Nobody here seems to have offered an unreserved defence of SMTM, so let me do it:
SMTM told the author of this post they advised against it, they still did it, and were happy with the result.
The author says “I don’t think that SMTM has done enough to show that it was safe”. But I notice that I am confused, because it is not the job of SMTM to make this study ‘safe’, whatever that means. The world is not “safe”, and everyone is an adult, and adults should use their own judgement when following random internet advice. If someone regrets unreservedly following random internet advice, they got a valuable life lesson. There’s no reason to think SMTM knew about and tried to hide information about Solanine poisoning, so it’s unfair to make it seem like they are responsible when the participants could have equally well found out about it themselves. The author wishes SMTM had put up a neon sign, but their blog heading literally has “Mad Science Blogging” in it, isn’t that enough of a neon sign already?
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Pre-registration wasn’t really important, publicly announcing a study and getting participants who care about the result is a form of pre-registration.
Just because data isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable (even if it does nothing but teach the community what kind of data it makes sense to to investigate if you do something like this ).
While the “safe” point you/they make is absolutely crucial to the whole endeavor, nobody seems to be discussing the main underlying “promise” that such an experiment holds, and that they have repeatedly stated as being one of the main drivers in their experiment : namely, that the “potato diet” seems to have a profound effect on regulating the sensation of satiety, even after the diet. This fact is new and unheard of with most, it not all weight-loss diets. This is not something you expect from a monotonous diet with rapid weight loss, much less so from a monotonous diet with rapid weight loss where you also cheat a lot. The section 7 of their report on the diet’s results is clear: something is happening with many people’s hunger feeling, and we don’t know why. Alas, it did not concern OP (although he seems to have had a “dissipation” of hunger at some point) but that’s still worth exploring.
the main underlying “promise” that such an experiment holds,
I’m sorry for the (very late) side remark but an “underlying promise” is an oxymoron of sorts—if nothing was explicitly promised, nothing was promised :)
Nobody here seems to have offered an unreserved defence of SMTM, so let me do it:
SMTM told the author of this post they advised against it, they still did it, and were happy with the result.
The author says “I don’t think that SMTM has done enough to show that it was safe”. But I notice that I am confused, because it is not the job of SMTM to make this study ‘safe’, whatever that means. The world is not “safe”, and everyone is an adult, and adults should use their own judgement when following random internet advice. If someone regrets unreservedly following random internet advice, they got a valuable life lesson. There’s no reason to think SMTM knew about and tried to hide information about Solanine poisoning, so it’s unfair to make it seem like they are responsible when the participants could have equally well found out about it themselves. The author wishes SMTM had put up a neon sign, but their blog heading literally has “Mad Science Blogging” in it, isn’t that enough of a neon sign already? .
Pre-registration wasn’t really important, publicly announcing a study and getting participants who care about the result is a form of pre-registration.
Just because data isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable (even if it does nothing but teach the community what kind of data it makes sense to to investigate if you do something like this ).
While the “safe” point you/they make is absolutely crucial to the whole endeavor, nobody seems to be discussing the main underlying “promise” that such an experiment holds, and that they have repeatedly stated as being one of the main drivers in their experiment : namely, that the “potato diet” seems to have a profound effect on regulating the sensation of satiety, even after the diet.
This fact is new and unheard of with most, it not all weight-loss diets. This is not something you expect from a monotonous diet with rapid weight loss, much less so from a monotonous diet with rapid weight loss where you also cheat a lot. The section 7 of their report on the diet’s results is clear: something is happening with many people’s hunger feeling, and we don’t know why. Alas, it did not concern OP (although he seems to have had a “dissipation” of hunger at some point) but that’s still worth exploring.
I’m sorry for the (very late) side remark but an “underlying promise” is an oxymoron of sorts—if nothing was explicitly promised, nothing was promised :)