
Low carbers: critical thinkers and a bulwark against illiteracy - jlhamilton
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-library/low-carbers-critical-thinkers-and-a-bulwark-against-illiteracy/
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charliepark
While I agree with a number of the points he's making, there's a serious
correlation / causation problem here.

The claims: • Most people in America don't know how to think critically. •
People who think critically are literate. • People who are literate buy books.
• Using bestseller lists is an easy heuristic to see who knows how to think
critically.

Obviously, his argument breaks down, in a number of ways. Perhaps people who
like low-carb diets have more money that they can spend on books. Perhaps low-
carb books have better marketing (I don't think they do ... just throwing that
out there). Perhaps low-carb proponents feel that they're biased against by
the media and by popular culture, and so they buy books out of solidarity
(note the "Fireproof" movie and the urgency associated with supporting it by /
within Christian groups).

I'm not saying any of these _are_ the case ... just that it was ironic that he
was railing against Americans' ability to think critically, and then he laid
out a string of fallacious arguments.

You could push his argument further, and say that, because the Harry Potter
books are at the top of the USA Today list, then the typical Harry Potter
reader (whatever that is) is better at thinking critically than a low-carb
enthusiast — or anyone else in America.

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jerf
One of the things I would consider a basic criterion for being able to call
yourself an "independent thinker" is coming to the realization that when
people think for themselves, they come to different conclusions. Which leads
to a number of obvious conclusions, including: While "the sheeple" may not
have the truth, by necessity the majority of the "independent thinkers" can't
either, and you can't measure how independently someone is thinking by looking
at what they believe.

There is no single monolithic "the sheeple", and it is possible that low-
carbers are simple a sheeple that were told to buy a book instead of watch a
show like Oprah.

I say this as someone who at least intellectually is very sympathetic to the
"low carb" nutritional picture; I don't think it entirely corresponds to
reality, but the old-school "low-fat" diet seems outright wrong. (By "old
school", I mean the old dietary standards that treat fat as a single
monolithic entity. Newer stuff is getting more nuanced and, I believe, more
correct, at the cost of being very difficult to describe to people in detail.)

But going back to my main point, if you still measure the "independence" of
somebody's thought by what they believe, you are not your own thinker; you've
simply chosen a different crowd of sheeple to run with. Nobody's really immune
to this, and by this standard I have seen precious few truly independent
thinkers. (Even some people who have dedicate great time to an "independent
thinker" shtick almost invariable slip in some belief touchstones into their
definition of independent thought, whether or not they realize it. I am not
thinking of anybody in particular here; I've seen this from many such people.
(I'm not _quite_ a hypocrite on this point; the first sentence of this post is
more of a definition of what I consider an independent thinker than a
touchstone belief, and I freely acknowledge the existence of other useful
definitions... but I'm certainly slicing things awfully fine here... but I
realize it.))

This may not be directly related to the original article, but it is certainly
indirectly related.

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Tichy
Maybe because low-carb promises an easy fix to the problem? Just guessing, but
certainly low-carb books being on top of the bestsellers lists doesn't
validate the theory in my opinion.

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duncanj
Well, now I know what sort of logic I can expect in his book!

