The Man Who Convinced Us We Needed Vitamin Supplements

An anonymous reader writes "The Atlantic has an interesting piece on the life and work of the scientist most responsible for moms around the world giving their kids Vitamin C tablets to fight off colds, Linus Pauling. From the article: 'On October 10, 2011, researchers from the University of Minnesota found that women who took supplemental multivitamins died at rates higher than those who didn't. Two days later, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic found that men who took vitamin E had an increased risk of prostate cancer. "It's been a tough week for vitamins," said Carrie Gann of ABC News. These findings weren't new. Seven previous studies had already shown that vitamins increased the risk of cancer and heart disease and shortened lives. Still, in 2012, more than half of all Americans took some form of vitamin supplements. What few people realize, however, is that their fascination with vitamins can be traced back to one man. A man who was so spectacularly right that he won two Nobel Prizes and so spectacularly wrong that he was arguably the world's greatest quack.'"

Comments

Re:Peer review

[girlintraining]

Why are you such a troll? First, the quote is from the article. So it's the writers fault, not slashdot's.

Why are you such a sniveling piece of shit? Deal with the message, instead of attacking the messenger. It just makes you look like... a sniveling piece of shit. Now, let's deal with your post -- first, Slashdot reposted it. That makes them responsible. They have editors... look up the definition of that sometime. Calling someone names (as I just did to you) is embarassing, it flares tempers, and very little good can come of it. So Slashdot was wrong to post that quote. Period. End of discussion. It was name calling and it has no business on the front page.

Second, you should try reading TFA. You say, "A quack is someone who doesn't use the right process, who avoids peer review, who insists they can't be wrong.". Guess what? If you read the fucking article, you would know that he did exactly that.

Use the word 'fucking' more often. It makes you look smarter! Now how about we talk about that "fucking" article... the research was originally done in 1931. Go back and take a look at how much we knew in 1931 -- the theory of relativity was still pretty fresh back then. Today, it's proven science, but back then... it was an interesting mathematical assertion. We've gone back and tested it since then hundreds of times, but stop and really think about the state of the art back then. Even Einstein (according to the "fucking" article!) thought it was complicated stuff. This guy published dozens of scientific articles and contributed greatly to scientific progress.

And then, in the wizened old age of 65, he made a mistake. One. Mistake. Amidst a career of amazing accomplishment. And you say that slashdot calling him a "quack" or the article, is justified. Need I pull up the scientific literature that says that (a) people at that age can make cognitive and reasoning errors and (b) scientists are people? But let's ignore that, shall we?

Only a select few studies had been done on Vitamin C at the time of publication. There wasn't much research being done. Thanks to him, a lot more attention was given to it, and we now know that vitamin C doesn't do any of these things. This is how science works.

You can't take a man with a career of getting it right, and at the tail end of it, when he's bordering on senility, turn around and call him a quack. You're an asshole, sir, for doing that. So is slashdot. So are the publishers of the original article. Just because one person's an asshole doesn't mean you can keep repeating what was said and then claim "I'm not being an asshole, I'm just saying what these other assholes said!" No; You're responsible for whatever you publish. That's the whole point of the editorial process.

Look at the very definition of quack; "An untrained person who pretends to be a physician and dispenses medical advice and treatment." This guy was trained. He published several articles on medicine. But he wasn't a physician and he wasn't treating anyone -- he was an advocate. A sincere, but mistaken, person, who was old, at the end of his career, and obsessed with his own health like so many his age. This isn't something worthy of name calling, and certainly isn't worth you defending it by telling others to "STFU". It's just sad... a man with a distinguished career who in his twilight years made a mistake that we're now going to remember him forever about. He didn't even live long enough to see most of the research the article cites.

Pathetic. I stand by what I say -- Slashdot should be ashamed for holding him up as a quack. This was a story of a scientist who got old and made a mistake, at a time when there wasn't a lot of research being done. And he helped catapult research into it, so we know have much firmer ground to stand on. Incase you still think being wrong doesn't count for something, ask Edison about how many attempts he made to create the lightbulb before he found something that worked. This is how science works.

Name calling isn't something we should endorse in this community, especially when it's so unjustified.

Re:Diet and laziness

[superwiz]

Birthers, truthers, AGW deniers, anti-vaccine nutters, young earthers, homeopaths, intelligent design advocates,

Not to mention progressives. Because you know, it takes not knowing anything about 20th century to think that leftist ideas don't lead to mass starvation.