On to the second and, mercifully, final part of the critical review of the metabolic advantage as presented by A Colpo in his book The Fat-Loss Bible. As discussed in the previous post, our friend, like the kid to the left, is focused so intently on his refusal to believe in even the possibility of the existence of a metabolic advantage that he can’t read the literature correctly – not even the very literature he uses to try to prove his own position.  His bias has hypnotized him to the point that he can’t see anything that doesn’t confirm his what he already believes.  And this same bias prevents him from even taking a scientific approach to the problem.

We all fall victim to the confirmation bias and have to fight it constantly.  Gary Taubes thinks I may even have succumbed a little in the earlier post on AC and the metabolic advantage.  He emailed me saying he had read the post and thought it was great up to the point right at the end where I wrote that the data on the whole showed that, if anything, there was a metabolic advantage.  Gary thought the data presented in all the studies in AC’s chart was ambiguous and that I was going out on a limb a little in making the statement that I thought, if anything, that the papers argued for a metabolic advantage.

I disagree.

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There are a lot of disagreeable  jobs out there.  Dealing with Anthony Colpo is one of them.  Trying to make sense of thermodynamics is another.  Whereas dealing with AC is kind of like the job pictured at the left – distasteful but fairly simple – delving into the workings of the laws of thermodynamics is intellectually challenging but far from easy.  Problem is, it appears kind of easy, and everyone, it seems, fancies himself to be an expert.  (How many people have we heard blather on about how a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, thinking they are accurately stating the 1st law of thermodynamics?) But the truth is that the more you study thermodynamics and the more you seem to learn, the less you really understand.

I’ve had a family medical emergency that’s been occupying my time for the past week so I haven’t really had the consolidated time I’ve needed to finish off Part II of the AC book critique, but I haven’t forgotten about it.  I should have it up in a day or two.

Until then, I’ll give you a little thermodynamics to chew on so you, too, can see that it is far from simple.

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I’m taking a short break from the great Anthony Colpo smackdown to report on all the goings on with the ‘wretched’ choral society and the Beatles concert.  As I’ve mentioned before, MD has been pushing for a Beatles concert since she’s been the president (her three-year term will be mercifully over on June 30, and I’ll have my wife back).  It’s all come to pass with a whole lot of help from a whole bunch of people. And, thanks to all this effort by all these people – especially Brooks Firestone – it has turned into a much, much huger event than she had ever imagined.

The event kicked off last night with a small reception with Sir George Martin.  About 50 people came to a wine and hors d’oeuvres at the Founders Room of the Granada theater.  Sir George gave a wonderful talk about his early career and his first meeting with the Beatles.  At that time non-Sir George was heading EMI records and his specialty was comedy records.  Brian Epstein had arranged an appointment (Martin said he still has his diary, which lists Epstein as Bernard Epstein) and when Martin told him that he wasn’t interested, Epstein looked so dejected, that Martin relented and said, “Okay, I’ll give them one hour next week.”

The Beatles came in at the appointed time, were terrible as musicians, but were absolutely charming.  Martin took them into the control room to listen to their audition recording and told them to tell him if there was anything they didn’t like.  George Harrison promptly said,”For starters, I’m not crazy about your tie.”  The other Beatles were mortified because they thought George may have blown the deal for them.  George Martin, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious.  At the end of the day, he agreed to give them a recording contract.  Then, as he said in his talk, “As we all know, the rest is history.”

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I’ve got to apologize in advance for the length of this post, but in order to thoroughly do what needs to be done, it took the space.

Readers of this blog who have been around for a couple of years have been through the Anthony Colpo (AC) fiasco with me.  For those of you who weren’t around at the time, I’ll give a brief – a very brief – overview of what happened so you’ll understand what this is all about.

I wrote a post in September 2007 describing two different diets and their outcomes.  The first was designed by Ancel Keys and was a 1500+ calorie low-fat, high-carb diet; the other, designed by John Yudkin, was a 1500+ calorie low-carb, high-fat diet.  The subjects following the two diets experienced drastically different results.

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