Gary Taubes is an investigative science and health journalist and a best-selling author. In this podcast, Gary explains how he developed a healthy skepticism for science as he was transitioning from being a physics major to beginning as a science journalist. He talks about how he was particularly drawn to sussing out “pathologic science,” telling the stories behind his books on the discovery of the W and Z bosons and cold fusion, emphasizing the need for researchers to perform a thorough background analysis. Gary then describes how his work came to focus on public health, nutrition, and obesity. He provides a great historic overview of obesity research and provides his explanation for why the conventional wisdom today is incorrect.

We discuss:

Gary’s background in science and journalism, and developing a healthy skepticism for science [1:50];
Gary’s boxing experience, and the challenge of appreciating behavioral risk [8:10];
How Gary developed his writing skills, and what the best science writers do well [16:15];
Example of how science can go wrong, and the story behind Gary’s first book, Nobel Dreams [24:45];
Theoretical vs. experimental physicists: The important differentiation and the relationship between the two [35:30];
Pathological science: research tainted by unconscious bias or subjective effects [40:00];
Reflecting on the aftermath of writing Nobel Dreams and the legacy of Carlo Rubbia [49:15];
Scientific fraud: The story of the cold fusion experiments at Georgia Tech and the subject of Gary’s book, Bad Science [53:15];
Problems with epidemiology, history of the scientific method, and the conflict of public health science [1:08:30];
Gary’s first foray into the bad science of nutrition [1:26:15];
Research implicating insulin’s role in obesity, and the story behind what led to Gary’s book, Good Calories, Bad Calories [1:35:45]
The history of obesity research, dietary fat, and fat metabolism [1:45:30]
The evolving understanding of the role of fat metabolism in obesity and weight gain [1:54:45]
Mutant mice experiments giving way to competing theories about obesity [2:03:30]
How Gary thinks about the findings that do not support his alternative hypothesis about obesity [2:07:30]
Challenges with addressing the obesity and diabetes epidemics, palatability and convenience of food, and other hypotheses [2:14:15];
Challenging the energy balance hypothesis, and the difficulty of doing good nutrition studies [2:24:30]; and
More.

#167 - Gary Taubes: Bad science and challenging the conventional wisdom of obesity

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