thank you very much my my talk is pivots
rather well but between the two other
talk so the first talk which was utterly
brilliant presented almost all the data
that I was going to present so thank you
very much for that
and in my book breakfast is a dangerous
meal I say some very nice things about
dr. Lustig so as I say I pivot and the
way I this talk is going to work in view
of these out to other talks is I going
to talk relatively briefly and we're
going to really push the Q&A session
because that always works better so let
me just tell a few stories first when I
was an intern in my medical in my
hospital and don't forget in Britain
doctors go to medical school much
younger than here so I was only 23 or 24
at the time I worked for the professor
of medicine and we had a patient who was
extremely ill but the professor of
medicine persuaded the professor of
surgery to operate on this person almost
as a favor
and so I wheeled the patient across
through what we call the operating
theatre patient was operated upon very
predictably died and the professor
surgery instructed me to take this
patient out of his operating theatre and
put the patient in the anaesthetic room
because he didn't want his statistics
mocked up I obeyed orders whereupon the
professor of anesthetics in a rage threw
me out of his anaesthetic room and said
under no circumstances will this patient
be registered as dying in the anesthetic
run so rather reluctantly I went back to
our own ward so that the patient could
be registered as having died under the
professor medicine who was my boss who
told me very clearly this is a true
story by the way that admission was
denied and in the end the patient was
registered by me as having died in the
corridor and so no one had to take
responsibility but I learned her lesson
then about just how reliable some
medical data can be I then did a PhD at
the University locks
but and I discovered that my PhD
supervisor when presented with data have
a sort of trick he would look at the
data and he'd say well that point an
outlier is a nation I'm not sure about
the circumstances of that experiment and
he would remove the points and then
we're upon statistical significance
would emerge and would publish and I
remember being really shocked as shocked
by him as I was by my professors of
Bart's until I went to the University of
Newcastle which is a very respectable
new course University in Britain but not
of the highest standards it's not bad I
mean Newcastle is a great university but
it's not Oxford or Cambridge and I
discovered a culture at Newcastle of
scrupulous honesty and I remember at one
point saying to a friend of mine we were
working together I said you know if this
was my old lab back in Oxford and we
were having this trouble we saved the
next three months we wouldn't be we'll
just get rid of that camera and I
remember my colleague being truly
shocked
Newcastle had a culture of scrupulous
honesty with the result that everything
went so slowly and we were always being
scooped and I wondered ruk then and I
still to this day don't know what the
lesson of this is but it seemed to me
that one of the reasons that great
scientists win the race besides is the
race is in the sense perhaps they know
when to cut corners and so honestly I
don't know I just I'm just telling you
stories of things that have happened to
me in my career without without giving
any conclusions these are things that
happened to me that made an impression
upon me the reason I'm standing here is
that for the first time I wrote
something interesting was when and this
sounds like a British story but it
relates to America very closely when
mrs. Thatcher in the 1980s was denied an
honorary degree by the University of
Oxford because she'd cut the British
government's funding for British science
and everyone erupted in the British
universities mrs. Thatcher was
destroying British science and we had
the same stories in America by the way
under Reagan and there were similar cuts
and you have the same stuff in the
literature actually in America about how
Reagan was cutting and destroying four
decides
American science my problem was that I
was between Oxford and New Castle at the
time and I could see that both
universities were absolutely flourishing
and growing huge numbers of labs all the
time
and when I said to my friends in Oxford
well where is this famous decline of
British science and they said you don't
understand pterence oxford cambridge
london the Golden Triangle the
government's protecting them that's the
heart of British science but go out to
the provinces and it's a desert well I
was out of the province is I was in
Newcastle and when I said to them
hospitals labs growing all over the
place in Newcastle where's the decline
in the British science oh you don't
understand pterence the government's
protecting the provinces because that's
where the votes are but go to the heart
of British science also Cambridge in
London and it's the desert and what I
learned is that people very very quickly
very I mean these are top scientists
very quickly rationalize and create a
little paradigm to justify what they
believe is true they they weren't lying
to me these people they were lying to
themselves actually because they wanted
to pressurize the government what I also
discovered is that the the pressure
group called save British science was
presenting data that was quite
extraordinarily biased and so we were
told for example that the share of
papers published globally by British
scientists had fallen over a 10-year
period by 10% you had exactly the same
data going on in America by the way we
were told that government funding for
science had gone down by so many
millions of dollars pounds what nobody
told us nobody told us was that every 15
years the total number of scientific
papers in the world doubles and has done
so by the way since 1750 and continues
to so a 10% fall of share of papers
actually means that instead of doubling
every 15 years British science was
doubling every 17 years and the reason
the double rate in Britain was slightly
slower than where was that the countries
of the Pacific Rim Japan Korea and the
Mediterranean Rin when they were growing
so fast as they converge that they were
they're doubling time was only ten years
equally no
one told us yes British government
funding has gone down but the private
funding had gone up three times more in
what's called crowding out that's what
happens in so much of the public sector
government pulls back private sector
more than compensates for vice versa
and so we were given very very partial
data indeed by people who knew they were
presenting only partial data and the
people who knew they were presented
partial data were senior professors in
major British universities and you had
exactly the same thing going on here in
America that was very interesting to me
and I wondered what that meant now we
are told no I noted about global warming
but I would say one thing about global
warming we are told that the science is
settled and 97% of scientists will agree
that co2 bla bla bla you will know the
story when our first child was born in
1991 we were told it wasn't put in these
words but we were told the science was
settled and 97% of neonatologists agreed
their newborn babies had to be moved on
their tummies to avoid what we call cot
death you have a scientific name for it
in 1993 when our second child was born
we were told the science was settled and
you had to put a newborn baby on his
back because it turned out that putting
babies on their tummies was responsible
for over seventy percent of cot deaths
what was fascinating to me was no one
ever apologized no one said you know we
might have got this wrong what you
actually got it was almost like a
Stalinist eight complete monolithic
dogma and then one morning a completely
different monolithic dogma but both
completely dogmatic the science is
settled and 97% of scientists agree so
it was almost as if science is like a
huge school of fish all going in the
same direction there's a sudden slash as
each fish turns around but you hardly
see the flat and then they're all going
in the same direction with the same
utter confidence as before and I wonder
if this isn't in fact a quality of
science
now when I forgot my first book on the
economics of science I'm so fascinated
by the complete myth that the British
and American government had cut science
and everyone in the ku communities was
saying that that's what have happened
that I wrote a book on the economics of
science and I showed in is relevant to
what I'm about to say that governments
don't need to fund science and it's not
for economic reasons I talked about that
room but the point was and I'm going to
name someone because he's now safely
dead and he was Nathan Rosenberg Nathan
Rosenberg is a very nice man and a great
economist of science he was professor at
Stanford and I spent two or three days
with him and he taught me an awful lot
about the economics of science so I read
his papers and at the end of this
process I said to him we were walking
through the campus at Stanford and I've
never forgotten this moment and I said
to him you know Nathan I've been
thinking about your work in the field
and it seems to me that your own work
shows that governments don't need to
fund science at least not if you're
interested in economic growth and I've
never forgotten his hand shot out and
grabbed me like this and we stopped in
the middle of this campus he stopped
Terence you must never ever say that you
must never even hint that that could be
the implication of my work because if
ever it got out that Nathan Rosenberg
who's talked about himself suggested
that governments needn't fund science
what do you think that would do to my
standing in the academic community I
would be shunned what do you think that
would do to the consultancies I get when
I go and advise the Japanese or other
foreign governments all that work would
stop but my reputation would be
destroyed it cannot be said and he
refused to tell me what he believed I
have no doubt that he knew that
governments did need to fund science
I also have no doubt that he refused to
admit it even to himself because he had
a life he was a fellow and a professor
at Stanford and that was important to
him and why not so the reason I tell
these stories is I think there is a vast
myth that scientists are somehow
objective and honest and I actually
think the data shows that
scientists are human beings and they
don't seek to be dishonest I mean it's
very unusual to meet a dishonest
scientist so I wrote a book which I'm
just coming to called breakfast as a
dangerous meal I would have liked it to
have been about sugar and fat howlite
had written the sort of book that our
two other authors today have written but
that was already covered by people like
them and breakfast is where I came into
it so I wrote it about breakfast and I I
review about 200 papers in here and only
one of them I think was actually
dishonest I think only one of these 200
papers I could sense where the
scientists had done what my PhD
supervisor done and pushed a few data
points around the other 199 rubbish
papers were written by scientists who
either interpreted it willfully wrong or
were fooling even themselves so let me
tell you how I got into the business of
nutrition and I'm obviously not a very
great person because very great people
work things out on abstract principles
in things I've ever done of interest of
those that struck me personally so I
could see for myself the British science
wasn't in decline and that bothered me
and I could see for myself that
breakfast is a dangerous meal and that
happened very simply 2010 I was
diagnosed with type-2 diabetes diagnoses
were made by my wife who knows
absolutely nothing about medicine but
she could see that I was peeing and you
know you all know what diagnosis is type
2 diabetes it I secretly knew of course
but I thought if I ignored it it would
go away which wasn't very grown-up but
there we are and I was taken to my
doctor by my wife she drove me as like
again like Starlin and in the book I say
he because I do but in fact she was a
lady doctor she's very very actually
very serious type too I had very a very
high levels indeed of blood glucose and
I'd lost a couple of what we call stone
I lost 20 or 30 pounds or something I
mean really terrible and and I was told
what to do and what I was told to do was
I had to eat frequently and lots of
complex carbohydrates and avoid fat and
don't drink that's what I was told
2010
given I would see the dieticians I was
given all this staff and I paid orders
but the one thing I did that disobeyed
orders so this is England remember which
is a socialist country I got hold of the
glucometer which England they don't give
to patients because they don't really
like patients virtually no blood glucose
levels because they might work things
out for themselves
although curiously they haven't millions
and millions and millions of type 2
patients have glucometers I appear to
being the first one to point it out the
crushingly obvious fact that if you are
a type 2 diabetic as I discovered within
2 or 3 days and you eat a standard
breakfast as instructed by the
dieticians porridge we call it oatmeal
you call it that's what I was told to
eat your blood sugar level just shoot it
starts off high and it shoots up into
the sky it turns out that the British
diabetic Association which unlike the
American diabetic Association if the
first talk is to be believed still says
you must eat carbohydrates and breakfast
the British diabetic Association has now
given up on giving patients glucometers
in Britain because apparently patients
record all this and don't understand
what it means it's really very bizarre
but I trained as a doctor and then did a
PhD in metabolic biochemistry so I was
able to interpret the blood glucose
level as everybody in this room can as
well what I very quickly discovered for
myself feeling very lonely is that
breakfast was very dangerous for
diabetics because of course and everyone
in this room knows this you have in the
morning cortisol peak and the morning
cortisol peak gives you instant glucose
resistance it's the one time you should
not be eating carbohydrates the effect
by the way on diabetics of skipping
breakfast is very dramatic either type 1
or type 2 in it many of you will have
such patients anyway I very quickly
followed my own advice which is no
carbohydrates no glucose England in 2010
was not friendly - I felt very lonely
working these things out for myself but
there we are and I went back to my
doctor
and she said to me and I've never
forgotten this conversation she said
fewer than one patient and a hundred has
achieved what you've achieved what fewer
than 1 in 100 you have reversed a type-2
diabetes actually it's not completely
reverse I'm most of my hba1c levels
fall in the sort of pre-diabetic
arrangement but everything had been
pretty damn reversed and you've done all
the things I told you not to do and I
said to her and she's a great doctor by
the way so this is not a criticism of
her she's a lovely doctor I said to her
well doesn't that make you think and she
said no she said and she produced what
we in England call the nice Guidelines
nice dance for nationís use of clinical
excellence which is our Stalinist body
that tells you what you have to do in
medicine or you can get sued no she said
here are the nice guidelines and is my
job as a doctor to obey the nice
guidelines it's not my job to think do
you do things original and so I got
nowhere with her if you were ever to
come to the Cato Institute in Washington
DC and you were to walk in to the doors
with me and you can go without me by the
way there's a very nice gentleman sits
at the front he's a black gentleman he's
about 65 he's a retired staff sergeant
of the United States Air Force and if
you walk in with me he will stand up and
salute not you it's me he's saluting and
the story is fascinating I got there
about a year ago after I won't bore you
the details of my chronology at Cato but
about a year ago we were chatting and he
was telling me he'd been diagnosed with
Type 2 and then it progressed to insulin
dependence as many of you one will know
and it was terrible he was completely
out of control his feet were becoming
really painful his doctor was beginning
to talk to him about hmm that's bad news
about feet hurting all the time his
lipids were out everything was out of
control
and he was on insulin and the whole
shooting match and I said have you
thought of going on with glucose
carbohydrate free diet oh no I can't do
that he said I'm told I got to eat
breakfast lunch tea and dinner I got to
make complex carbohydrates no sugar but
lots of complex carbohydrates and no fat
that's what he was told in Washington DC
a year ago just a year ago so I
persuaded him that my wife said you
realize you're gonna get sued but anyway
I persuaded him within ten days not only
was he not on insulin he was on no drugs
he was completely cured completely
and now a year later even his feet are
beginning to hurt less so he went to see
his doctor and they sweetly took a copy
of my book where all this is explained
and it was like a television show the
conversation I had with my doctor she
said even more enthusiastically she said
this is miraculous we were talking about
an amputation and now you're cured she
said I have never seen this before and
he said would you like to read the book
where it's all explained and she said no
he was really shocked being a staff
sergeant in the US Air Force in his
naivety he assumed that doctors and
scientists were rational curious folk
who wanted to know how the world worked
to their patients could get better
he's doctors clearly a good person but
you can see the cognitive dissonance
what if she said that to another patient
you can imagine being sued a thousand
times over so we have a problem which is
that's not just doctors it's scientists
as well that we commit to paradigms and
then we bend the data to it so I wrote
this book which is I think why I'm here
to dirt this article for Cato which is
why does the federal government issue
dietary damaging dietary guidelines you
all know the story but let me just
revise it because it is so fascinating
40 50 60 years ago there was this
terrible outbreak of heart attacks
particularly of men in this country but
actually throughout the Western world
what's interesting is that no one knows
what caused it I mean obviously smoking
contributed obviously if you talk to
Nina teach Schultz who's a friend she
thinks the introduction of vegetable
oils
marjorine trans fats contributed there's
an extraordinary type correlation with
the incidence of peptic ulcer ation
deaths so one wonders have had something
to do with the helical bacterium
epidemic there may have been some
connection I personally am very
interested in the
fetal starvation hypothesis all that is
described in that it's all online
nickels in which if you are a child a
fetus born of a mother who is relatively
malnourished not starving but
malnourished but then you in later life
become very well nourished that seems to
induce a terrific outburst of guard
diabetes and heart attacks and things
and you know you have those Pacific
Islanders were passively everybody's
diabetic because that's exactly what
those populations were gone through from
relatively little food to a lot of food
so I think it's a complex thing it's
obviously a complicated thing but Ancel
Keys the Minnesota physiologist he
decided this was because we were eating
fat and because atherosclerosis has made
a fat and we were eating fat a equals B
and what is interesting about the answer
Keys phenomenon is that even at the time
he was told you know you're probably
wrong and this is well chronicled lots
of scientists are saying you probably
got this wrong and within two years by
the way and I find this particularly
fascinating within two years he'd said
you know I got cholesterol wrong he
himself said this you can eat as much
cholesterol as you like makes no
difference because it just turns off
liver synthesis it took the federal
government 40 years 2015 to change the
advice they insisted that the proof or
rather the dis proof was utterly
meticulous it took 40 years to disprove
a hypothesis that had just been thrown
out as a speculation but because the
federal government had absolutely
committed to the speculation it simply
could not bring itself to acknowledge
that that could be wrong and Credit
Suisse run the foundation by the way and
this is an attack on everyone in this
room and they published a paper in 2015
saying is it interesting almost all
doctors believe that eating cholesterol
is bad for you and you shouldn't eat
eggs and kidneys and things and this
just shows how ignorant doctors are but
that's what we were all told I was told
because Ansel pz's rebuttal of his own
data was not accepted by the federal
and so the question therefore is and of
course as we all now know thanks to Gary
Taubes and the work of others in this
room it was all nonsense on sticks from
beginning to end and so the question
therefore becomes why do we do this as
scientists I mean no one in this room
needs to be told that science is always
getting it wrong everyone in this room
knows that the person who invented the
idea that continents shift destroyed his
career by so doing everyone knows that
everyone knows that Semmelweis in vienna
destroyed his career by suggesting that
obstetricians should wash her hands
before rather than after delivering his
babies we all know that science is
constantly correcting itself and yet at
any one moment it's always the same 97%
of scientists agree that the science is
settled and the government makes it
worse there's a very good paper by a man
called Daniel tsarevets which has got
again.they is available online and he
points out here we come back to the
government funding of science this is
what happens before in this country
America before 1950 the government in
this country did not fund science I
think it's often forgotten is that there
was no federal government funding of
science
apart from military stuffing but there
was no federal government funding of
science for the purpose of supporting
science a sense a core supporting
economic growth because you were utterly
committed to the concept of less a fair
so even when Smithson gave the money for
the Smithsonian Institution there were
votes in the conch quite long though I
mean it was really debated should we
take the money even though someone
else's money because this wasn't the
federal government responsibility in the
end it was taken but that was the
beginning and end of American
involvement in silence until 1950 and
the reason for that was less a fair and
then in 1950 the Truman Doctrine was
announced and you-you-you you entered on
permanent war with the Soviets and the
Cold War and then you started fun
science as part of the military
initiative in fact but you then created
a monster and the monster is the NIH and
the NSF and all the other funding bodies
before 1950 if you wanted to do science
in this country America you either have
to go to a charity like the American
Heart Foundation or whatever all you had
to go to a company like Bell Labs and
say I want to do science and ultimately
this is what I want to show and a Sara
vet says it's technology that keeps
science honest it's because ultimately
what you as a scientist were doing was
ultimately going to be tested against
the patient or against a radar machine
whatever it's the technology that kept
science honest but now you get money not
for being right you get money for
satisfying the prejudices of the people
who sit on the committees in the NIH and
the NSF and if someone like Ancel Keys
comes along and says 97% of scientists
agree that the science is settled and
eggs give you heart attacks then the
only papers that get the only grant
applications to get accepted the only
papers they get published the only
people who get promoted the tenure are
those who say all the right things
otherwise Nathan Rosenberg's hand grips
you and says never ever say that
Terrence and so what we have done is we
have created the self referential system
by which you are rewarded for
reinforcing the prejudices of people who
may well be wrong and will never know
because their science has been tested
against reality they're getting the
money from Congress and they're giving
money to their chums and that doesn't
work so well in nuclear physics it
doesn't work so well you've got a rocket
going to Mars but once you're in the
world of low grade statistics and here
the first talk really couldn't put it
better once you know you can use
statistics for anything I remember when
I was an intern and the hospital I was
in suddenly got this new machine so that
instead of saying I think we'll test
sodium or it will test potassium you
this is England by the way Bay backward
you sent off a blood sample to the lab
and you suddenly got 50 words
SPAC we've never had anything like this
before I was part of that process when
suddenly doctors instead of looking at
discrete analyte suddenly got a whole
mass of things that enzymes all sorts of
wonderful sophisticated things and every
single patient was that normal because
the definition of normal range was 95
because then you only had to have 21
tests and we were getting 65 tests two
or three of them would of course be
wrong and so abnormal and then and it's
the same as stats you could I mean you
really can do anything with stats you
can not publish things they love the
numbers of biases are vast and you will
bias yourself either consciously or
unconsciously to get the grant so in the
book on breakfast they don't actually
shut up because the question answers
what we really want in the book on
breakfast the facts about breakfast are
really simple the idea that breakfast is
good for you is an idea that oddly and
this may surprise many of you is
promoted by the Kellogg's company and
General Mills and the bacon companies
and they fund armies of scientists if
you want to work on breakfast you will
get your grant I can tell you now you'll
get your grant as long as Kellogg's
believe that well I'm not going to name
Kellogg's because that could get me into
trouble as long as the company you're
interested in believe that you want to
write a paper that says breakfast is
good for you you will get funded I
promise you there's no difficulty I mean
there really is no difficulty the truth
about breakfast is this by the way it's
a complete myth
if you eat breakfast you will on average
consume more than 200 calories a day
than the person who skips breakfast this
is now so well-established that even
places like Harvard and we heard earlier
that paper we read about that the former
speaker was getting so rightly so
agitated about towards the end the one
that says carbohydrates are good for you
and that that last paper that came from
the Harvard public school public health
thing well they they write similar
papers on breakfast even they now
acknowledge that breakfast actually
increases the number of calories even
Harvard now does so what breakfast does
that increases number of calories and
yet and now this is where the myth comes
and this is worth thinking about people
who eat breakfast are thinner than
people who don't
let me say that again people who eat
breakfast are thinner than people who
don't
well obviously eating breakfast makes
you thin in some magical way which is
what we've been told but decades now of
course it's not true I mean the fact is
true the fact is true what is actually
happening is this firstly people who
have fat skip breakfast because they're
trying to slim and it's the easiest meal
to skid people who are thin think of I'm
thin I can ease about breakfast as I
want that explains one major correlation
the other correlation and I'm going to
use words sensitively I don't anyone
thinking I'm being insensitive so I'm
just using words sensitively there is a
real CCO economic gradient about
breakfast people of the more humble
socio-economic groups and I'm not trying
to offend anyone here tend to need more
chaotic lives they tend to smoke more
they tend to drink more they tend to be
larger and they tend to skip breakfast
because of the lives they lead while
nice slim middle-class people who live
in hot areas of Boston they tend to eat
very discretely but their Bay or ders
and eat breakfast because they know they
have to but they need ordered lives and
so they're slimmer in fact if you look
at breakfast knowing that you
immediately discover all sorts of
fascinating correlations so for example
girls who skip breakfast lose their
virginities on average two years earlier
than girls who eat breakfast does this
mean therefore I obviously have to
finish the sentence you never hear that
from the cereal companies because even
they know that you know that it can't
have anything to do it must be an
association and so it goes on there are
all these associations out there and it
doesn't take very much intelligence to
work out which associations will please
your funders whether it's the NIH which
by the way does believe in breakfast or
the American diabetic Association which
sadly does believe in breakfast or
whether it's a corporation and so we are
stuck with the problem that we
scientists love our paradigm
and the other great problem and I'm
going to shut up now the other great
problem is they're all great scientists
ignore falsification we are all told
that science is about falsification and
verification so a statement is a
scientific statement and when it's
falsified oh it's gone and that is not
true all great scientists ignore
falsification I may tell you one little
episode and then I'll shut up because
questions if you look at the age of the
earth in the nineteenth century this was
a major debate how old was the earth and
it turned out that there were two
schools of thought those scientists who
measured the temperature of the larvae
and the stuff in the middle of the earth
and the rates which the earth conducts
heat worked out that the earth could not
be more than five million years old
because if it was any older
it would have cooled on the other hand
another group of scientists they were
the looking at the fossils they worked
out the earth had to be at least 300
million years old
otherwise you couldn't have had all
those layers of rocks and those fossils
each group of scientists had been
disproved they'd been disproved both of
them so in the world according to the
textbooks each group of scientists as
though I've been disproved I shall go
off and become a gardener or something
that's not what they did what they did
is they created two different this is
largely based in London London was then
the capital science course America now
is they call they form two societies as
the Geological Society and there was the
Zoological Society and if you believe in
one set of facts and it went with
religion by the way and never
underestimate the power of unreason in
science all the Christians went with the
five million year theory because that's
not Genesis but it's close to Genesis
all the atheists went to the three
hundred million year very because that
really showed the Christians
and it really is how they divided I mean
it's quite bizarre that is how the site
is divided which tells you that science
is so often driven by unreasoned very
important and for many many years
they've if they met in the streets or
the clubs they were of course very
polite to each other the true group
societies had different societies
different journals different meetings
and ignored each other they refused to
accept falsification very important as
it turned out in the end as we all know
it was a 300 million crowd in fact as
course as we now knows 4.5 billion but
they didn't know that but the point is
they were right by the way for those of
you who wondered how it was resolved
someone somewhere nothing to do with
this debate discover something called
radioactivity someone somewhere
discovered the radioactivity releases
heat and someone somewhere discovered
that the center of the earth is
radioactive
so obviously the earth is four and a
half billion years old but didn't know
at the time the point is if Sir Charles
Lyell and Charles Darwin and all the
other gradualists had done as we are
told they should have done and accepted
falsification it wouldn't have been a
good thing so what makes science so
difficult just like my friend in Oxford
who would beat his friends in Newcastle
because he knew when to subtly cheat and
so he was always three months ahead so
the scientist who ignores falsification
may be a moron but all great scientists
also ignore for some all you look at the
career of any great scientists and
actually ask yourself was he or she
ignoring falsification at that stage of
their career they answer is always yes
they were all I mean you cannot think of
a great scientist once you ask yourself
that question
who hasn't ignored apparent
falsification so it's complicated and
I'll now take questions please are you
allowed to ask a question is he allowed
to ask a question Greg right
said very interesting I just think that
first of all I invade the point that
there's a difference between science and
medical science and the standards are
different and in the extreme case of
physical science if you know so if you
don't know something you don't know it
if you're a physician and you have two
theories and you don't know something
you don't have the luxury of saying you
don't know you have to make a decision
it's why we think highly of physicians
because most of us don't want to show us
that responsibility but they're
different things
and the the tendency to think that
falsification is a threat is much
greater in
medicine that image in science and the
NIH and I don't know what kind of
Statistics you provide but most people
can show you the decline in federal
funding for science and that the NIH is
doing very good science the trouble is
that it's also doing dreadful stuff and
I had described myself as becoming a
whistleblower in the sense that if Nina
Chie Schultz exposes exposes this
falsification she's bringing out a truth
by doing I'm a whistleblower for some
still something of an insider and the
real problem is we don't want to bring
down the NIH NIH is the nutrition corner
of it
so I think and there are people that do
signs they do it seriously and they the
word you used it's exactly way they know
when to with your application and when
to jump ship thank you
what we're agreeing with each other do
they want to agree with me because these
over there emember know
curious first of all segment the mission
is to do research relevant they practice
conditions in a way patients you made a
very convincing case that science cannot
did you ask that only question against
which was that you as well who offered
no it's a very good question and it's it
yeah there's a very important first of
all there's a very it's a very important
question and the first question that dr.
Fineman got which was a similar question
was also a very good question so let me
just answer this first of all John I
need is in Stanford wrote a paper it's
now been cited over 5,000 times why most
scientific papers are wrong and it's not
just John I need ease there's a group of
them and they're superb there's a
someone of the group in Charlottesville
the truth review in Stanford the bunch
of others I talk about them there and
these people are pointing out that over
half of all scientific papers are just
wrong so the question is therefore how
do we know well the answer I'm afraid is
to understand what a scientific paper is
when when when after I published my book
I was interviewed by what we in England
called The Times Higher Education
supplement what you called The Chronicle
of Higher Education and they said would
you like to distill in one sentence what
you've learned from this study of
breakfast I said yes
when I pick up a paper on breakfast and
there are hundreds of papers on
breakfast is one of the three meals of
the day there's an enormous industry out
there in just black breakfast is a major
business and I think it's made huge
responsible for visa to when I pick up a
paper on breakfast I always ask myself
the first thing I ask myself is how and
why are these lying bastards lying to me
and if you don't pick up a paper and ask
yourself that question you're going to
be gone so for example Richard Feynman
he put up that paper from the Harvard
group that
ask paper he put up about how
carbohydrates will save the world I
picked up that paper like everyone else
but I only got as far as the second page
because I looked at that first table we
had the conversation about these people
are claiming that for the last 20 years
this entire population there thousands
of them 15,000 something they're all
claiming they're over the last four
years they're all only Ethan on average
1600 calories a day well of course
they've been not he seeing 1600 carry
they've all put on weight by the way all
completely normal people I mean I didn't
what call it but these people are
clearly misrepresenting and misreporting
what they're actually even know serious
scientist I mean I'm not talking about
myself as reading the paper I mean the
people think Harper doing this out no
serious art is at that point we're doing
the other what we can't do the study
this is crap so so every that with the
exception of a very small number of
people and this is how science started
by the way people what people don't
understand is what peer review is peer
review started in this is not a
nationalist point please don't think I'm
some sort of Little Britain but peer
review started in England in the 17th
century when we created the Royal
Society and stuff it wasn't as people
now think it is oh well have they used
the right p-value here
what peer review was actually was is he
one of us always do some sort of lunatic
peer review was a social thing do we
know this person can we trust him or her
so for example leave a hike the great
Dutch micro microscopist used to send
his stuff to the Royal Society as a
letter and he would then have affidavits
attached to it from very distinguished
members of the Dutch aristocracy who
would confirm that they had also seen
these things under the microscope so the
point about his peer review was actually
about can we trust this person which is
why by the way every scientific society
to this day and all of you belong to all
sorts of medical and scientific
societies are just like posh clubs in
London you've got to be sponsored you've
got to be seconded and there's a vote
and then you join the Society it's like
joining a club and so to come back to
what a paper is the only way you can
understand the paper is to see yourself
as a judge you're a judge in court
and here is someone who is an advocate
primarily for their career what they're
actually trying to do is to promote
their own career that's what they're
doing because they're human as dr.
Fineman pointed out sadly many
scientists are in fact human so they're
trying to promote their careers and they
have a point of view and they know
they'd say the right thing they get the
grant from the promotion say the wrong
thing and on the other side it's dr.
Fineman and me and others and your job
is to recognize that these scientists
are advocates are advocates in law if
you believe everything a lawyer says in
court
then you should read every scientific
paper and believe it to be true if on
the other hand you're capable
recognizing the judges have to work out
when the lawyers are trying to mislead
and I'm afraid they're really difficult
answer to your question is this unless
you're a real expert you haven't a hope
in hell I mean the average person
wouldn't have a clue at that harvard
paper unless they knew that no one can
survive for 20 years or 1,600 calories a
day and yet put on so that's a
difficulty very few people could I feel
there's something very interesting about
this group of people like John I need is
who have smashed all the or the myth
about Scientifics they're very strange
people in one respect I spent my entire
life almost exclusively at Oxford and
Cambridge surrounded by giants you know
I know Nobel laureates all these people
they have much in common one of them is
a very strong personality
these are dominant men Ancel keys was a
sort of gorilla of a monster who just
bullied everyone into believing what he
believed look I see that you're nodding
I need is in his chums they're all the
same they're quietly spoken they're
modest they're humble they are genuine
seekers after truth and I've never seen
any one point out that this very
interesting new group of people who are
completely smashing science has very
different personalities from these giant
alpha males I'm sort of so off the
females as well these giant alpha males
who dominate most science and I think
that's very interesting you know P so
there's another person here and then at
the back yup
for example access to technology keep
science honest absolutely and in fact
lots of diabetics have those and things
now in England I'm for in America too
absolutely yes is the answer
but of course if you're worried about
fat and carbohydrate and atherosclerosis
what are you going to measure I mean
that's that's part of the problem you
know so but yes the things are easily
measurable then technology can save you
from medical and competence yes the
answer is yes yeah so so so there's a
question there and the question there
the question there so all right so can I
say that he's now just going order so
that one there yeah
okay these are two fantastic questions
to take the first one quickly because
I've written about it here so you're
absolutely right
it's carbohydrate in the morning that's
the killer and in my book I said if
you're one of those people who just has
to be breakfast and you're otherwise ill
then eat something like strawberries or
blackberries or blueberries and cream
because contrary to myth the Veda of
sugar in those things I know we're not
meant to believe there were glycemic
index anymore but they have very low
glycemic these fruits so if you're going
to eat in the morning so heaven's sake
eat something that's not carbohydrate
essentially the trouble is most
breakfast as you point up now your
second question is very interesting and
I want to take up the point about lung
cancer because actually is illustrated
very interesting by lung cancer contrary
to what you said with great respect and
I'm a great admirer of your work as you
know Richard what's his name at Oxford
who discovered lung cancer you know who
don't thank you who actually knew I mean
I'm not I'm not I didn't have an insight
but I knew him reasonably well we got on
perfectly well when I do my PhD Dahl I'm
afraid told an untruth dog was a Marxist
by the way he was refused admission to
this country when he wanted to come to
conferences because he was a member of
the Communist Party which is relevant
Hitler was the man who discovered that
cigarettes cause cancer because he was
convinced the cigarettes were bad for
you
Hitler remember bought into the whole
progressive story of the 1930s so he was
a vegan he didn't believe in cigarettes
he didn't believe in alcohol you know he
was a complete and of course the whole
eugenic thing was what everyone believed
Hitler was an absolute classic
progressive of the 1930s we've all
forgotten how completely mainstream his
ideas were not never talked about any
more
he was completely mainstream and one of
them was cigarettes had to be bad for
you it was just common sense which goes
all the way back to King James in
England by the way in the 17th century
so when he got to power he called his
epidemiologists together and he said go
out there and prove the cigarettes are
bad for you or they may be unfortunate
consequences so they went out and to
their amazement because to their
amazement and because it was so easy
that the date it just fell out as you
implied and all this is referenced by
the way in my book I'm not inventing
this story
the danger just fell out so grants are
unbelievably bad for you the dog the
story that doctors used to tell that you
know take a cigarette and you'll get a
cough clear out the lungs getting the
mucus turns out not to be true doctors
are very doctors being human are very
good at inventing these stories we all
do that so the trouble is that the stuff
is then published in the Nazi literature
and for some odd reason by 1940s people
weren't reading the Nazi literature so
when Richard Dahl secretly knew this and
he just kept quiet about it he pretended
he done original research complete
balderdash Richard Dahl absolutely
copied them and he was very keen to
because as a Marxist he didn't like
capitalism and cigarette companies tend
to be in the market so that was the real
story of that but the reason I tell the
story is this the big myth is that left
to their own devices companies would
neglect R&D the big myth is the R&D is a
public good this is a very well-defined
economic term and because it's a public
good and only a public good private
companies will not fund it I hate to use
a rude word but this
a lie a lie that's been fostered very
carefully by everybody
sadly so the companies love this idea
because then this is a form of corporate
welfare Oh Congress we need money give
us money because otherwise we're just
too poor we've never found R&D unless
you give us the money Congress Congress
loves giving money for science I've
never forgotten when the sequence of the
human genome was announced who actually
announced that the human genome in
sequence was it some white-coated
scientist somewhere or was it President
Bill Clinton standing with his big chest
saying we've we've cut it was President
Bill Clinton taking all the credit with
Tony Blair on some link from England and
the irony about it it was funded almost
exclusively by the private sector
it was the Wellcome Trust in England
which is a charity and it was cetera in
this country which is a for-profit
company run by craig Venter the
government was very much only a minority
player but who took all the credit Bill
Clinton so governments love funding
science because it makes me look
important the general public love
science being funded because they
believe that without government funding
of science we wouldn't have all these
wonderful things they just bought into
the myth and scientists love it because
without the gumma funding of science
they might actually have to do work that
is of value to society as opposed to
doing work that actually wouldn't be fun
if we did this because that's what the
NSF is a club by which they have five
and a half billion dollars a year which
they give to their chums it's not that
they don't do good science of course
they do good science at the NSF as we
know NIH has problems but the point is
this is swagger science is it's like I
mean the pyramids were beautifully built
if you go to a pyramid you know the
mortises and they're beautifully
constructed but whether the pyramids did
much good to the average Egyptian is
questionable and it's the same with
publicly funded science it's an
opportunity for scientists to have fun
at someone else's expense put it all
together and this is the danger we need
I hate to say this because Hitler truly
was one of the most loathsome creatures
in the world so please don't anyone
think that I have fat
gastly but he was right about one thing
we want government-funded science only
to challenge industry it's a complete
myth that industry wouldn't produce
enough science of its own industry is
only interested in profit and has no
difficulty funding as much science as it
needs the average drug company spends
more money on advertising than R&D for
God's sake the idea that the shortage
money is just balderdash we need
government's to challenge industry and
if I was king for a day is the question
that you got if I was God for a day if
governments are to fund science it
should be to challenge industry not to
support it thank you yeah
while keeping away from you
because any aspect of science which dark
forces can commandeer the science for
their purposes there has to be a
temperature and the only counter
currently in the absence of foundations
having zillions of dollars is I agreed
that some of the people who sit on those
study sections are co-opted no argument
there they have their own troops to
protect and their truth was developed
within that previous that's the
difference between the thought of my own
research and the fact is the only dogma
is there is no dog everything we believe
ten years ago it was already long then
why do research at all because it's
going to be long in ten years it's
because research is a zig zag it's not a
straight line and so if you stay in
place you will never progress forward if
you let industry concise which is what
you're arguing for I would argue that
that is exactly what put us in the dark
ages
okay there is no disagreement between us
and I may express myself in adequately
however let me say this first of all we
are both agreed yours is a very
complicated and sophisticated question
so let me just go to step by step where
both agreed that scientists pursue their
own truth but as I tried to illustrate
earlier that is the nature of science
and it's inevitable and therefore we
should actually understand that's how it
works and therefore we have to harness
it to our own end you know like the
history of the earth and the Christians
so that's fine we agree completely I
also agreed with you well I completely
agree with you but I would have a
different yawns that the role of the
government funding of science is to
challenge industry however it does
displace foundation money if you look at
foundations you see very clearly in the
19th century particular and you know you
think you have things like the Wellcome
Trust and then in England we stopped
producing foundations when the state
nationalized science in this country the
state National Science in 1950 1940 1950
if you look at American science before
then you had people like Einstein
working you had lots and lots of really
interesting I mean Mooney Goddard you
developed all those rockets and things
on private guggenheim money for example
you had plenty of foundations what
happened in your country after the war
when the state massively moved in on
science is the foundation stopped now
that's changed now you have things like
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
and you'll find it which is huge by the
way biggest charity in the world so yes
I agree with you completely dr. Robert
Lustig the role of the government is to
challenge industry but it's not the role
of the government to displace
foundations who are even better than the
government and that's the only danger so
we both agree yeah I agree with you we
are completely agreed but don't forget
industry buys politicians and
politicians control the NSF oh that's
the danger please is this lady next I
don't know this lady next and then that
gentleman there yeah oh sorry sorry
sorry sorry
the answer to the question the
recommendation in my book is you're
quite right so this lady that gentleman
is in this checklist so this started the
bidding first
well did anyone hear this question could
you hear the back yeah actually I don't
have an easy answer to this I mean I all
I can do and these two have also done is
to point out there is a problem and the
problem is is a big gap between what we
are told by the panjandrum x' and the
pooh-bahs
and what appears to be real and by the
way it's not just fat and carbohydrate
it's sold the whole salt myth well it's
it's a myth I mean you can have too much
salt you can certain have too little
salt but there's it's true of water it's
it's true of many things and all the
salt well I'm gonna teach you because
I'm so worried about time is actually I
don't know the answer any more than you
do and the answer to that very good
question can only be found collectively
the very fact that you raised the
question leads to some fairly obvious
answers but I have no greater insight
into that than do you so rather than
it's a very good question by the way but
rather than answer that with my own
views which are no better than anyone
elses let me just say but she recognizes
a problem and we also recognize at times
the problems are going to go for the
next question but I'm not trying to in
any way to politically I'm just saying I
had no special insight into that and I'm
worried about time but it's a very good
question all we do is once you recognize
the problem then the only people can
address it it's a very good question and
actually what I was trying to say myself
now is a quick
but recommending that
yeah I get to answer your questions
much as I answered this lady's because
once you recognize the problem then but
I'm going to say something like the rep
which is very very interesting and I'm
going off-piste here I'm taking the
opportunity of saying something in
public that I wasn't expecting to say
but I got to take advantage of it
because you've said something very very
interesting so I'm going to answer your
question then I'm going to take
opportunity of two minutes extra so to
answer your question we do have a
problem with science I think the job of
myself and these two speakers is to
recognize we have a problem and then we
have to solve it collectively I'm not
going to say any more than that which is
not a belittle your question it's just
to say I have no particular insight into
the solution but I do came insight into
recognizing the problem however I want
to grab your question about the RAF
because it's so interesting and for
those of you who don't know I'm going to
tell you a very interesting story I'm in
my late sixties now and all my life the
best universities in the world on the
rankings year after year after year are
the American universities Harvard Yale
Princeton always all my life last year
for the first time the rankings at least
the rankings we get in England the top
universities or Oxford Cambridge and
this year again and actually I think
there was a recognition that British
universities I mean these aren't silly
rankings these are really serious
rankings now the RAF is an integral part
of that there two things that have
really done that when I was a young man
British universities I cannot tell you
how terrible they were I never worked in
a single department that didn't have at
least one passenger when I say passenger
I mean someone who came in once a week
to change before playing game of squash
but was on a full salary I mean every
department I ever worked in in Britain
was like that and that was all changed
by Margaret Thatcher who changed so many
wonderful things and she insisted on
number of things but to cut it short the
injection of market forces into British
universities and so on our students have
to pay fees and universities have to
actually meet student requirements and
sort of teach and things and the other
thing is the research excellence
framework which is nothing to do I'm
afraid with what you've
just it it the it's a misnomer what the
re F is really is the way of the British
government saying we're putting all this
money into British universities how do
we know it's any good and because of the
RAF people now if they get money from
the government agencies now actually
have to show on an annual return basis
or the RFS every 5 or 10 years that
they've done good work and the course
the British universities have bitterly
resisted the RAF just as they bitterly
resisted all these regulations and they
bitterly resisted the marketization of
British universities but the result is
auxin Cambridge behalf and Yale which i
think is a very very good thing and the
RAF is simply a way of saying and here
I'm afraid I'm going to say something
sad there is nothing to stop the Harvard
School of Public Health coming top and
every RAF exercise they publish from the
top nutritional journals which are
edited by their friends which are their
papers are peer reviewed by their
friends and they do the same to their
other friends and we actually had an
example of this in Britain so there's a
there's a man called Ben Martin who's
professor of science policy in
University of Sussex in he and I have
long been enemies but in a very English
way because he believes the government's
would fund science and I don't but he
was the one who exposed the cartel of
radio astronomy it turned out that the
Manchester radio astronomers and the
Cambridge radio astronomers had a deal
and in and in the RAF they would always
announce to the government that the
other astronomers they were just
spectacular and so they would publish
each other's papers and come up all the
journals and every one but what Ben
Martin showed was actually the Cambridge
lot I'm a Cambridge man
we're brilliant and the Manchester
people and I'm not a came out that were
actually no good to the point about the
RAF it's it's actually ultimately as
subjective as any other form of science
but on those subjective things it's been
fantastic British universities but I can
assure you that paper of dr. fineman's
which was one of the worst scientific
papers ever written would have done very
well on the RAF regrettably
you
