“THE METHOD OF SCIENCE IS THE METHOD OF BOLD CONJECTURES AND INGENIOUS AND SEVERE ATTEMPTS TO REFUTE THEM,’ SAID KARL POPPER, THE DEAN OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. POPPER ALSO NOTED THAT AN INFINITE NUMBER OF POSSIBLE WRONG CONJECTURES EXIST FOR EVERY ONE THAT HAPPENS TO BE RIGHT. THIS IS WHY THE PRACTICE OF SCIENCE REQUIRES AN EXQUISITE BALANCE BETWEEN A FIERCE AMBITION TO DISCOVER THE TRUTH AND A RUTHLESS SCEPTICISM TOWARD YOUR OWN WORK. THIS, TOO, IS THE IDEAL ALBEIT NOT THE REALITY, OF RESEARCH IN MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH”
In the previous column (2) I showed how Ancel Keys first stole the ideas of the Diet-Heart and Lipid Hypotheses from Dr John Gofman MD. To conceal his own grave academic limitations – in particular, his absence of training in medicine, cardiology and lipidology (the study of blood fats) – he found the perfect diversion in the discipline of nutritional epidemiology for which he required no special skills or training. Masquerading behind this covert scientific pretence, he promoted weak associational data from that freshly discovered academic discipline as if it were definitive proof for his, actually Gofman’s, hypotheses. Yet he was fully aware that associational data cannot prove causation except under a few exceptional circumstances; circumstances that Keys’ especially weak associational data could never establish.
Only ever in passing did Keys acknowledge this fatal weakness in his false claims. It was as if he believed that in every other case, associational data do not prove causation. But his claim was different. Since they were his ideas (even if purloined), then they had to be correct. Even when his proof failed all accepted scientific canons. His truth, he knew, was so absolute, so perfect, it required no human proof. It was biblical. With time he would collect a bevy of disciples who would faithfully spread his false prophecy to all corners of the Earth.
