Questioning Claims, Part I: Some Personal History
I think I was 22 or 23, when my husband brought home a used book that changed my life. The book was “Science: Good, Bad and Bogus” by Martin Gardner. A few people might recognize the name…he wrote the well-known “Mathematical Games” column that ran in Scientific American for 25 years. Gardner wrote a lot more than that, however: he was also a prolific science writer who specialized in exposing pseudoscience, frauds, and hoaxes. The book itself was an anthology: a collection of articles and book reviews printed elsewhere over the years – but each one was new to me. And – needless to state – it was an entertaining and fascinating read…because – at its heart – the primary theme was something I’d never really given a lot of thought to before…
Namely, that people – even those who present themselves as “authorities” – can (and do) lie, spin, make s**t up, see things that aren’t there, take leaps of faith or imagination; or can be deluded, tricked or just flat-out wrong. While Gardner’s targets were purveyors of paranormal claims, it was obvious that the BS wasn’t confined to that particular niche. I ended up reading additional books in the “skeptical” genre, such as James Randi’s “Flim Flam,” Phillip Kitcher’s “Abusing Science,” Richard DeMille’s “The Don Juan Papers,” and many more besides…my reading list spanned a range from science to current events, and even history.
These authors, and many others, taught me how to ask the question: “Is it true?” They helped me to view seemingly plausible arguments with a critical eye, and not be misled by my own assumptions. I learned how to deconstruct false logic and put claims to the test. What they taught me – in essence – was how to apply the scientific method, to solve practical, everyday problems.
I already understood the scientific method in the abstract, of course. At the time, I was working on my undergraduate and graduate degrees in Food Science. I had always been interested – fascinated, really – by nutrition, but balked at actually getting a degree in it. I already knew what I felt I needed to know (and could easily find out more if I wanted to)…but what I didn’t know was how everything I saw in the grocery store came to be. Food Science (food technology, really) provided far more information on why the world works the way it does – so even though I never ended up working for General Mills or Pillsbury like my fellow graduates – it was the best investment of time and energy that I ever made.
What I do here, is – in a very real sense – a convergence of the two…UltimateFatBurner.com is a place where I can use the research skills and knowledge my professors and university mentors taught me, as well as the ones I learned from Gardner, Randi, Kitcher, DeMille and so many others. I’d originally viewed my “skeptical” reading as just a hobby – but I realized how important it was after overhearing a conversation…
I was in the “Natural Food Works” – a local health food store in Davis, CA – to pick up some whole wheat flour and a few other groceries. There was only one clerk in the store, so I had to cool my heels while she waited on another customer: an older, middle aged woman. The woman asked her where she could find 1,000 mg Vitamin C tablets – so the clerk led her over to a shelf and selected a brand. Evidently the price was higher than the woman expected, so she asked the clerk why it was so much more expensive than what she could buy in a conventional drug store (like Walgreens).
The clerk replied that the cheap Vitamin C was synthetic and produced from coal tar; while the high-priced version in her hand was “natural” and “made from corn.”
Mentally, I had a “WTF!!!???” moment, as I knew this couldn’t possibly be right. Vitamin C has a carbohydrate-like structure – no need to use benzene or pyridine for source material. Likewise, the mental picture the clerk invoked of Vitamin C being extracted from corn, made no sense either. Even foods that are “rich” sources of particular vitamins, don’t contain very much of them on a weight basis…to try and extract them from natural sources would be cumbersome, expensive, and would generate a vast amount of waste material.
But I didn’t know exactly how commercial Vitamin C was made, so I didn’t say anything…but after making my purchase, I headed straight for the library to figure it out. I found my answer right away, in the Merck Index. Turned out commercial Vitamin C was synthesized from glucose.
Then I started to laugh, as the whole “Vitamin C from corn” bit fell into place. Corn is a source of cornstarch…which is nothing more than a glucose polymer. You can break it down enzymatically into corn syrup – which is just liquid glucose. Then you can chemically convert the glucose to ascorbic acid using a combination of “natural” fermentatative and minor chemical steps.
In other words, the “natural,” expensive, health food store Vitamin C was exactly the same stuff you could get at Walgreens. The health food version was – in fact – a rip off.
Was the clerk lying? Nope…or at least I don’t think she was. The whole “synthetic vitamins from coal tar” meme is still firmly entrenched – even now, over 25 years later, despite the fact that biotechnology rulz (feel free to “Google” it, if you don’t believe me). But she was a “true believer” who didn’t question what she was told, because her information came from “the good guys” who are interested in our health…not “the bad guys” who are only interested in profits.
At that point, I was pretty much a committed “sprout head” – very much into “natural” foods and supplements…and in many ways, I still am. But experiences like the above made me realize that so much of the “information” on health and nutrition out there – however well-intentioned – is often misleading, if not flat-out wrong. Just like in Martin Gardner’s world, pseudoscience masquerades as real science, and many can’t tell the difference. It’s not necessarily “bad” or “harmful” in a direct sense – sometimes good advice is given, even if it’s based on demonstrably false information. It is, however, harmful in an indirect sense, as it cuts off critical thinking…and can take a lot of money out of your pocket, if you’re not careful (just like the woman in the health food store, who ended up paying a good $15.00 more than she had to for that Vitamin C).
So this is why I do what I do…which I suspect may be a little frustrating to some readers, who don’t see the world in quite the same way that I do. Hopefully, this series of posts will shed a little more light.
To be continued…
