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| From mitochondrial function to the functions of Big Food & Big Pharma |
First of all, most pundits in the field (of nutrition) aren’t bench scientists or clinicians; they tend to be nutritional epidemiologists, and nutritional epidemiology has significant limitations. Epidemiology means correlation, not causation. Like John Snow’s cholera/Broad Street pump exercise . . . nutritional epidemiology studies are discovery, and discovery can be very important in posing the questions that truly need answering. However, it almost never answers the questions by itself; you need to design a proper study to answer them (see below). Just because A is associated with B, does that mean that A causes B? Or could it be reverse causality (B causes A)? Or could it be intermediate causality (C causes A or B)? Could it be irrelevant (C is associated with B and D, and D causes A)? As an example, ice cream consumption correlates with frequency of drownings. Does that mean eating ice cream causes you to drown?
The above insight is not limited to the subject of nutrition.
In our first book, The True Patriot, we argued that putting self above community and country was morally wrong. In this book, we argue that it is stupid. We aim to show that in theory and in practice, self-seeking is now a counterproductive instinct and that we need a bigger idea of what freedom means in order for our country to remain great.
Weigh this insight in light of the current status of vaccination and mask use.
And our languages are our media. Our media are our metaphors. Our metaphors create the content of our culture.
Laughter as resistance to the mechanization of life has political implications. The stasis that Bergson’s élan vital opposes occurs in the institutions of society, schools, universities, government offices, corporations. Freud considered stasis — like Demeter’s stuckness and Norman Cousins’s immobility — to be a sign of the death drive, the thanatos principle.
