
I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss - brown-dragon
http://io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800
======
hartator
Finally, the most accurate reactions come from the web itself:
[http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=166912491](http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=166912491)

> study invalid. no control for calories at all.

> Why are calories not counted on any of the individuals?

> Free reign is not a way to go about doing a study. They might very well
> have, we don't know. We all know cocoa has weight loss properties
> (Theobromine), but to do such a poorly constructed study was pointless.

------
oconnor663
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/30/that-chocolate-
study/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/30/that-chocolate-study/)

> For me, the takeaway from this affair is that there is no one-size-fits-all
> solution to make statistics impossible to hack. Getting rid of p-values is
> appropriate sometimes, but not other times. Demanding large sample sizes is
> appropriate sometimes, but not other times. Not trusting silly conclusions
> like “chocolate causes weight loss” works sometimes but not other times. At
> the end of the day, you have to actually know what you’re doing. Also, _try
> to read more than one study._

~~~
reddog
> Also, try to read more than one study.

Even if I had the time to read several studies and expertise to understand
them, I couldn't afford it. Out of curiosity I just went to the Journal of
Nutrition (I know nothing about it, picked that journal randomly) and tried to
download one random issue. It was $273. Going to multiple original sources
isn't practical for most of us.

I doubt that the typical mainstream journalist writing a popular story on a
scientific subject could justify this expense to her boss either.

~~~
takluyver
I'd hope that news outlets covering any kind of science pay for access to at
least some major journals as a matter of course. The subscription prices are
probably much lower per issue than the price to buy an issue individually.

Most journals also show you abstracts for free, which are overviews of what
each paper says. If you find a paper that you want to read in full, email the
author - most scientists are very happy to know that people are interested in
their work, so they'll give out copies to anyone who asks.

This isn't to defend the paywalls - I think open access is important. But I
don't think the paywalls are a valid excuse for journalists.

~~~
pessimizer
I think the prices for most of these journals individually is enormous - they
are usually sold in bundles through individually negotiated, confidential
pricing agreements that run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Far
cheaper per journal, but probably including a bunch or journals that the
institution normally wouldn't be interested in, and a ton of garbage.

[http://www.pnas.org/content/111/26/9425.full](http://www.pnas.org/content/111/26/9425.full)

Not to say that many/most papers can't be found with a little bit of effort,
and I can't really imagine a situation where an establishment journalist
emails authors about one of their papers and doesn't get it.

------
seszett
By the way, this is the documentary for which this was done:

In French: [http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/052711-000/pour-maigrir-
mangez-d...](http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/052711-000/pour-maigrir-mangez-du-
chocolat)

And in German: [http://www.arte.tv/guide/de/052711-000/schlank-durch-
schokol...](http://www.arte.tv/guide/de/052711-000/schlank-durch-schokolade)

------
ddebernardy
The real story here is that, even after being shown proof of that it was a
hoax all along, a chunk of the same population will continue to hold that
eating chocolate helps to lose weight.

~~~
CyberDildonics
It is a lot easier to convince someone of something they want to believe than
of something they don't.

~~~
wpietri
When I read this, I nodded. But now you've got me wondering if I just want to
believe you.

------
liquidcool
On the flip side, you have some well-heeled corporations and industry groups
working to discredit good science that's bad for them. Would be interesting to
read a piece on how that's done.

~~~
GhotiFish
Unfortunately the investment to make good science just to get it discredited
by interested parties isn't as cost effective.

~~~
liquidcool
I don't think you need to go that far, you just need a PR person with a
conscience to spill the beans on what they did (or dissect what others have
done).

------
jessaustin
It's difficult to understand why anyone would ever pay any attention to
nutrition "science". Everything is wrong. TFA complimented the meatheads on
some bodybuilding site for their skepticism. People who pay very close
attention to _their own_ habits and results are probably going to be more
right about their own nutrition than all the scientists in the world put
together.

~~~
Mikeb85
> Everything is wrong.

I wouldn't go that far... Nutrition 'science' is quite valid, the only problem
is the amount of people in the nutrition space who aren't actually doing
'science'.

> People who pay very close attention to their own habits and results are
> probably going to be more right about their own nutrition than all the
> scientists in the world put together.

Doubt it. People are often quite irrational about these things. Which is why
there's so many people who follow fad diets (and buy the books).

~~~
VLM
Ah the critical distinction is paying attention to your body is not the same
thing as buying a book. As per OPs comment, I used to lift, its good exercise,
and I saw plenty of demonstrations of data gathering technique and analysis.

------
Mikeb85
To be honest, chocolate may help in an indirect way...

If someone's on a diet, and never gets any 'reward', they might be tempted to
cheat or give up.

If they're told a little chocolate every day is good, they'll stick with their
diet, have their chocolate, and forego worse 'cheat' items (even though
chocolate has plenty of fat and sugar, the amount you consume before you're
content is relatively small compared to say, ice-cream, cookies, etc...).

Studies (and anecdotes) have shown that chocolate makes people happy, so that
little happiness at the end might just help people stay on their diet and not
stress out (stress can cause the body to store fat). Maybe it's something like
the French paradox...

The study was pretty funny though, and I appreciate their honesty. And it goes
to show why pretty much all research on fad diets is nonsense. Still though,
if you choose between drinking a gallon of pop per day or chocolate, chocolate
wins. So maybe their 'research' didn't go to waste.

------
tgb
Did any major news organizations retract their articles or apologize?

~~~
edc117
Do they ever? This is likely one of many reasons for eroding confidence in
those same organizations.

------
spacehome
@reamworks

[Your post is flagged/dead, so I'm replying here. I hope you see it.]

The relationship between counting calories and weight loss is not quite as
simple as the formula [Calories Injested] - [Calories Burned] = [Delta body
fat] might indicate.

Details here: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/12/the-physics-
diet/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/12/the-physics-diet/)

------
bjourne
It's not news that the peer-review system isn't safe from exploits. People
have been using Markov chains to generate studies which have then been
published. And journalists uncritically picks up everything they can. All
functions in society are based on trust and are easily exploitable if a person
is not behaving trustworthy.

So making a fake study about chocolate and getting lots of magazines to
publish it I think is a little unethical. It's not news, and the reason most
people don't do it is because they want to act trustworthy. For example,
someone could, if they wanted, submit patches to some free software projects
which would introduce awful security holes and get them merged or just write
shit on Wikipedia.

~~~
thomasahle
It wasn't actually a fake study. That's the point.

They used the same statistical methods as too many 'honest' groups out there,
and got results thereafter.

~~~
bjourne
I disagree. The study was fake because the _intent_ was to deceive. He used
flawed methods, but could have used 10 times as sophisticated methods and
still would have been able to publish completely invalid results.

~~~
olifante
I wasn't a fake study, it was a dishonest one.

------
bernardlunn
My takeaway is you can always sell people something they want to buy.

------
Jedd
'everyone'?

I don't recall being fooled into thinking this.

Slightly less flippantly - the assertion, conclusion, and title are wrong.

------
ak217
Actually, the takeaway for me is that John Bohannon behaved unethically and
made a bunch of invalid conclusions.

~~~
javajosh
Bohannon tested a system, it failed, and he reported exactly how he tested the
system and how it failed. 'The system' in this case is the global food science
and health journalism industry.

He found that ignorance and laziness is rampant, that journal peer review is
non-existent, and skepticism about results and methods is non-existent.

He has done a tremendous public service exposing the flaws in a system. With
any luck consumers of these information sources will take everything with an
enormous, skeptical grain of salt, because the last and best line of defense
is _your own_ skepticism critical thinking.

You can't delegate thinking.

~~~
alexhill
> that journal peer review is non-existent

This isn't about peer review, because the paper was knowingly submitted only
to journals known not to conduct peer review. Quoting from the article:

> We needed to get our study published pronto, but since it was such bad
> science, we needed to skip peer review altogether. Conveniently, there are
> lists of fake journal publishers.

And later:

> The new publisher’s CEO, Carlos Vasquez, emailed Johannes to let him know
> that we had produced an “outstanding manuscript,” and that for just 600
> Euros it “could be accepted directly in our premier journal.”

This is really more about science journalism than about science.

These kinds of journals are difficult for a lay person to tell apart from
actual, scientific journals, but distinguishing between the two is exactly the
kind of job a competent science journalist would do. Inept science
journalists, on the other hand, give these fake journals a reason to exist by
citing them unchallenged.

~~~
chrischen
And his experiment reveals that the Internet gets its nutrition science from
inept science journalists. Think of all the arguments won by people searching
google and having this show up. I once won an argument by changing Wikipedia
during the argument and showing it to him on his computer.

