Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Gary Taubes Names Names

I have received an email from Gary Taubes in response to Good Science Bad Science ~ Good Schtick Bad Schtick.  He indicated that I could share the email so long as I shared it in full.  I will do so, including my response to it, in the near future.  But to the core of the email, Taubes answered my questions regarding the identities of those cited in his recent interview.   I'll share those now.

The "smartest guy around" (a description I'm in agreement with FWIW) was indeed Richard Hanson.   I am totally bewildered by any assertion that this man would have read the G3P section of GCBC (Ch. 22) and signed off on it as accurate.   Some References:

The Discovery of the Glyceroneogenic Pathway: the Work of Richard Hanson (Feb. 2007)

Glyceride-Glycerol Synthesis from Pyruvate (1994)


Co-author of this paper cited in GCBC:  Glyceroneogenesis and the Triglyceride/Fatty Acid Cycle


I challenge anyone reading this to come up with an explanation for why glyceroneogenesis is not even worthy of mention in 2007, or that the book contained anywhere near the (paraphrasing from Taubes' interview w/Jimmy) 'state of the science of glyceroneogenesis' at the time.  

The two biophysicists:  Kevin Hall and Carson Chow

The "English guy":  Keith Frayn at Oxford
A lot of Frayn's (remarkably diverse body of) work would run counter to theories in GCBC, but Taubes' main reference to Frayn in GCBC is in Chapter 18 describing difficulties of weight loss and how our metabolisms adjust.  

I went 0 for 4 on these as I just couldn't wrap my head around Hanson as being the first guy.  He would be the obvious person, and many my readers therefore went 1 for 4.


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