It's not "science is confusing", it's "science can't tell us anything definitive about this subject yet". Science is a process, not an artifact. Finding two conflicting papers on one subject and deciding to ignore both is not "ignoring science", it's ignoring two conflicting results that science is still working through.
Science can never tell us anything definitive about anything by definition. Science is trying to contradict previous results to refine and nuance our understanding.
Confusion is essential to the process and pretending like something hasn't been published because it contradicts previous results is... well, anti scientific.
Pointing out nutrition science is full of contradictions is kinda tired. Learning about research biases and epistemology is probably more productive.
Sure. But there are many things that science has come to a pretty good idea about. Nutrition is miles away from that. The only truly established theories we have in nutrition are how to cire vitamin deficiencies.
Everything beyond how to avoid scurvy and the like is currently just noise. For every paper that finds an effect in nutrition, there is another paper that finds the exact opposite: so, there is no actionable advice to take from this. Maybe in 50 years when things have settled.
Edit: I don't mean to say that this isn't part of science. It's a normal part of the process. But when we're just starting to experiment scientifically in such a complex field, it's normal that we just don't know a lot and our theories are just bad at the moment. They will get better, but there's no point whatsoever in following a theory that is not yet well confirmed by experiment.
I guess people can take these headlines about nutrition research a bit too serious. Doesn't help that there's so much vested interested involved in what people chose to eat.
I do think trying to make sense of it is a great exercise in critical thinking. And I enjoy one thing about this: nutrition is about complexity. Trying to nail down a perfect diet or 'super food' is akin to looking for a silver bullet in software development.
Also a great opportunity to think about unintended consequences and consumerism. Think about the impact of quinoa fads on Peruvian farmer communities.
If anything, nutrition science is a masterclass in complexity. That's probably why these cliche 'oh nutrition science is so full of contradictions' rub me the wrong way.
Agreed. Using a metaphor of hiking a mountain generally works for me. Most steps you can make from any given spot are generally not that impactful. And sometimes you do have to make a lot of neutral steps in order to get on a path that will take you farther. Sometimes, you even have to backtrack. And all choices are highly dependent on where you, specifically, are.
