Often Always Wrong But Never In Doubt

BACON: Sugar shock - Washington Times: "Gupta: “So, with the best of intentions, they said, it’s time to reduce fat in the American diet.”

Lustig: “And we did. And guess what? Heart disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and death are skyrocketing.”

Gupta: “Dr. Lustig believes that’s primarily because we replaced a lot of that fat with added sugars.”

Lustig: “When you take the fat out of the food, it tastes like cardboard. The food industry knew that. So they replaced it with sugar.”

Prediction 1: Often wrong but never in doubt, the progressives and do-gooders will develop amnesia about the past 40 years of regulatory activism. The old “settled science” will go down the memory hole, to be replaced with a new “settled science.” With new demons to castigate and a new cause to justify meddling in peoples’ lives on the grounds that they are too ignorant, slothful or obstinate to do what’s good for them, progressives will embark joyfully upon a new crusade. Soon we’ll be hearing how sugar is as addictive as cocaine. (Oh, wait, Dr. Gupta quoted a different scientist saying exactly that.) Sugar companies will replace the fat peddlers at McDonald’s as the new villains du jour. (Dr. Gupta also interviewed a sugar-industry lobbyist.)

Prediction 2: Progressives will not engage in the slightest bit of introspection. It will never occur to them to think, “Gee, if the science wasn’t really settled about heart disease, could the science really be settled about, say, global warming?”"