That just seems like an attempt at mind reading to me. Maybe that’s just their writing style? Maybe they’re just fed up with having to deal with the same anti scientific nonsense all the time?

Seems a waste of effort trying to attribute motive to such things. Just read what they have to say, verify what they say against their references and then make an inference based on that. Don’t see why tone has to come into it at all.

Although I understand the frustration that comes with feeling like misinformation is being spread, it is also much easier to have a meaningful discussion without such a tone/writing style. Everybody is human, and reading something like that can be quite inflammatory and distract from the conversation. Anyways, that's just my personal opinion, and despite writing this, strong emotions getting involved in public forums with topics like these is kind of inevitable.

Tone matters.

I'm much more likely to listen to a person who has a calm, neutral or positive tone than someone who is screaming the same words at me.

Words are only a part of human communication, and arguably not the most important part.

"Can I help you?" Has a vastly different meaning depending on the tone and body language of the speaker.

That’s a different point.

I claimed that Teicholz was a joke because she makes misleading and often false claims about nutrition science evidence. The response was that the critique I linked to was more of a joke, not because of its content but because of its tone.

So sure, tone matters in certain contexts. If it matters more to someone than the content of what is being said to someone in the context of assessing scientific research, then I think that person has a wild way of interpreting evidence.

> Tone matters.

Very true. This fact has been deeply exploited by con men across social media in the past decade. When someone knows they’re coming from an unfounded, misleading, or deliberately wrong position they make up for it by heaping on friendly tone. They present in a warm, welcoming, and empathetic tone that appears inviting and friendly, unlike the cold academic discussions where facts reign supreme and tone is an afterthought.

It’s a real problem right now. There are countless influencers and podcasters pushing bad science who get a free pass because they are all smiles, super nice, and present themselves as helping you (while pitching you products and trying to get you to buy their book)

There's two kinds of it. One is "This is BS, here's why it's BS, here's more detail on why it's BS, don't fall for this BS." It's heavier on evidence than it is on snark. It uses snark to liven up what could be dull, but all the data is there, and is carefully explained.

The other kind is heavier on snark than it is on evidence. It uses the snark to persuade, rather than the evidence. That's "I can't be bothered to actually make a real case here (whether or not the data is actually on my side), so I'm just going to make the other side look stupid, and hope that you decide to agree with me so that you don't feel stupid too".

The first kind can be persuasive. (In fact, it can be more persuasive than the dry kind of refutation.) The second kind is a huge red flag - if they're right, it's only by accident, because they can't be bothered to really deal with the evidence.

I suspect that, when different people are reacting to snark in such an article, they're reacting to different versions of it.