Thursday, April 14, 2011

On Cherry Picking & Debunking

A repeated response - in the comments here and over at Weighty Matters - to my recent post, Calories, fat or carbohydrates? Why diets work (when they do) ,  included two criticisms.

  1. That I am guilty of the same cherry picking that I accuse Taubes of, and
  2. That my conclusions are somehow misguided, or whatever,  because they are not what the original authors concluded or were studying.  
OK.  So to the first point, what is cherry picking?  Well, there are two types:
a.  Including only references that support one's theories and ignoring those that refute it, or
b.  Selecting phrases or data from a single source while ignoring other phrases or data that contradict one's thesis.
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