions. In the fitness world there seems to be a baffling inverse correlation behind having a great physique and training "scientifically". After all these years, I admit that I still can't figure out exactly why... although I have some ideas.

I support CICO (to include eating "junk food" as it fits your goals). I support science. Here are some pictures of my physique, including a picture from when I joined MFP in 2011.
2011, body by ignorance:

Body by science and CICO: