No more “observational studies”!!!!

We’ve all been burned too often. Vitamin D and moderate alcohol consumption may not do anything special. Correlations and observations. Correlations and observations.

Now, Red Meat Increases Risk of Dying From 9 Diseases:

“This is an observational study,” said the lead author, Arash Etemadi, an epidemiologist with the National Cancer Institute, “and we can’t determine whether red meat is responsible for these associations. But we have a 16-year follow-up, and we had the numbers to look at different causes, and we can see that it’s happening” for many causes of death.

You lost me at observational study. Observational studies are fine in theory. But in practice in fields like nutrition they’re worthless, because it’s all about making news, or pushing a particular health agenda.

I’ll still take mine medium rare.

Also, you want to know about the benefits of randomized trials for your mental health, I suggest Jim Manzi’s book Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics, and Society.