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A comment on Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011 by jeira on Tuesday December 27, 2011 @01:12PM (#3396658)
I am flabbergasted to see Gary Taubes being named a charlatan, especially since Taubes has written a whole freakishly long response to Guynete's articles on his blog:

http://garytaubes.com/

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Re:Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011 by yummyfajitas on Tuesday December 27, 2011 @02:52PM (#3397112)
Um, that's a) not a response to the article I provided, b) focuses on a single inconclusive paper while completely ignoring the other 42 papers cited by Guyanet.

I agree that by itself, the one paper Taubes focuses on does not prove all that much. So what?

Taubes is using rhetorical tricks - in this case, throwing words at the reader, confusing the issue, and declaring victory, in an effort to prevent fanboys from catching onto him. It'll probably work, he'll probably make millions more selling books. Doesn't make him any less the charlatan.

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