Gary Taubes

Gary Taubes (born April 30, 1956) is an American science writer. He is the author of Nobel Dreams (1987), Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993), and Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), which is titled The Diet Delusion in the UK . He has won the Science In Society Award of the National Association of Science Writers three times and was awarded an MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship for 1996-97.

Born in Rochester, New York, Taubes studied applied physics at Harvard and aerospace engineering at Stanford (MS, 1978). After receiving a master's degree in journalism at Columbia University in 1981, Taubes joined Discover magazine as a staff reporter in 1982. Since then he has written numerous articles for Discover, Science and other magazines. Originally focusing on physics issues, his interests have more recently turned to medicine and nutrition.

Taubes' books have all dealt with scientific controversies. Nobel Dreams takes a critical look at the politics and experimental techniques behind the Nobel Prize-winning work of physicist Carlo Rubbia. Bad Science is a chronicle of the short-lived media frenzy surrounding the Pons-Fleischmann cold fusion experiments of 1989.

Dietary science

Taubes gained prominence in the low-carb diet debate following the publication of his 2002 New York Times Magazine piece, What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?. The article questioned the efficacy and health benefits of low-fat diets, was seen as defending the Atkins diet against the medical establishment and became extremely controversial (Taubes himself has stated Even though I knew the article would be the most controversial article the Times Magazine ran all year, [the reaction] still shocked me). The Center for Science in the Public Interest published a rebuttal to the Times article in their November, 2002, newsletter . According to Taubes, "[T]he CSPI is an advocacy group that has been pushing low-fat diets since the 1970s.".

In 2007, Taubes published his book Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease, ISBN 978-1400040780 (published asThe Diet Delusion in the UK, ISBN 978-0091891411). This aims to examine how a hypothesis became dogma and claims to show how the scientific method was circumvented so a contestable hypothesis could remain unchallenged. The book uses data and studies compiled from dietary research from as early as the 1800s.

Taubes' hypothesis is that the medical community and the federal government have relied upon misinterpreted scientific data on nutrition to build the prevailing paradigm about what constitutes healthful eating. Taubes makes the case that -- contrary to the conventional wisdom -- it is refined carbohydrates that are responsible for heart disease, diabetes, cancer and many other maladies of civilization.

Taubes includes information and studies which indicate that physical exercise increases appetite to a degree that makes it an inefficient tool in weight loss. He tracks the origins of commonly accepted dietary advice and aims to show that information that is filtered to the public often contradicts scientific evidence. On October 19, 2007, Taubes appeared on Larry King Live to discuss his book. Although Taubes has no formal training in nutrition or medicine, his book was praised as "raising interesting and valuable points" by Dr. Andrew Weil and Dr. Mehmet Oz who both appeared on the same program.

Publications

• Nobel Dreams: Power, Deceit and the Ultimate Experiment. Random House 1986 ISBN 978-0394545035
• Taubes, Gary (1993-06-15). Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion. Random House. ISBN 978-0394584560. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |1=, |coauthors=, and |month= (help)
• The Soft Science of Dietary Fat Science, March 2001
• What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? New York Times Magazine, July 7, 2002
• Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease. Knopf, 2007 ISBN 978-1400040780

External links

• Webcast of Lecture by Gary Taubes at University of California, Berkeley -- "The Quality of Calories: What Makes Us Fat and Why Nobody Seems to Care"
• Webcast of Lecture by Gary Taubes at Stevens Institute of Technology, Center for Science Writings, Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2/6/2008 -- "Big Fat Lies"
• Article by Gary Taubes questioning the efficacy of exercise in weight loss-- "We Can't Work It Out"