I feel like we had this discussion about Yarvin (AKA Mencius Moldbug) not that long ago. No one is ever so brilliant in their own lifetime that they can’t do major damage that takes decades to rectify. These topics are weirdly coinciding with my studies of the philosophy of science, and increasingly I’m coming to realize that the social component of the scientific method is irreducible. Evidence never stands on its own any more than a holy book can be literally interpreted. So long as ideas exist only in the minds of living breathing flawed and cognitively biased people, there is no vacuum in which they can be meaningfully isolated. Being singularly absorbed in the lab and at the whiteboard carries a unique joy, but if you’re doing science, an activity that depends of reproducibility and peer-review, you ignore sociology at your peril.
It is, but it’s cheap and convenient bullshit you can put up on a fridge. Real accurate assessments involve the use of calipers to measure body fat, but this requires training that isn’t widespread and getting consistent results from practitioners is difficult. Electroconductive fat analysis has a margin of error that skews results too, and pretty much anything you can afford gives only ballpark estimates. This is why BMI is still used. If I was at my ideal BMI, I’d be underweight and probably unhealthy. At my lowest adult weight, I was packing (conservatively) about thirty pounds of extra fat based on ballpark body fat. I was still sixty pounds above my ideal BMI. I had guidance coming up with these figures from RDs too, so this wasn’t a DIY assessment of my own health.
