How to research

[johndela1]

I am amazed at the stuff I have learned from this website. I can see that great research has been done by the authors of the wai diet. I am a bit confused on how to better my knowledge on my own. If I spent time in a book store or reading articles on nutrition from the web I'd be led to believe things very differnt that what is taught here. I basically don't know where to go to further my knowledge. Most stuff out there is contradictory and a lot of it is just wrong.

I want to learn more but don't feel there are many good sources. I want to keep things scientific and not learn about peoples opinions and speculations.

I can study chemestry and biology but in doing so I will be overwhelmed with facts that don't really apply to nutrition.

[RRM]

...how to better my knowledge on my own. ... I want to learn more but don't feel there are many good sources. I want to keep things scientific and not learn about peoples opinions and speculations.

EXACTLY my feelings.
Thats is what Wai is about.
Wai is about learning on our own.
For me, the answer is reading textbooks about human biochemistry (for basic understanding what might be true), and scientific articles that contradict eachother.
What you then need to do, is extract facts from those opposing articles that might combine well, and also keep in mind that many observations later proof to be false, or misleading. And always rely on your feeling of what is 'logic' / what makes (natural) sense, and try to find proof for that by specifically looking for it in other articles.
Then we discuss it here.
When you do so, you are Wai.

I can study chemestry and biology but in doing so I will be overwhelmed with facts that don't really apply to nutrition.

But it does give you a basic understanding how things might work inside our bodies. Learning and still keeping the flexibility of somebody who 'knows nothing' is key.

[Seth]

Sounds very Zen to me.

[Oscar]

Interpreting scientific articles is also a necessary art, as results and conclusions depend on the way the research has been done and the results interpreted, and all these factors might not even correlate to each other.

[Mr. PC]

It would be awesome if there were some resource detailing how to discern what kind if information is accurate, and which is not, and which justified why it was accurate.


For example, we could say 'peer review makes an article accurate'. But some may say 'peer review only allows for the biases of those in the field'.

This seems like one of the most essential things to understand in modern society.

[Oscar]

Yeah, unfortunately that's not going to happen anytime soon. In my opinion you need to scrutinize and use your common sense. I wrote down some things to consider at the end of the Wai Intro article. The most trustworthy research is the "simple" research e.g. "how much of substance x is present in y", and the more it goes towards complex research e.g. "is diet a better than diet b", the less trustworthy it'll be.

[Mr. PC]

I've been reading in the National Geographic that many scientists are thinking of doing away with the peer-review and other elements of traditional scientific publishing. Has anyone read about that?

[RRM]

No, i havent. But i dont think its the solution.
It will only add to the confusions.