Seth Roberts

The original meaning of a steep learning curve was exactly as he says. It's been changed in popular use from "easy" to "hard".

(Rummage rummage rummage...):

"Early uses of the metaphor focused on the pattern's positive aspect, namely the potential for quick progress in learning ... Over time, however, the metaphor has become more commonly used to focus on the pattern's negative aspect, namely the difficulty of learning once one gets beyond the basics of a subject."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve

"One natural interpretation of such a curve, which was the predominant early usage (according to Wikipedia) and still exists in some technical circles, is that the thing being learnt is easy — a great amount of learning happens in a small amount of time. This is the opposite of the popular usage."

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6209/steep-learning-curve

"The phrase everyone gets wrong. Outside experimental psychology, where the term originated, I have never seen a correct usage. Learning curves show performance (e.g., percent correct) as a function of amount of training (e.g., number of trials). A steep learning curve means the organization, person, or animal quickly went from low to high performance — in other words, learning was fast."

http://blog.sethroberts.net/2008/08/18/steep-learning-curve/

alt.english.usage:

"The learning curve for bridge is not steep - on the contrary. But I have seen other examples of this confusing of "steep curve" with…

> Seth Robert's recent blog post gives a striking example: http://blog.sethroberts.net/2012/10/11/jama-jumps-to-conclus... ; Tell someone about YOUR (n=1, but better controlled than most medical tests!) experiment with Vitamin D, and they'll likely counter with "Oh, but that has been refuted. It's just placebo". That's a big percentage of how EBM is used in practice.

Actually, it's funny that you bring that up. Yes, my own vitamin D self-experiments were more rigorous than Roberts's vitamin D experiments/anecdata, and both of my self-experiments used blinding precisely to avoid the placebo refutation, so anyone trying to refute them so simplistically would be engaged in poor reasoning; but Roberts is not innocent himself of poor reasoning himself!

I pointed out in his previous post on that study that his criticism makes no sense since the injection happened once a month, which implies the following dilemma (if we believe his criticism): the effect from bad timing should either be undetectable due to contaminating only 1/31 of the data (1 day out of each month), or if the negative effect is persistent over many days, renders every single anecdote & self-experiment (including mine) completely unreliable trash since none of them were expecting an effect which contaminates so many days. So either his criticism is wrong or his entire collection of data is worthless. (Besides that, plenty of vitamin D studies have shown benefits while completely ignoring administration time.…

I like EBM. I would love to live in a world in which it is practiced properly. One of the biggest problems with EBM, though, is that what often is advertised EBM, actually isn't.

My ex was a medical doctor, and for fun I used to read NEMJ and BMJ articles through her subscription. If you trace through references, you often find a (reasonably rigorous) study with reasonable effect observed on a group 40 norwegian women aged 40-50; which in a later article referencing it is assumed to apply to all women in that age group; and through the years is assumed to apply to all women in all age groups. And that's the part that is "easy" to trace (except no one ever does, and it's not really easy)

Additionally, the statistical evidence is inherently weaker than is presented (in a way which no one can actually evaluate) due to the lack of accounting for negative results and unreported trials.

Also, accepted login in EBM is not acceptable from a math perspective. Seth Robert's recent blog post gives a striking example: http://blog.sethroberts.net/2012/10/11/jama-jumps-to-conclusions-about-vitamin-d/ ; Tell someone about YOUR (n=1, but better controlled than most medical tests!) experiment with Vitamin D, and they'll likely counter with "Oh, but that has been refuted. It's just placebo". That's a big percentage of how EBM is used in practice. And that's the part I don't like.

The Shangri-La diet is the lifehack of the century (not a diet in the traditional sense):

http://www.sethroberts.net/

Seriously. You simply won't want to eat, and if you think you want to eat, you'll be surprised at how untasty that delicious looking candy bar or pasta is once it hits your lips. It's almost as if your body conspires against your best efforts to gain weight, which is a nice reversal for once.

In conjunction, take a high-quality multivitamin like SuperNutrition or Alive and you'll also find yourself with enough energy that you'll go crazy if you don't exercise. Yeah, it helps you want to exercise. That is key for me.

It's so much easier to take your daily olive oil and find yourself automatically disgusted at the sight of heavy food than to rely on sheer discipline, which is probably why you're overweight to begin with. And besides, olive oil is good for preventing disease.

It also helps that you'll feel the effects working on the same day you start, and you should see an encouraging difference on the scale a week later (I lost 5 pounds on the first week with no exercise - almost scary).

You win, like, 3 times on Shangri-La + high-quality multivitamin, and you don't have to have much discipline to get started.

The best thing you can start with is to always have simple-to-prepare, healthy snacks on hand. See this excellent, free minimalist "cookbook" - http://thestonesoup.com/blog/2010/06/a-free-e-cookbook/

Eat lots of vegetables. If you don't like them, there are ways to teach your body to like them, with calorie signalling - if you persistently eat something, along with a high calorie load, your body will be conditioned to like it. (As a reward system.)

Also, seriously, try the Shangri-La diet. Despite the redonkulous name, it's based on scientific research that really strongly suggests that the body's hunger/craving systems are controlled like a thermostat, that you can reset by giving the body the right kind of "food cue" as to the environment around it/food available. Research paper:

http://www.sethroberts.net/science/

You're not craving chocolate, nachos & soda because your body needs something - you're craving them because sugar creates an addictive cycle in some people. (Not all - SOME.)

You should also see a doctor and get your fasting blood sugar checked because it's entirely possible that you have a blood sugar-related disorder, aka Syndrome X, insulinimia/insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, and so on.

I'm definitely not trying to be argumentative. But it's interesting to look at what seems like an opposing viewpoint on this.

Here's a psychologist who said that the body reacts by developing an _increased tolerance_ to drugs like caffeine and heroin, based on the time of day and situation in which those drugs are taken:

http://blog.sethroberts.net/2014/02/04/philip-seymour-hoffmans-death-from-heroin-why/

Again, I don't doubt what you're saying about the effects of caffeine on you. Not at all.

I bring this up because it's an interesting counterpoint and I don't know how to resolve it. I don't know how to think about this.

The original article focuses on specific immune suppressing drugs. Maybe the body behaves differently in the face of drugs like caffeine or heroin?

Maybe the body reacts in one direction sometimes and the other at other times for some reason (?)