I thought your reference to conventional ‘works’ was a valid reply to Nancy’s “but maybe it will also make you sad or otherwise have external costs” point. Convention would call that ‘works’ even though naturally it is a cost to consider. (For yet another ‘although’ I expect people who find a diet that works in the mid to long term to also enjoy improved experience in other aspects of life so I don’t think there is much of a balance to be had there at all.)
What I would not agree with is the complete exclusion of psychological considerations from deciding whether a diet ‘works’ or not. For example for a bare minimum ‘diet’ I would argue that “have a breakfast including at least 30g of protein within 30m of waking up” works far more effectively than “eat 10% less”. This is just based on how humans work at a psychological and physiological level.
I actually consider science to be a good analogy to go by and not at all as the ad absurdum imply. ‘Science’ is the application of various traditional rules and limits upon rational thinking that discard all sorts of reasoning that is valid for the purpose of avoiding some of the more drastic human failure modes and biases. By limiting evidence and officially sanctioned persuasion via some formulaic rules it makes it somewhat harder for money, politics and ego to sabotage epistemic progress. (Unfortunately it is still not hard enough).
I thought your reference to conventional ‘works’ was a valid reply to Nancy’s “but maybe it will also make you sad or otherwise have external costs” point. Convention would call that ‘works’ even though naturally it is a cost to consider. (For yet another ‘although’ I expect people who find a diet that works in the mid to long term to also enjoy improved experience in other aspects of life so I don’t think there is much of a balance to be had there at all.)
What I would not agree with is the complete exclusion of psychological considerations from deciding whether a diet ‘works’ or not. For example for a bare minimum ‘diet’ I would argue that “have a breakfast including at least 30g of protein within 30m of waking up” works far more effectively than “eat 10% less”. This is just based on how humans work at a psychological and physiological level.
I actually consider science to be a good analogy to go by and not at all as the ad absurdum imply. ‘Science’ is the application of various traditional rules and limits upon rational thinking that discard all sorts of reasoning that is valid for the purpose of avoiding some of the more drastic human failure modes and biases. By limiting evidence and officially sanctioned persuasion via some formulaic rules it makes it somewhat harder for money, politics and ego to sabotage epistemic progress. (Unfortunately it is still not hard enough).