Do you have a source for the claim that fat people don’t generally have slow metabolisms?
I assume you mean some kind of formal reference as opposed to common sense arguments or general observations. If so, are you seriously skeptical of the claim? If the answer is “yes,” then I will try to dig something up.
I don’t expect all fat people to have slow metabolisms, but I expect slow metabolism to be more prevalent among fat people as compared to thin people.
For example, there is a correlation between people’s metabolism slowing down as they age and people gaining weight as they age (we’re talking about the progression from, say, the 20s into the middle age, not old age). I am not ready to pronounce it a causal relationship, but the correlation is there.
I don’t expect all fat people to have slow metabolisms, but I expect slow metabolism to be more prevalent among fat people as compared to thin people.
That’s not quite the claim I was addressing—the claim is that generally speaking, obesity is the result of having a slow metabolism. But anyway, I was able to dig up some evidence:
First, a video which is obviously not a scientific study but still pretty compelling:
In this video, a fat girl who believes she is fat because of a “slow metabolism,” is tested. It turns out that she has a perfectly normal metabolism but eats a lot more than she realizes.
Scientific research would seem to indicate that this is pretty typical. i.e. people are fat not because of their “slow metabolism” but because they eat a lot more than they realize:
If you search, there are a lot of studies like this out there. AFAIK, most (but not all) scientific studies have found that obese people have higher metabolisms than thin people.
My guess is that this is largely because obese people regularly overeat and so their metabolisms rev up a bit in a futile effort to handle the onslaught of calories. There may be a few studies out there which indicate that obese people have slower metabolisms, but I suspect the differences are pretty minor when you look at the real problem: Fat people eat a lot more than they realize, which is something that every study looking at this issue has concluded.
That looks to be a strawman. I am sure you can find on TV, but I am unaware of anyone reasonably serious holding this view.
:shrug: That’s what I believed. Anyway, your response is a bit of a True Scotsman argument. If I find 100 people who expressed similar beliefs, you can simply dismiss them as not being “reasonably serious.”
Let’s do this: How do I know if someone is “reasonably serious” or not?
In the same way saying that no one serious believes in perpetual motion machines is also a True Scotsman argument.
Yes, I would say that it suffers from basically the same same problem. Do you agree that there are people out there who believe, in good faith, that perpetual motion machines are possible? Do you agree that there are people who invest a lot of personal time and energy into constructing perpetual motion machines?
Has adequate knowledge of human physiology and is not trolling :
Okay, and if someone asserts or implies that generally speaking obesity is caused by low metabolism, how do I know if they have adequate knowledge of human physiology and are not trolling?
And let’s look at the girls in the two videos they linked. Although they did not make general statements about the causes of obesity, they did seem to believe at the beginning that their obesity was caused by slow metabolism, agreed? Would you agree that those two girls were not trolling? And in your opinion, did they have adequate knowledge of human physiology? If not, how do you know it?
In short, are those two girls “reasonably serious”?
Here I mean “serious” in the external-observer sense—to denote people whom others consider serious = worthy of attention and time. I do NOT mean “serious” in the internal perception sense (as in e.g. “I’m not joking, I’m serious”).
Here I mean “serious” in the external-observer sense—to denote people whom others consider serious = worthy of attention and time. I do NOT mean “serious” in the internal perception sense (as in e.g. “I’m not joking, I’m serious”).
Fine, but please help me figure out where the goalposts are. Are the two girls in the videos I linked worthy of attention and time (at the beginning of the video, before they were scientifically tested)? In your opinion, do they have adequate knowledge of human physiology? If not, how do you know it?
The goalposts in which particular game? This has grown from talking about a minor mistaken view into a request for general guidance on how to evaluate people’s reputations and claims about truth. If you’re looking for help with epistemic rationality, well, I heard that there is a whole forum concerned with it and trying to be less wrong...
And unless you’re willing to accept me personally as the Ultimate Arbiter Of All Things, I don’t see why my opinion about some girls in some videos (which I haven’t looked at, by the way) matters.
No game at all, I am simply scrutinizing your statement “that looks to be a strawman.”
This has grown from talking about a minor mistaken view into a request for general guidance on how to evaluate people’s reputations and claims about truth
Not at all, I am trying to nail down your position.
And unless you’re willing to accept me personally as the Ultimate Arbiter Of All Things, I don’t see why my opinion about some girls in some videos (which I haven’t looked at, by the way) matters
I am asking for your opinion because I want to understand what you mean by “reasonably serious.” I have a feeling that the phrase means nothing at all, it’s just an out for you to dismiss counter-examples to your generalization.
So again my questions:
If someone asserts or implies that generally speaking obesity is caused by low metabolism, how do I know if they have adequate knowledge of human physiology and are not trolling?
Are the girls in the videos I linked worthy of attention and time (at the beginning of the video, before they were scientifically tested)? In your opinion, do they have adequate knowledge of human physiology? If not, how do you know it?
(which I haven’t looked at, by the way)
I can summarize the videos in a couple sentences. Each one contains a fat girl who asserts that she is fat because of her “low metabolism.” The girls have their metabolisms scientifically tested. It turns out that their metabolisms are perfectly normal; the problem is that they are eating a lot more than they realize.
Ok, with that understood, do you consider the girls (as they were at the beginning of the videos) to be “reasonably serious”? Why or why not? It’s a pretty simple question.
And if someone asserts or implies that generally speaking obesity is caused by low metabolism, how do I know if they have adequate knowledge of human physiology and are not trolling?
Oh, dear . If you really have no idea—none at all whatsoever—how to find out whether people you’re listening to are credible, please go figure out how to do this. This is going to be a much better use of your time than posting on LW.
Why not?
Because as far as I can see (which, as I mentioned, isn’t very far) they were just fat girls specifically selected for having a particular false belief so that this belief could be debunked on video.
Oh, dear . If you really have no idea—none at all whatsoever—how to find out whether people you’re listening to are credible
Lol, nice strawman. I was asking how YOU determine whether somebody is “reasonably serious.”
But enough is enough—we both know that “reasonably serious” as you used the phrase is essentially meaningless. I asked you a few times, and each time you dodge and weave. See below.
Because as far as I can see (which, as I mentioned, isn’t very far) they were just fat girls specifically selected for having a particular false belief so that this belief could be debunked on video.
And now your position starts becoming a bit more clear:
It appears that according to you, anyone who who believes that obesity is in general caused by a slow metabolism has a false belief which ipso facto makes them not “reasonably serious.”
Therefore your claim that no reasonably serious people believe that obesity is caused by slow metabolism is in essence just a meaningless tautology. As noted above, you are engaged in the True Scotsman fallacy.
None of this changes the fact that there is a belief out there that obesity is in general caused by slow metabolism. Whether people who hold that belief are “reasonably serious” or not is irrelevant to my point. Indeed, it would appear that such people are “not reasonably serious” by definition.
In short, your statement “that looks to be a strawman” does not stand up to scrutiny and in fact is itself based on an attack on a strawman.
I assume you mean some kind of formal reference as opposed to common sense arguments or general observations. If so, are you seriously skeptical of the claim? If the answer is “yes,” then I will try to dig something up.
I am sceptical of that claim, too.
I don’t expect all fat people to have slow metabolisms, but I expect slow metabolism to be more prevalent among fat people as compared to thin people.
For example, there is a correlation between people’s metabolism slowing down as they age and people gaining weight as they age (we’re talking about the progression from, say, the 20s into the middle age, not old age). I am not ready to pronounce it a causal relationship, but the correlation is there.
That’s not quite the claim I was addressing—the claim is that generally speaking, obesity is the result of having a slow metabolism. But anyway, I was able to dig up some evidence:
First, a video which is obviously not a scientific study but still pretty compelling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA9AdlhB18o
In this video, a fat girl who believes she is fat because of a “slow metabolism,” is tested. It turns out that she has a perfectly normal metabolism but eats a lot more than she realizes.
Here is a similar video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGLwzbvx4S4
Scientific research would seem to indicate that this is pretty typical. i.e. people are fat not because of their “slow metabolism” but because they eat a lot more than they realize:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701
Here is a study which looked at a group of people and determined that the fatter subjects had higher metabolic rates than the thinner ones:
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/35/3/566.short
If you search, there are a lot of studies like this out there. AFAIK, most (but not all) scientific studies have found that obese people have higher metabolisms than thin people.
My guess is that this is largely because obese people regularly overeat and so their metabolisms rev up a bit in a futile effort to handle the onslaught of calories. There may be a few studies out there which indicate that obese people have slower metabolisms, but I suspect the differences are pretty minor when you look at the real problem: Fat people eat a lot more than they realize, which is something that every study looking at this issue has concluded.
That looks to be a strawman. I am sure you can find on TV, but I am unaware of anyone reasonably serious holding this view.
:shrug: That’s what I believed. Anyway, your response is a bit of a True Scotsman argument. If I find 100 people who expressed similar beliefs, you can simply dismiss them as not being “reasonably serious.”
Let’s do this: How do I know if someone is “reasonably serious” or not?
In the same way saying that no one serious believes in perpetual motion machines is also a True Scotsman argument.
Has adequate knowledge of human physiology and is not trolling :-P
Yes, I would say that it suffers from basically the same same problem. Do you agree that there are people out there who believe, in good faith, that perpetual motion machines are possible? Do you agree that there are people who invest a lot of personal time and energy into constructing perpetual motion machines?
Okay, and if someone asserts or implies that generally speaking obesity is caused by low metabolism, how do I know if they have adequate knowledge of human physiology and are not trolling?
And let’s look at the girls in the two videos they linked. Although they did not make general statements about the causes of obesity, they did seem to believe at the beginning that their obesity was caused by slow metabolism, agreed? Would you agree that those two girls were not trolling? And in your opinion, did they have adequate knowledge of human physiology? If not, how do you know it?
In short, are those two girls “reasonably serious”?
Here I mean “serious” in the external-observer sense—to denote people whom others consider serious = worthy of attention and time. I do NOT mean “serious” in the internal perception sense (as in e.g. “I’m not joking, I’m serious”).
Fine, but please help me figure out where the goalposts are. Are the two girls in the videos I linked worthy of attention and time (at the beginning of the video, before they were scientifically tested)? In your opinion, do they have adequate knowledge of human physiology? If not, how do you know it?
The goalposts in which particular game? This has grown from talking about a minor mistaken view into a request for general guidance on how to evaluate people’s reputations and claims about truth. If you’re looking for help with epistemic rationality, well, I heard that there is a whole forum concerned with it and trying to be less wrong...
And unless you’re willing to accept me personally as the Ultimate Arbiter Of All Things, I don’t see why my opinion about some girls in some videos (which I haven’t looked at, by the way) matters.
No game at all, I am simply scrutinizing your statement “that looks to be a strawman.”
Not at all, I am trying to nail down your position.
I am asking for your opinion because I want to understand what you mean by “reasonably serious.” I have a feeling that the phrase means nothing at all, it’s just an out for you to dismiss counter-examples to your generalization.
So again my questions:
If someone asserts or implies that generally speaking obesity is caused by low metabolism, how do I know if they have adequate knowledge of human physiology and are not trolling?
Are the girls in the videos I linked worthy of attention and time (at the beginning of the video, before they were scientifically tested)? In your opinion, do they have adequate knowledge of human physiology? If not, how do you know it?
I can summarize the videos in a couple sentences. Each one contains a fat girl who asserts that she is fat because of her “low metabolism.” The girls have their metabolisms scientifically tested. It turns out that their metabolisms are perfectly normal; the problem is that they are eating a lot more than they realize.
Ok, with that understood, do you consider the girls (as they were at the beginning of the videos) to be “reasonably serious”? Why or why not? It’s a pretty simple question.
People who have demonstrated a sufficient level of knowledge and competency.
In the usual way—you bother to find out. Thing these people say are evidence that you use to update your prior.
On the basis of available to me information, no, but that’s a low-credence opinion and can easily be changed by additional evidence.
And how exactly do I do that?
Why not?
And if someone asserts or implies that generally speaking obesity is caused by low metabolism, how do I know if they have adequate knowledge of human physiology and are not trolling?
Oh, dear . If you really have no idea—none at all whatsoever—how to find out whether people you’re listening to are credible, please go figure out how to do this. This is going to be a much better use of your time than posting on LW.
Because as far as I can see (which, as I mentioned, isn’t very far) they were just fat girls specifically selected for having a particular false belief so that this belief could be debunked on video.
Lol, nice strawman. I was asking how YOU determine whether somebody is “reasonably serious.”
But enough is enough—we both know that “reasonably serious” as you used the phrase is essentially meaningless. I asked you a few times, and each time you dodge and weave. See below.
And now your position starts becoming a bit more clear:
It appears that according to you, anyone who who believes that obesity is in general caused by a slow metabolism has a false belief which ipso facto makes them not “reasonably serious.”
Therefore your claim that no reasonably serious people believe that obesity is caused by slow metabolism is in essence just a meaningless tautology. As noted above, you are engaged in the True Scotsman fallacy.
None of this changes the fact that there is a belief out there that obesity is in general caused by slow metabolism. Whether people who hold that belief are “reasonably serious” or not is irrelevant to my point. Indeed, it would appear that such people are “not reasonably serious” by definition.
In short, your statement “that looks to be a strawman” does not stand up to scrutiny and in fact is itself based on an attack on a strawman.
This is interesting enough that I’d like to see some more explanation, too.
See my reply to Lumifer above.