The reason people are arguing against you is that even in 2012 on HN in the face of currently incompletely understood complexity people instantly start forming micro-religions complete with prophets and various 'higher-powers', and of course heretics and infidels.
I mean seriously this article pretty much says "wow, this stuff is complex and really hard to make sense of", and the top comment is "but I have found the truth in this book!"
I fully agree with you, I think the paleo approach has some pretty sound ideas. But when I hear people talk about how "evolution" commands we shall eat no grains I get really worried about how quickly educated people can turn science into magic.
Really? My comment pointed towards two books, and a follow up argument suggested Feinmans old well known article for kicks.
What exactly is the point you are trying to make? By contrast, your comment lacks any real substance other than accusing me inciting religious war and telling us about your burden having to worry that educated people turn science into magic.
Bullshit. Where are your articles? Please, point to the articles that show that a diet abundant in grain from carbohydrates is ok, let alone good for you.
I am not sure how you can read accusation of religiously motivated blindness/idolatry as anything but an attack really, it isn't a well-reasoned argument against a position, just ad-hominem.
Coincidently I am currently reading the aforementioned book myself (oh no, I am a religous loon!!), and if anything I get the impression of an exacerbated person basically pointing out that:
1: The current status quo in nutritional science was established before there was large scale data to confirm/refute it. It was heavily influenced by very few (I believe he mentions 1 or 2) specific scientists and became orthodoxy almost through force of will not necessarily because the data (which they didn't have) actually supported the hypothesis.
2: There are now numerous studies and quite a bit of data that seem to at least point to alternative hypothesis that should be explored. I don't recall yet having seen the author claim even the carbohydrate hypothesis he talks about is correct, just that it should be getting more study/attention than it is in main-stream nutritional science, and that it is better supported by the study data we do have than the currently accepted hypothesis which the studies we undertaken to test.
3: The idea that sedentary lifestyles coupled with abundantly available food just doesn’t track with the actual data as obesity seems to track much more closely with availability highly refined carbohydrates and massively increased sugar consumption. That said both could well play into it, it isn’t necessarily an either-or but much like the famous global warming vs. number of pirates graph it also doesn’t show causation, just correlation, and perhaps meaningless/misleading correlation at that.
4: Explaining obesity by overeating is as useful as explaining alcoholism by overdrinking (okay, I just threw that in because it is a funny quote :))
His primary push that I have taken away thus far is ‘we should be exploring this hypothesis, which isn’t actually terribly new nor is it terribly radical’. He claims people generally aren’t for unclear reasons (though I haven't picked up any sort of conspiracy vibes yet, which I was expecting). I have looked around for someone to refute his book but all I found was a weak refutation in Reason[1] which he responded to, and in my opinion, destroyed the critique quite handily [2]. I would be very interested in any responses that actually take to task the quoted studies / science from his book instead of attacking him by-proxy by calling Atkins a kook.
2. I'm not going to respond to (or even read) any of your points about nutrition because you seem to be arguing with someone else, not me! I have no horse in this race, because I've never looked into it. I think you and gxs rather misunderstood Homonculiheaded's words -- which were about the general way folk were arguing, and not really about specific points at all.
It sounds like you've probably got a lot of insight to offer the community here, but you're doing yourself and us a disservice to resort to name calling like that. Just let your knowledge speak for itself and let's all remain civil. At the end of the day we're all in a pretty tight knot community here. Or maybe I'm just a crazy hippy :)
I mean seriously this article pretty much says "wow, this stuff is complex and really hard to make sense of", and the top comment is "but I have found the truth in this book!"
I fully agree with you, I think the paleo approach has some pretty sound ideas. But when I hear people talk about how "evolution" commands we shall eat no grains I get really worried about how quickly educated people can turn science into magic.