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Old Tue, Dec-18-18, 17:52
M Levac M Levac is offline
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Plan: VLC, mostly meat
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Right, only two subjects. The hypothesis was that eating only meat causes deficiency - in all humans, including those two subjects. The answer was definitive and unambiguous - no, eating only meat does not cause deficiency - in all humans, including those two subjects.

If at this point we want to re-formulate the hypothesis by including this definitive answer, we get something like this. It's unlikely that eating only meat causes deficiency in all humans, cuz we're batting 0 for 2 already. If we keep going and eventually find that one human who does develop deficiency by eating only meat, do we then dismiss all previous findings, reset our batting average and declare we were right all along? We already know how to find this one human, but it's not him, it's the methodology we know how to falsify and refute. We just have to break the rules of eating only meat, which is to cook thoroughly and in the process destroy some essential elements, eat little or not fat which otherwise provides essential elements, and eat less than to satiety which would likely cause minor problems in context (minor compared to the semi-starvation experiment for example). By doing it this way, we can find as many of that one guy as we want.

It's important to keep in mind that eating only meat ain't about a minor intervention, it's the definition of a Big Deal and not just from a point of view but from a matter-of-fact. It's equally important to keep in mind that we're not talking about a couple of Sam Feltham's, but about an army of clinicians and lab technicians and experts and the like, all of whom were observing as attentively as they possibly could with all the tools available to them at the time. The slew of modifications of the initial hypothesis is countless, some still do not believe any of it (vegans and the like), but the fact remains the initial hypothesis was refuted and can no longer be invoked as is - it is by definition definitive.

I just realized I'm being highly contentious here and I promised way back I wouldn't be a jerk. So, ok, it's not definitive, but I got nothing to show for that, so meh I dunno.

-edit-
Forgot the main point.

Even if it's not definitive, it remains a point of reference against which no other diet has been compared to any degree even approaching it. So, let's at least do a two-subject all-plant equivalent, cuz even that hasn't been done.
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