Hard, proper, empirical science will always have a special place in my heart, and doubtless in many others’, because it’s what the modern world is built on. Unfortunately it’s also what a lot of today’s misinformation is built on, from Andrew Wakefield’s anti-vaccination manslaughter scheme to the steaming pile of dung that is the climate change denial community. Science didn’t do these things; idiots did. They took science, claimed to know what it is and how it works, slapped it on their special home-brewed stupidity and sold it. This is happening to food, too. People don’t think that a claim of a particular diet being “scientific” needs any further researching; so long as it fits their own opinions, the label of ‘science’ can be taken as gospel. If it doesn’t, that doesn’t matter, because “the inherent uncertainty in nutrition science can be exploited in order to support almost any position…” (Anthony Warner, 2018).
Essentially, what is happening with the hot mess that is the dieting industry is not just a problem endemic to food. It’s a problem that is everywhere. If it fits somebody’s agenda, and they can make some vaguely sciencey-sounding claim to back it up, then whatever lies they come up with will be swallowed hook, line, and sinker by a bunch of tools who don’t bother checking the facts. In that sense, science has unfortunately become the tool’s tool.
This is really insightful and scarily accurate. Just throw in some scientific mumbo-jumbo about super-vitamins or GMOs, and people will walk around thinking they’re experts on the subject. Another issue is how readily available this “information” is through the tool of the internet. Dietary vampires don’t need to try to get their nonsense published in a scientific journal or newspaper – they can just post it online without any barriers. From what I can tell, the internet is a cesspool of faulty science and ludicrous claims. They *thrive* on the internet – which just so happens to be where these ‘tools’ tend to accumulate.
The ideas you have stated above really resonate with an overall underlying theme within this plate, food has been used and abused. As touched on above the science behind the click bait diets are idiocracy in motion out to make a quick buck. I think it is refreshing to say that “the dieting industry is not just a problem endemic to food. It’s a problem that is everywhere”. Finally some truth! Food really is the core of all and so when it is corrupted and exploited how can it not bubble over into “everywhere”.