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Archive 1Archive 2

WebMD coverage of The China Study

Just wondering if you guys can use this: www.msnbc.com/news/916555.asp I'm not familiar enough with The China Study article on Wikipedia, just working on a semi-/remotely-related article.

Additions

I am currently finishing up this book. As I indicated in my addition, I feel the title is a trifle misleading for the reason cited. Despite the title, the book reviews a substantial volume of past studies. If anything, these take up the bulk of the discussion. The whole idea of the book, as is clear from the book, is its placement within the context of the past scientific literature. This much is immediately clear, I think, to anyone who has read the book.

The second issue is controversy. The authors are aware that their findings will be controversial, and discussion of the hows and whys of this controversy occupy a substantial portion of the book. Saying that one's opponent in a controversy is motivated by a desire to protect his interests is, of course, often used as a kind of ad hominem ploy. The trouble is, what if that happens to be the case? It is reasonable to say that it often is true in the world of public policy and information which can affect the actual financial interests of particular interest groups. Were that not so, there would be no lobbyists in Washington, including those which openly promote the interests of various industries and professions.

It is a key point of the authors that the public needs to be aware of this controversy and the reasons for it. Since that point occupies a major part of the book, it is, I believe, essential to a fair description of the nature of this book.

--Gunnermanz 15:18, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

One Sided

This article is too one-sided. It mentions that the book is controversial, but doesn't offer any rebuttals, or link to any anti-China Story resources. Dilvie 20:52, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

So add some if credible rebuttals exist. Be bold. :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.22.160 (talk) 07:26, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

This is the most POV article on wikipedia I've ever seen. Reading the discussion page is worse as the maintainer earnestly believes it's totally fine and that there is nobody disputing the claims made in the book when a quick google search would prove otherwise. 99.40.226.179 (talk) 19:51, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

This article is a joke, it has no NPOV! If you look at the articles history and this talk, anything that challenges the science in the book or makes the publisher look 'bad' is always censored and removed - Kelly2357 10:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

It's a book

I don't think it's the job of a book article to refute that book and I don't think it's one-sided to not put criticisms in this article. You should definitely start a "Criticisms of the China Study" article and even link to it from this one, but the idea that every article about an objective thing must take in both sides of the argument seems silly to me. Atomly 12:05, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

What's silly is mentioning a controversy, and failing to cover it in the article. Dilvie 19:40, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it's reasonable (more so necessary) to criticize (or link to criticism) a book that claims to be controversial. The article is not developed enough to have an alternate page dedicated to criticisms. I added a link to a "Thumbs Down Book Review." The article is very reasonable about it's criticism. Wikipedia is a place where people start when looking for information. It should provide that information-- on both sides.

Also, I think the title of the article should be changed to "The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health," since the article is about the book, not the China Study itself. As the article develops, the page titled "The China Study" could be used for the study itself.

--Nate 08:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

My experience with Wikipedia is that it's considered standard practice to link to articles that are critical of the viewpoint expressed in the Wikipedia article matter. For example, take a look at the "External links" sections for Raw milk or Soy. As a result, I think the link to the Weston A. Price book review should stay. I just changed the link description to make it a little more clear what the link is about. SweetP112 23:10, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
The "China Study" itself has a page at China Project. This appears to have now been linked into the "China Study" page. "Startling implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health" is clearly a subtitle (smaller font, etc.) rather than part of the title and Wikipedia article names do not include the subtitle. --Irrevenant [ talk ] 03:15, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I actually came to Wikipedia specifically to find criticisms of this book, but I am satisfied to have them in links, not in the article itself.

As to the critical review that is linked, I want to note that, according to the bio at the end of his review, Chris Masterjohn, that review's author, does not appear to yet have a degree in medicine and is "the creator and maintainer of Cholesterol-And-Health.Com, a website dedicated to extolling the virtues of cholesterol and cholesterol-rich foods." Although I realize that someone with such a background could have legitimate criticisms, I find some of his to be overbroad. 


    "Chris Masterjohn, that review's author, does not appear to yet have a degree in medicine"

              vegan-cultist Campbell is also not an MD

For example, he complains that Campbell criticizes protein but that he fails to mention "the cannibalism or the swollen bellies of children that accompanies the protein-starved diet of the New Guinea Highlanders." First, calorie-starved might be a better term for those children. I don't think Campbell would argue that children should avoid animal protein if they cannot get sufficient calories any other way. Second and more fundamentally, Campbell does not state that protein consumption should be eliminated as Masterjohn seems to imply, just that consumption of animal-protein should be reduced or eliminated. Vegetable protein, he argues, is more than an adequate substitute. Lucylawful 20:50, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

i think the terminology depends on whether these children have a shortage of ALL food, or just a shortage of protein while still getting enough calories overall. that last one is a common occurrence among children in developing countries who are fed almost exclusively on rice and pasta (which is much cheaper then vegetables or animal-derived products)Selena1981 (talk) 22:37, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

There was a recent edit about this, so I'll ask the quesiton here. Doesn't the book claim a relationship between early exposure to casein and the development of type 1 (as opposed to type 2) diabetes? Some sort of autoimmune reaction, IIRC. I haven't looked at it in a while so I'm not sure. Frankg 20:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Too many quotes...

I put the quotefarm tag because more than half the article consists of quotes. It needs some major pruning.--Boffob 14:52, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

POV

It was noted more than a year ago that this article is "one sided". Nothing has changed. In fact it appears to be worse with some criticism having been removed. Since the article cites only one source--the book itself--it cannot be said to "fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source." Unless, of course, no one has published anything critical of the author's findings, which is hard to believe but if that is the case then it calls into question the notability of the book. Incidentally, many of the section headings and paragraphs begin with "The authors ... ", which is just poor writing. --DieWeisseRose (talk) 08:34, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

(1) It has not been demonstrated that notable criticism of the book exists.

(2) The article is written with attribution of statements to the authors. Although the flow of the article suffers and I am considering how to improve the flow, this was done so that the article has NO POV at all.

I'm removing both of the tags.

Michael H 34 (talk) 17:50, 7 January 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34

The tags are a warning to readers and editors that there are unresolved problems with the article. You should not have removed them until the problems were resolved. The POV tag explicitly says, "Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved." I have replaced both tags and if you remove them again as you did the last time then I will report you as a vandal. --DieWeisseRose (talk) 22:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
There are no problems with the article. The article has NO POV. There is no possible dispute on this point. You may add notable criticism if you wish or you may ask that the article be deleted for lack of notability (it is a best seller), but I suggest that you have improperly added tags to this article. I ask you politely to remove them. Michael H 34 (talk) 23:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34
I disagree and since we are at an impasse I will submit a request for comment. In the meantime, I am leaving the tags in place. --DieWeisseRose (talk) 05:31, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

RfC: POV & One Source

{{RFCmedia}} Is the article properly flagged for citing only one source and not fairly representing all significant viewpoints?

For those who wish to make comments, please read the following:

The tags

  • This article does NOT NEED more than one source because the article is about a book, and the article's title is the name of the book, The China Study. If the title of the article were nutrition, then the tag would be appropriate.
  • The article does NOT NEED to include all points of view about nutrition. The title of the article is NOT nutrition. If the title of the article were nutrition, then the POV tag would be more appropriate. This tag is inappropriate.
  • The article is written with attribution to statements and therefore the article has NO POV at all.

Criticism

Yes, I removed a section of the article that was NOT about the book at all. The section I removed was completely Original Research. Again, if the title of the article were nutrition, then including notable and reliable POV about nutrition would be appropriate, but the section removed was not notable and not reliable. Thus, the section removed was off topic, not notable and not reliable, and therefore I boldly removed it. The section removed was misrepresented on this discussion page as criticism of the book.

Criticism of the book is appropriate if it is notable and reliable. Users are free to add appropriate criticism. Criticism is NOT necessary if none exists. Do all articles without criticism merit a POV tag? I strongly suggest NO.

The Main Point

This article is NOT a forum for discussing nutrition. The title of the article is The China Study.

I am expanding this noteworthy article as a gift of my time and energy to Wikipedia. Michael H 34 (talk) 15:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34

I get the impression the major issue is that the book's message is unconventional and controversial, but there is no mention of the controversy on the page itself. Frankg (talk) 18:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Michael H 34, your "gift of ... time and energy" does not make you unique nor does it entitle you to ownership of the article. It also does not change the fact that the article still only cites one source and represents only one point of view--essentially that of the authors. No one but you has suggested that the article is a forum for discussing nutrition. The article is about the book and, yes, even articles about books should have more than one source and include criticism. --DieWeisseRose (talk) 08:15, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
If you wish to add notable and reliable criticism of the book, please do so. If you wish to nominate this article for deletion because you believe that the book is not notable despite its being a bestseller, please do so.
However, it is improper to place these tags if no notable and reliable criticism is available. I do not claim to own the article. Please add the criticism, if you wish. Do not add original research though.
In addition, there is no "dispute" about the point of view of the article. The article has no point of view. The point of view of the authors conveyed through the article is attributed to the authors. Michael H 34 (talk) 00:13, 12 January 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34
You obviously have invested more time and energy on this article than I have. I don't understand why you don't find the "notable and reliable criticism" yourself. Are you really telling me than none exists? If so, what is your basis for this? I'm not going to go looking for it myself because I don't care to spend my time that way. But you have an obvious interest in the book and the article and so I don't understand what is keeping you from improving the article by including other sources and criticism. --DieWeisseRose (talk) 02:00, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
BTW, "being a bestseller" is not one of the criteria for notability. I have no great desire to have the article reviewed for notability but at present it doesn't seem to meet the criteria. So, why don't you just improve it? --DieWeisseRose (talk) 02:07, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I think that I mostly agree with Michael H 34 on this. The article would benefit from a section of "criticism" or "reaction," but I do not agree with DieWeisseRose that the responsibility for writing the section lies with Michael H 34 simply because he is the article's most prolific contributor. The claims made in the article are meticulously cited, and beyond that, I know the claims are made in the book because I read it (I know that does not count for anything in an official sense, but I thought I'd throw it out there). The claims made in this book are controversial and I don't see why it would be hard to find criticism of it. But, like DieWeisseRose, I have little interest in finding it myself. I see no POV problem beyond the fact that no one seems to want to find an alternative POV and that is not the fault of anyone who has thus far added info to the article. The info removed by Michael H 34 was indeed not about the book itself, but about nutrition. I think he was right to remove it.--Hraefen Talk 03:33, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Let me first say that references citing the book itself is pretty silly. Cites should not be used in this fashion. No one will dispute that the authors claimed what they wrote in their own book. One might dispute the validity of the claims themselves, but that's another story. So I do believe all the references from the book should be gone (or at the very least, replaced by "Ibid, p. n" for all the entries after the first, it's improper style to give the full info (title, authors, etc) every time, and really clogs the reference section), unless there's actual doubt whether the book contains such claims.
Second, I have to agree with the POV tag. Overly long summaries (it's a pity the manual of style practically only covers plot summaries of works of fiction on that issue) are problematic to begin with. In the case of controversial essays like this one, with very little if any mentions of criticisms, such a long description comes out as either endorsement or publicity for the work summarized. The level of detail is not warranted, and no matter how many "the authors claim..." one puts, it still represents an extensive single point of view of the work, that of its authors. "The authors claim..." is not enough to make it neutral. Cut it short, by a lot (the best solution) or add similarly extensive criticisms (doable but tedious, as it will add to the unnecessary length and will just create more controversy).--Boffob (talk) 04:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
IMO (which you asked for :)), a factual description of the book's contents is not POV. There should, however, definitely be a comment somewhere to the effect that the author's claims are not universally accepted in the nutritional community. This may not be a general article on nutrition, but it is an article on a book that makes nutritional claims, and how the book is viewed within the nutritional community is relevant and necessary. Similarly, if the contents of the book run counter to orthodoxy in the field, that is relevant for mentioning in this article.
I don't think criticism is necessary for NPOV, but the context is important. IMO, the POV tag should go, but the Single Source tag should stay until a few more sources can be found. I agree that it isn't Michael's personal responsibility to hunt down other sources, though. --Irrevenant [ talk ] 03:05, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
No one has suggested that it is Michael H 34's "responsibility" to improve the article. I simply asked why he doesn't do that since he has demonstrated a keen interest in the article and I expressed puzzlement that he has not done so. But I agree he has no duty or repsonsibility to do so and have never suggested otherwise.
Some of the external links demonstrate that other viewpoints about the book exists. By Wikipedia's standards, an article is POV if it does not "fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source." If such viewpoints about the book exist then the article is, ipso facto, POV since at present only the authors' viewpoints are represented. If no such viewpoints exist then there is clearly a problem with the notability of this article.
Hraefen writes "The info removed by Michael H 34 was indeed not about the book itself, but about nutrition." I provided two diffs at the beginning of this section. I think the other editor(s) were trying to highlight a contradiction in the book's claims about the thermic effect of food and I question whether Michael H 34's edits were appropriate. --DieWeisseRose (talk) 11:00, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all for your comments.

I disagree with Boffob, who suggested that it would be preferable for the article to provide less information in order to avoid the presentation of a POV. "The authors claim..." IS enough to make the article neutral. The information provided by the article CAN include a POV as long as it is attributed and thus not the POV of the article. I agree that the use of Ibid would be preferable, but this would be problematic if another user wished to add an alternate citation just prior to the Ibid footnote.

The authors' viewpoints are presented. There is nothing wrong with this. The article is neutral and the authors' viewpoints are attributed to the authors.

I ask that the tags be removed while (other) editors add notable and reliable criticism of the book if they wish, and/or nominate the article for deletion. Michael H 34 (talk) 05:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34

  • I agree with Irrevenant: the POV tag should go and the single source tag should stay. I still find no problem with the deletion Michael H 34 made concernng thermic effect. I also wondered the accuracy of this claim while reading the book, but the cite provided by the author of that info was not addressing The China Study directly, therefore I think it fits the description of OR. And we have now officially spent more time talking about this than we have spent fixing this "problem." --Hraefen Talk 05:20, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Thank you for your comments. Best wishes, Michael H 34 (talk) 05:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34

To everyone who thinks the POV tag should go: Does the article "fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source"? --DieWeisseRose (talk) 08:08, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

This article (about a book) has no POV, so how can a POV tag (about nutrition) be appropriate? Michael H 34 (talk) 15:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34

Although it is your opinion that the article does not seem to fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source", this is an inappropriate standard for adding this tag, and it is not the consensus opinion. It is inappropriate to imply to the reader that any article, but especially one that does not have any POV at all, does not fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, simply because no editor has yet added notable and reliable criticism. It is possible that no such criticism exists, and yet the POV tag remains. Please add notable and reliable criticism of the book if you wish, but please remove the POV tag. Michael H 34 (talk) 18:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34
NPOV says: "All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and, as much as possible, without bias all significant views (that have been published by reliable sources). This is non-negotiable and expected on all articles, and of all article editors. " --DieWeisseRose (talk) 19:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
  • The one source tag can stay because, well, it's true. The NPOV tag should go though, because just because there is one source doesn't mean the article is NPOV. NPOV is based on how the information is presented, and the information here doesn't advocate, it only reports. Any balanced article should have more than one source, since the article should not only be about the book, but the book's impact, the response from the readers and critics, it's sales history, etc... and these are facts that cannot be gotten from the book alone. However, as already mentioned, this is not Michael H 34's responsibility; Wikipedia is a group effort, and anyone can contribute only what interest's them if they want to (as long it is verified and notable).--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 13:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for this comment. Best wishes, Michael H 34 (talk) 17:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)Michael H 34

I don't think an article can be claimed to be NPOV when the editors watching the article repeatedly remove information critical of the book. The article is about the book, not a summary of the book; it should mostly be referenced to reviews, positive and negative, and not to the book itself.Warren Dew (talk) 19:43, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Critical information is welcome, but factually incorrect information that is not sourced should not be added to the article. Michael H 34 (talk) 22:48, 29 July 2009 (UTC) Michael H 34

Possible material for a criticism section

I found this essay (http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html) and it seems like a good candidate for starting criticism section because it addresses the book directly. What do y'all think? I wrote this short paragraph based on the essay. --Hraefen Talk 09:01, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Chris Masterjohn authored an essay critiquing Campbell's conclusions in The China Study and it appeared in Wise Traditions, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation. He says the conclusion that a high-protein diet is conducive to the formataion of liver cancer in people exposed to aflatoxin is flawed because it does not mention "whether the best-fed Pilipino [sic] families ate the many staples of modern affluent diets like refined breads and sugars." He also feels that Campbell's conclusions about casein are flawed because "pasteurization, low-temperature dehydration, high-temperature spray-drying (which creates carcinogens), and fermentation all affect the structure of casein differently and thereby would affect its physiological behavior" He also thinks that even if his conclusions about casein are correct, "any effect of casein... cannot be generalized to other milk proteins, let alone all animal proteins."
If the Masterjohn information is considered notable and reliable, then I suggest that ",a non-profit group that provides information and advocacy in support of the consumption of raw milk and foods high in animal proteins." be added to the first sentence in order to provide information about the Weston A Price Foundation. I also suggest that because Campbell's information about aflatoxin and liver cancer in Phillipino children is currently not included in the article, to include this information in the section on criticism could be confusing to the reader. Best wishes, Michael H 34 (talk) 16:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34

I'm curious to see if Michael H 34 will accept Masterjohn's stuff on The China Study as a reliable source. I'm not sure I would. He has published peer-reviewed articles on nutrition and other articles in Wise Traditions. But everything he has written on TCS appears to self-published on his own web site.

In any case, some more fundamental criticisms by Masterjohn occur in this paragraph (emphasis added):

Only 39 of 350 pages are actually devoted to the China Study. The bold statement on page 132 that “eating foods that contain any cholesterol above 0 mg is unhealthy,”5 is drawn from a broad—and highly selective—pool of research. Yet chapter after chapter reveals a heavy bias and selectivity with which Campbell conducted, interpreted, and presents his research.

--DieWeisseRose (talk) 08:31, 15 January 2008 (UTC)--DieWeisseRose (talk) 08:17, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

It is appropriate to include notable and reliable criticism of the book. The criticism should be attributed to the critic, and information about the critic should also be included.

For example, if Masterjohn's criticism is considered notable and reliable (I should not be the one to make this decision), then Masterjohn's qualifications to be a critic and information about the publisher of the criticism should be included along with the criticism. Michael H 34 (talk) 15:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34

This study does need some criticism, but the Masterjohn webpage is not it; none of this information has been published in peer-reviewed journals, and Masterjohn doesn't appear to have any credentials related to nutrition or medicine. I'm going to remove the reference to Masterjohn. Interested in hearing others' thoughts. Rocko1124 (talk) 17:48, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I came here specifically looking for information on the China Study itself and links to articles which discuss arguments supporting and refuting the claims made in the book. There seems to be some dissension over whether or not such links should exist since this page merely discusses the book and therefore is primarily quotes and information directly from the book. I think there needs to be a separate page discussing the study itself, with criticisms and articles from outside the book itself. Perhaps a "Discussion of the China Study" page in addition to this one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.171.209.219 (talk) 07:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Nominated for Deletion

I have proposed nominated the article for deletion on notability and fringe theory grounds. --DieWeisseRose (talk) 21:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

--DieWeisseRose (talk) 21:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)



I also disagree that this article should be deleted. This is not a fringe theory since it is about a popular book, and on top of that the book is based off of published and verifiable scientific research and papers. There is a debate about the content of the book, but the answer should be to include a criticisms section, not deleting the article entirely. The article also needs to be cleaned up and cite different sources, but again, it should be revised, not deleted.
As for notability, just perform a google news archive search and you will find plenty of articles by major newspapers discussing the china study.


I disagree that this article should be deleted. For the following reasons:

  1. The author is a well respected scientist in the topic of this book: "T. Colin Campbell, who was trained at Cornell (M.S., Ph.D.) and MIT (Research Associate) in nutrition, biochemistry and toxicology, spent 10 years on the faculty of Virginia Tech's Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition before returning to the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell in 1975 where he presently holds his Endowed Chair (now Emeritus)." [1]
  2. The results of this epidemiological study are considered to be controversial, for the most part, because it contradicts what the meat and dairy industry, USDA and others promote as a healthy diet for Americans, aka the "standard American diet" -- a diet which most people agree can lead to heart-disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, etc.
  3. "The China Study" is part of the Google Books collection[2]. Why would Google include a fringe theory book? If it's good enough for Google to host the entire book for free, shouldn't it be good enough for a one page article in wikipedia?
  4. I've read this wikipedia entry on "The China Study", and I'd love to rewrite it completely then simply delete what exists.

--Thomas.vandenbroeck (talk) 07:24, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

the book is certainly notable enough to warrant its own wikipedia-article. unfortunately this article looks more like the work of a fanboy than an encyclopedic discussion of the merits of the book: what the book claims, why that is possibly controversial. and who agrees or disagrees with the claims in the book and why.

Dubious

T. Colin Campbell is not listed as "Director of The China Project" on the China Project web site or on his Cornell bio. To my knowledge, his book and associated web site is the main source of the claim that he is the Director. --DieWeisseRose (talk) 00:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Dubious? I don't see on that link that he is the director. But maybe you should try following the 'publications' link and searching for 'campbell'. His name comes up in basically all of the publications. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.106.224.20 (talk) 00:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

So, what is your point? --DieWeisseRose (talk) 00:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
My point was it is reasonable to trust the book when it says he is director. Anyways, that is irrelevant since I took a look at the cornell bio page you linked and found this:
"Organized and directed a multi-national project responsible for nationwide surveys of diet, lifestyle and mortality in the People's Republic of China (1983-present)"
Looks like that clears things up, doesn't it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.52.218.45 (talk) 03:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Not hardly. It is not clear that the China Project is even active any more and a reference on a bio page that perhaps Campbell controls is hardly more compelling than Campbell's self-serving claims in his book and associated web site. Why isn't he listed as the Director on the Project web site? --DieWeisseRose (talk) 05:27, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
The question of why he isn't listed on a particular website is irrelevant. Michael H 34 (talk) 05:19, 26 January 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34

It is very relevant when it is the web site of the project he claims to be the Director of. --DieWeisseRose (talk) 05:28, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I added a reliable source for T. Colin Campbell's position with Cornell and his status as "one of the directors" of the China Project. Michael H 34 (talk) 17:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC) Michael H 34

Way dubious. this article smacks of dubiousness. talks all about cholesterol and does not even mention good cholesterol vs. bad cholesterol (ie. LDL and HDL ) Secondly, a study of 220 million people or something like that, is just riiidiculous to begin with. (my emphasis on riiidiculous.) think about Nielson ratings. you get a statistically representative sample of the entire American TV watching population from only a few thousand people. This 'article' throws up more red flags than i care to mention. What about the Inuit (eskimos) who subsist on virtually nothing but whale blubber? are they dying left and right of all these diseases? i digress.

References

Since most are from the book itself (again, I don't think that's proper, unless there is question whether the author(s) made the statements in the book or not), can't the subsequent ones be reduced to "Campbell, page x" (or something to that effect)? It really is not good form to have the same book listed completely each time. ETA: consider the notes and references section of Foie gras for example. It's a much nicer way to approach repeated entries.--Boffob (talk) 03:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, since no one bothered to do it, I finally took care of it.--Boffob (talk) 19:40, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

I'm advocating that a separate article for the author of this study should be restored. What is your view? Vapour (talk) 01:25, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

A separate article on the author should only exist if the author article contains different information than what is covered in this one, provided the author passes the notability guidelines for WP:BLP. Also, I had to undo your last edit, because your "reference" was a link to a google news search, which fails to meet the external links guidelines and the citations guidelines.--Boffob (talk) 13:57, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
A separate article is fine if the author is notable enough. Prima face evidence as someone who has been cited many times in the media, based on his considerable research and findings, it's probably the case he is noteworthy enough for his own entry for the main author. But someone with the time to create such an entry (an entry whose references show notability), needs to do that..--Harel (talk) 02:32, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Weird sentence

Somebody fix this sentence: "They also report that the counties in China with the highest rates of some cancers were more than 100 times greater than counties with the lowest rates of these cancers." Offhand, it seems to say that these specific cancers were more common in very large counties.. (?) Muad (talk) 07:36, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Re-raising one-sidedness issue

I have no strong opinions on the book (in fact, I only heard of it today), but I went through the entire article waiting for criticism of the theory, so that I could make a preliminary judgement of whether it was worth pursuing. The lack of such criticism left me disappointed.

I note in particular that I have read a great number of articles (WP or otherwise) discussing similarly controversial theories, and considering that these almost invariably contain statements ranging from "the scientific community is split" to "main-stream science has been highly critical" (with corresponding lengthier explanations), I am highly surprised to not see any such comments here. If no such criticism exist then this would be truly remarkable---and well worth mentioning. (Then again, if no such criticism exist, I would almost certainly have heard of the study or its ideas repeatedly by now.)

I hasten to stress that controversy is not the same as faultiness: A theory can be highly controversial, even condemned, without necessarily being faulty. Note e.g. some early reactions to the theories of Darwin and Einstein, or the disputes around "The Bell Curve". 188.100.194.167 (talk) 17:36, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll see if I can draft a "Criticisms" paragraph. (Was one previously added and purged?) A stylistic nit: repeated use of "the authors. . . " gives it the appearance of a first draft. Mark Underwood (knowlengr) 17:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Knowlengr (talk • contribs)

I also just heard of the book today. Checked the article, noticed it was one-sided, started a Criticism section, then came to the talk page, to find that one has been expunged (?) Apologies if I should not have done so.Weavehole (talk) 09:04, 15 January 2010 (UTC)weavehole

same here: i just read the article and i find it talks about some interesting points. certainly provides an interesting counter-argument against all the protein-based diets that are popular nowadays. but the lack of a decent criticism-section is very distracting. it makes the article much weaker overall: as if the person who wrote it was afraid the ideas in it couldn't stand a healthy dose of academical debate. Selena1981 (talk) 00:00, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Updating Plant-based diet link to actual wiki page

All the links for "Plant-based diet" redirect to vegetarianism, however there is an actual Plant-based diet wiki page. I would like to update these links so that they redirect to the proper page. --Thomas.vandenbroeck (talk) 22:06, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Regarding removed George Mann quote- it was edited disingenuously and taken horribly out of context

Here is the full quote:

ATHEROSCLEROSIS IN THE MASAI1

GEORGE V. MANN, ANNE SPOERRY, MARGARETE GARY and DEBRA JARASHOW Mann, G. V. (Vanderbilt Univ. School of Medicine, Nashville, Tenn. 37203), A. Spoerry, M. Gray, and D. Jarashow. Atherosclerosis in the Masai. Am J Epidemiol 95: 26–37, 1972.–The hearts and aortae of 50 Masai men were collected at autopsy. These pastoral people are exceptionally active and fit and they consume diets of milk and meat. The intake of animal fat exceeds that of American men. Measurements of the aorta showed extensive atherosclerosis with lipid infiltration and fibrous changes but very few complicated lesions. The coronary arteries showed intimal thickening by atherosclerosis which equaled that of old U.S. men. The Masai vessels enlarge with age to more than compensate for this disease. It is speculated that the Masai are protected from their atherosclerosis by physical fitness which causes their coronary vessels to be capacious.

atherosclerosis; autopsy; cholesterol; coronary artery disease; diet; exercise

1 From the Nutrition Division, vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203 (G. V. Mann and D. Jarashow), and the Aftrican Medical and Research Foundation, Nairobi (A. Spoerry and M. Gray). Reprint requests to Dr. Mann. (From the Nutrition: The Great Diet Debate

Denise Minger / Dr. Harriet Hall

The Minger material looks good to me, but I know nothing about this field. Our normal rules for source reliability require some sort of third-party validation of the quality, e.g. publication in a peer-reviewed journal, publication by a recognized authority, etc. What evidence do we have that the Minger material is reliable? --Macrakis (talk) 18:25, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

You will not find any third party validation of the quality of Minger's work. However, you may find the response to her critics by Campbell himself here : http://www.vegsource.com/news/2010/07/china-study-author-colin-campbell-slaps-down-critic-denise-minger.html --Kasui84 (talk) 13:44, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Minger "looks good" and "Campbell replied" is not enough to count as "scientific" or "peer-reviewed". This entire thing is a large scale scam going on right now. Denise Minger is allegedly a private fun blogger, without any scientific background whatsoever. Her "papers" have no scientific weight or credibility whatsoever. She is not credible in any way, she is a completely random private blogger, writing allegedly about her "raw foodie experiences". I so far removed of all the data concerning the "Minger" scam. 92.231.86.66 (talk) 00:06, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow, biased much? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.96.99.170 (talk) 18:07, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe Minger’s analysis would be sourced through Dr. Harriet Hall’s article at Science Based Medicine : http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=6092

I believe Dr. Harriet Hall’s criticism that has been deleted should be re-instated as well, and criticism from her second article should be included as well. Dr. Hall is considered an expert at detecting bad science (see her wiki entry – she is a columnist and editor at various magazines.) While Science Based Medicine where the China Study critique was published is an online website, it does have an editorial board of medical and scientific experts; it is not a self-published blog. Dr. Hall has published extensively in professional magazines such as Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, Skeptic, and Skeptical Inquirer (and even had her own column in Oprah Winfrey’s magazine.) She even has her own wiki entry.

The inclusion of Dr. Hall would also maybe warrant the inclusion of Denise Minger’s critique because Minger’s analysis was utilized heavily in Dr. Hall’s 2nd article critiquing The China Study (see link above). Minger’s analysis would be sourced through Dr. Hall’s article. Again, Dr. Hall is an expert at analyzing phony science, and she had no problems with the Minger analysis. As an expert and impartial arbiter, she found Minger’s analysis better than Campbell’s of the very same data, and that should be worthy of a mention. Cccpppmmm (talk) 13:33, 15 October 2010 (UTC) If Dr Hall have no problem with minger's "analysis", then dr hall is not a reliable source. LOL — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.153.61.69 (talk) 00:26, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

When deciding how to rate Hall's and Minger's positions vis-a-vis China Study, I strongly suggest review what PlantPositive had to say about their positions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.121.182.122 (talk) 20:20, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Advocacy, Not Science - Unscientific Opinion?

I suggest removing and/or replacing Michael Eades unscientific opinion since: 1) it has not been directed at any specific "obfuscation" and is instead a generalized statement, 2) it offer no scientific critique, 3) it may be more of a flamboyant opinionated hyperbole ploy for a link to his own blog post, 4) this space if used correctly seems better served with factual scientific based responses and criticism.

Current text that I'm suggesting to be removed or replaced: "One such critic, physician and author Michael Eades wrote, "The China Study is a masterpiece of obfuscation. It is obfuscatory in so many ways it could truly qualify as a work of obfuscatory genius. It would be difficult for a mere mortal to pen so much confusion, ambiguity, distortion and misunderstanding in what is basically a book-length argument for a personal opinion masquerading as hard science." [39]


I would urge anyone with a grasp of statistics to look at Denise Minger's analysis of the China Study data (http://rawfoodsos.com/). DM even offers a basic stats refresher on her site! Regardless of her scientific background, little has been offered by way of criticism that detracts from her grasp of mathematics and the robustness of her work. Her work does not discredit TCC but it does call in to question how robust HIS statistical analyses of the data are. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.87.143.3 (talk) 16:06, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Various mathematicians have analyzed china study data again and ALL have got the same conclusions than campbell for that study. Campbell's global conclusions about effects of animal foods (in certain amounts) are based in dozens of studies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.153.61.69 (talk) 00:29, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Correlation is Not Causation - Quote is out of context

I suggest honestly presenting the full context of the paragraph rather than the current out-of-context quotes. Here is the remainder of the book quote paragraph on page 107 (most of which is actually copied onto Michael Eades website http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/China-Study-page-107.jpg), which if read in full presents Dr Campbell's message very differently than Micheal Eades extracted piece.
"Absolute proof in science is nearly unattainable. Instead, a theory is proposed and debated until the weight of the evidence is so overwhelming that everyone commonly accepts that the theory is most likely true. In the case of diet and disease, the China Study adds a lot of weight to the evidence. Its experimental features (multiple diet, disease and lifestyle characteristics, and unusual range of dietary experience, a good means of measuring data quality) provide an unparalleled opportunity to expand our thinking about diet and disease in ways that previously were not available. It was a study that was like a flashlight that illuminated a path that I had never fully seen before."--Jdmumma (talk) 06:14, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Micheal Eades original quote: "On page 107 of The China Study, Dr. Campbell writes: 'At the end of the day, the strength and consistency of the majority of the evidence is enough to draw valid conclusions. Namely, whole plant-based foods are beneficial, and animal-based foods are not.' Then one inch below (literally) he writes the following: 'The China Study was an important milestone in my thinking. Standing alone, it does not prove that diet causes disease.' So, the China study produces valid conclusions as to causality, i.e., 'whole plant-based foods are beneficial, and animal-based foods are not.' Yet the China study 'does not prove that diet causes disease.' Say what?" [42] --Jdmumma (talk) 06:14, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Removed criticism

I suggest we delete ANY criticism of this work immediately. Wikipedia has a duty to protect this important book/study. Conflicting studies should be expunged. Articles or quotes from conflicting Doctors need to be deleted or at least make sure you remove 'Dr.' from their name as to discredit.

Excellent work everyone! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.173.223.44 (talk) 19:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you serious? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.170.10.178 (talk) 22:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

This is pretty sad. The people who've removed all the criticism references from this article should be ashamed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.58.120.11 (talk) 01:14, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

If you have to be dishonest about suppressing dissent, then your material must not be factual. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Diafono (talk • contribs) 06:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Could there be a suspicion of ad hominem, or even poisoning the well, in the removal of all mention of criticisms of this book made by Denise Minger, Chris Masterjohn, and Dr Harriet Hall? While it is natural for an encyclopedia to rely on authority, it can be very difficult to avoid accusations of relying on argument from authority. Rather than indulging in an editing war, I should like to plead for a balanced approach and for the restoration of carefully reasoned criticism based on sound scientific principles. Casual readers should be made aware that the book's content is not scientifically unchallenged.Anarchie76 (talk) 13:47, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that the critics you mention do not conform to Wikipedia's policies on reliable sources: Wp:rs. That policy is very central to Wikipedia, but you can discuss what you disagree with about the policy on that article's talk page. Also, Cordain's criticism is mentioned in the article, since it meets wp:rs. So not all criticism has been removed. If you can find others that meet wp:rs that would be really helpful. --Aronoel (talk) 17:35, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Copied from SlimVirgin talk

your comments on my deleted post on China Study

Hi SlimVirgin,

Re: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:76.75.115.179&redirect=no">your comment</a>

You wrote:

Hi, your edits to this are what we call original research. You need to find a reliable source who says exactly what you are saying. You can't extrapolate from original data. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 01:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

In this case I disagree. I am not extrapolating from or processing the original data, I am _quoting_ the original data! In science, if Campbell's book says "+" and the raw China study data says "-" then quoting the discrepancy is all it takes to either invalidate a particular aspect of the book or at least force some revaluation.

Significant correlation factors for all relevant animal produce, except milk, (see page 215 of that paper [1]) have negative signs! Since the discrepancy is so evident then you do not need a peer review system to evaluate my assertion or my claims - I did not produce them! I am a messenger! No matter how many people I can get to peer-review and agree or disagree with my message, the "-" correlation factor will still remain "-" and it will still contradtict the book no matter what anybody would say! Minus is minus! The original raw China study data - already a peer-reviewed published work - basically speaks by itself - against the book! Why not let the numbers speak loud and clear on your wiki page! If my editing and formatting is not well constructed (I am learning) why not post the link and the number quotes by yourself! You have all the data linked! If you still require a formal peer-review acceptance, or feel there is a need to qualify it, you can publish it with a "disputed" qualifier added by you to my text, as you (wiki) often do in similar disputed situations.

Stan Bleszynski 76.75.115.179 (talk) 02:27, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Your analysis could be correct, but we have no way of judging it. That's why we ask for reliable published secondary sources. See our policy on primary and secondary sources at WP:PSTS, which is part of our No original research policy, something all editors are asked to abide by. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 00:53, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi SlimVirgin,

Re: "Your analysis could be correct, but we have no way of judging it. That's why we ask for reliable published secondary sources. See our policy on primary and secondary sources at WP:PSTS, which is part of our No original research policy, something all editors are asked to abide by. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 00:53, 11 October 2010 (UTC)"

I am still a bit puzzled. It is of course correct as long as the China study data is correct! It is not my analysis, I only posted some raw correlations without amalyzing or processing anything! It is supported by the China study itself (you can check the reference link I posted, see page 215 therein). Besides, this is only a comment about a popular book entry, not a peer-reviewed publication! Stan Bleszynski 76.75.115.179 (talk) 22:32, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Stan, the point is that for every single thing we add to Wikipedia, we need a source who says exactly what we say. We are not allowed to draw any conclusions that the sources do not themselves draw explicitly. So if you want to add that material, you'll need to h ave a source who agrees with your analysis, or who agrees that the raw correlations you posted ought to be singled out the way you singled them out. That is, you cannot be a first publisher of that list of facts, or of that portion of the list of facts. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 22:36, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

China Study Edits

It seems pretty relevant to include the criticism that T. Colin Campbell, himself, has responded to publicly.

Why do you feel that these are not relevant to the article?

Last I checked, this was an encyclopedia. People come to the China Study page to learn about the China study. The fact that a blogger posted an in-depth analysis of the China Study and that it gained so much notoriety that Campbell himself responded to it seems like the kind of relevant information that should be included. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.95.237.242 (talk) 19:07, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, a blogger isn't a reliable source for this kind of material. Our sourcing policy at WP:SOURCES explains when self-published sources are allowed. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 00:51, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Well if you read the section "Self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves," you can clearly see reason to include the information about the China Study analysis and its relation to the China Study itself. It is not about refuting the claims of the China Study, it is about the criticisms and discussion that ensued among the author of the book and a blogger. How can you justify excluding these dialogues (or other dialogues) when the author himself addressed them? That, itself is an interesting and informational fact. It is a source about itself, it isn't a source for the article! You can't use the fact that it isn't peer reviewed to exclude it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.95.237.242 (talk) 02:53, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Self-published sources are sometimes allowed when the source is an expert in the field who has previously been published by third-party sources (but even then with caution). My understanding is that the blogger in question has no formal training in this area, and has not been published elsewhere, so that rules them out automatically. Sources don't have to be peer-reviewed, just published by someone other than themselves. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 03:00, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

This is not about self-published sources. It's about it being a source about itself. The fact that the author had these discussions about the book the wikipedia article is on is extremely interesting, and completely relevant to a 'criticisms' section. The citation is only as a source about the source itself! The fact that these discussions have taken place. It is not about citing information presented in the article. To me, it doesn't seem like you are understanding the difference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.95.237.242 (talk) 03:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

A blogger has written criticism of a book. The blogger has no expertise, no qualifications, no publishing history in the field. That blogger is therefore not a reliable source for Wikipedia. It doesn't matter who has responded politely, whether the subject or the President of Yale. The source is not one that can be used on Wikipedia. An exception would be made if there were a real debate between the blogger and others that other reliable sources were commenting on it, but that's not the case here. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 03:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

The blogger is not the source for wikipedia. The blogger is the source for information about the blogger and the dialogue! I feel like you're not understanding this point. I agree that as the entry was before, it is not acceptable, but if it were rewritten to be about the dialogue, then I would hope you would not remove that information. As it seems pertinent and completely in keeping with Wikipedia guidelines. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.170.10.178 (talk) 22:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you connected to the blogger? SlimVirgin talk|contribs 22:42, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

No. I'm a PhD Student in Computer Science in Florida. I have no connection to any bloggers. I just have an interest in nutrition, and find the recent treatment of this article not very impartial. Reading the discussion for the article it's pretty clear that there is some kind of focused effort on the internet to rid the article of any mention of imperfections. I had read the article before and had come back to find the material I was looking for deleted and I was just trying to figure out why. Since that was part of the article that lead me to do further research. I just feel that others would benefit from knowing that the author has had back-and-forths with at least 3 people publicly about this book. One is a professor at Colorado State University. I learned more about "The China Study" from these back and forths than I did actually reading the China Study, ironically enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.170.56.157 (talk) 17:25, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The Campbell response was a polite one. He wrote that Minger was an English major with no background in the field. He wrote that her material is embellished with adjectives and subjective remarks. There is nothing about this exchange that makes it notable in Wikipedia's terms or a reliable source within our policies. Anything can act as a source about itself (the distinction you keep asking me to observe). I could write about me on my blog, then insist that an article about me be created, because I'm a source about me. The question is whether the source is reliable and the issue notable. You haven't shown the exchange to be notable, and the blogger is definitely not a reliable source within the definition we use on Wikipedia. If you want to add criticism of the book, or the study (separate issues), you need to find a reliable independently published source. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 20:40, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

China Study Edits

I believe Dr. Harriet Hall’s criticism should be included as well as the criticisim from her latest article on the subject http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=6092. Dr. Hall is considered an expert at detecting bad science (see her wiki entry – she is a columnist and editor at various magazines.) While Science Based Medicine where the China Study critique was published is an online website, it does have an editorial board of medical and scientific experts, and Dr. Hall has published extensively in professional magazines such as Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, Skeptic, and Skeptical Inquirer (and even had her own column in Oprah Winfrey’s magazine.) She even has her own wiki entry.

The inclusion of Dr. Hall would also maybe warrant the inclusion of Denise Minger’s critique because Minger’s analysis was utilized heavily in Dr. Hall’s 2nd article critiquing The China Study (see link above). Minger’s analysis would be sourced through Dr. Hall’s article. Again, Dr. Hall is an expert at analyzing phony science, and she had no problems with the Minger analysis. As an expert and impartial arbiter, she found Minger’s analysis better than Campbell’s of the very same data, and that should be worthy of a mention.

The China Study is just a diet book that has not itself undergone peer-review, and it might be an important criticism that the science is so shoddy that 23-year old English major can pick it apart. Dr. Hall, an expert in detecting phony science, definitely believes that The China Study is shoddy science. Cccpppmmm (talk) 19:54, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Any criticism is fine, indeed welcomed, so long as it has been published by a reliable, independent, secondary source, per WP:SOURCES. Cheers, SlimVirgin talk|contribs 21:58, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Chris Masterjohn's criticism was published in Harriet Hall's first article, and Denise Minger's criticism was published in Hall's second article. Dr. Hall is a widely recognized authority on detecting quackery (she has her own wikipedia entry), so she would in fact be a reliable, independent, secondary source.

She wrote an article for Science Based Medicine where she discussed Masterjohn's critique of the China Study, and as an expert she concurred with his criticisms. She then wrote another article for Science Based Medicine where she discussed Minger's critique of the China Study, and as an expert she concurred with her criticisms.

As well as being a a writer and editor at various professional magazines concerning quackery, there is also precedent to her criticisms being used on wikipedia at entries for Healingherald.org, Trick or Treatment, Amen Clinic, Vitamin O, etc... Wikipedia already considers here to be a reliable source. In this case she is reporting the findings of Chris Masterjohn, Denise Minger, and others and adding her own expert analysis. It appears that Masterjohn's and Minger's analysis would be properly sourced via Dr. Hall

In addition, there is this: “The Relationship between Consumption of Animal Products (Beef, Pork, Poultry, Eggs, Fish and Dairy Products) and Risk of Chronic Diseases: A Critical Review” by Hu and Willett of Harvard School of Public Health states on page 16 that “the [China] study did not find a clear association between meat consumption and risk of heart disease or major cancers.” http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2004/09/17/000090341_20040917140312/Rendered/PDF/296130Consumption0of0animals01public1.pdf

The China project data shows no clear association between animal products and disease, but in Campbell’s book The China Study he claims to have found multiple associations. The raw univariate correlations published in the China project monograph actually show that plant products such as carbohydrates, plant protein, and fiber are more correlated with disease than animal protein and fat. Campbell invented a new, “holistic” style of science where he can make the data say whatever he wants it to, and that has been much of the critique from Masterjohn, Minger, Hall and others – that what Campbell is doing is not real science.

Campbell is actually proud of his new holistic science, and promotes it on the front page of his website in the article called “Correlation vs Causation.” Here is a key quote:

“In summary, I agree that using univariate correlations of population databases should not be used to infer causality, when one adheres to the reductionist philosophy of nutritional biology and/or when one ignores or does not have prior evidence of biological plausibility beforehand. In this case, these correlations can only be used to generate hypotheses for further investigation, that is, to establish biological plausibility. If in contrast, we start with explanatory models that represent the inherent complexity of nutrition and is accompanied by biological plausibility, then it is fair to look for supportive evidence among a collection of correlations…”

He says quite clearly that the standard refrain of “Correlation is not Causation” no longer applies to his new holistic science that he used in the The China Study to condemn meat. The fact the he used a new apparently “magical” science opposed by probably 99% of other scientists should be worthy of a mention, even if not referenced in other sources. He fully and proudly acknowledges that he contradicts widely-held a priori scientific philosophy to be able to reach his conclusions, and there should be some statement in wikipedia acknowledging this.

The same paper by Hu and Willet above quotes Doll and Peto from a different paper (interestingly, Peto was the epidemiologist for the China project, though he had no involvement in Campbell’s book The China Study.)

“Trustworthy epidemiological evidence, it should be noted, always requires demonstration that a relationship holds for individuals (or perhaps small groups) within a large population as well as between large population groups. Correlation between the incidence of cancer in whole towns or whole countries and, for example, the consumption of particular items of food can, at most, provide hypotheses for investigation by other means. Attempts to separate the roles of causative and of confounding factors by statistical techniques of multiple regression analysis have been made often, but evidence obtained in this way is, at best, of only marginal value.”

The head epidemiologist that worked on the China project clearly would vehemently disagree with Campbell’s new holistic science that Campbell used in the book The China Study to condemn meat. Campbell didn’t even bother to get “marginal value” by performing multivariate regression or accounting for confounding variables (as Minger demonstrated) because his new holistic science is all about cherry-picking simple univariate correlations.

While Campbell is a career scientist and researcher, his newly adopted holistic science that he relied upon to write his book and continues to endorse is clearly considered to be pseudoscience by mainstream science. I think once Campbell has fully-endorsed pseudoscience as he has done on his own website and in the various rebuttals he has published to the critics The China Study, then any commentary from acknowledged experts on pseudoscience such as Dr. Hall should be included whether it is second-sourced or not. I also think wikipedia has a responsibility to specifically give real science a favored position over pseudoscience. Dr Hall said that Masterjohn’s and Minger’s were good critiques. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cccpppmmm (talk • contribs) 16:13, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Just a follow-up: "Correlation does not imply Causation" is an entry itself in wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation) and is considered by many to be a priori to the study of science.

Campbell's quote clearly shows that he does not believe that this applies to his new holistic science that he invented to make his China Study claims:

“In summary, I agree that using univariate correlations of population databases should not be used to infer causality, when one adheres to the reductionist philosophy of nutritional biology and/or when one ignores or does not have prior evidence of biological plausibility beforehand. In this case, these correlations can only be used to generate hypotheses for further investigation, that is, to establish biological plausibility. If in contrast, we start with explanatory models that represent the inherent complexity of nutrition and is accompanied by biological plausibility, then it is fair to look for supportive evidence among a collection of correlations…”

Cccpppmmm (talk) 00:17, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Reliable source?

The criticism that was just added was sourced to this page, which seems to be some kind of religious debate, unless I'm misreading it. SlimVirgin talk|contribs

If you read through it, it has an attached PDF of the Protein Debates, I don't know if there's a better link somewhere or not. --Aronoel (talk) 23:05, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I just saw this. It would make sense to find a link that didn't have the religious stuff, or perhaps just cite it without a link? SlimVirgin talk|contribs 22:33, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
I'll just get rid of the PDF link, the one I found without the religious stuff isn't working anymore anyway. Also, do you know why the references in this article get listed under "Notes" at the end instead of under "References?" --Aronoel (talk) 21:34, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
The Notes section is for the inline citations, and where these are short cites, as they are here (e.g. Campbell 2006, p. 1), a full citation is also needed in the References section. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 01:37, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the following links should be included, because, as discussed above, they are not reliable sources. WP:ELNO says to avoid: "Links to blogs, personal web pages and most fansites, except those written by a recognized authority." and "Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints that the site is presenting." 

* http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html Does the data match up?
* http://perfecthealthdiet.com/?p=166/The China Study: Evidence for the Perfect Health Diet
* http://abundantbrain.com/2010/07/debunking-junk-science-goodbye-china-study/ Debunking junk science - goodbye China study

If anyone can find any more criticism that is written by someone that could be considered an authority or is in a published source, then we should definitely add it to the article body and to the links. But until then I think we shouldn't link to these blogs. --Aronoel (talk) 23:26, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

- - - -

These edits all conform to WP:ELNO and WP:ELPOV Please refer to Wikipedia:Notability (people) These webpages are from scientists with Ph.D's

I disagree that www.cholesterol-and-health.com is a blog, it include 48 end notes and references. www.westonaprice.org even references this same article, should I include that instead? Dr. Weston Price is a famous nutrition pioneer.

This is also not a blog, it is from two scientists with a longstanding interest in diet and health. Paul Jaminet, Ph.D. Paul was an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, became a software entrepreneur during the Internet boom. Shou-Ching Shih, Ph.D. Shou-Ching is a molecular biologist and cancer researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, and Director of BIDMC’s Multi-Gene Transcriptional Profiling Core.

This is by Dr. Swirnoff. Dr. Swirnoff received his Ph.D. in neurobiology from UC San Diego where he conducted original research on cellular mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative disease, oxidative stress, and aging. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Stein Institute for Research on Aging, and teaches physiology and neuroscience to medical students and undergraduates.

I also think that Denise Minger studies should be included in the criticism section as to make this article not be so extremely one sides with no neutral point of view. Dr. Weston Price has also referenced this. Also note that Colin Campbell even wrote to Denise Minger on the topic of his book. --Kelly2357 10:50, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Reliable sources

Further information: Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research

Kelly, several accounts and IP addresses have been arriving here to add material from blogs and websites. Could you please discuss your edits here on talk first, and base them entirely on reliable sources, as defined here by the policy? WP:PSTS is also policy and worth reading too. Blogs and personal websites aren't acceptable; nor are people publishing on partisan websites only. Many thanks, SlimVirgin talk|contribs 10:44, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Also is there any relationship between Kelly2357 (talk · contribs), Cccpppmmm (talk · contribs), 24.95.237.242 (talk · contribs), and 132.170.56.157 (talk · contribs)? SlimVirgin talk|contribs 10:53, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

- - -

Again with the censoring! These are only reviews, they simply let people see what all sides of the medical/scientific community have to say about the book. These reviews are from respected scientists, doctors and researchers with Ph.D's and they all have links/references to NON BLOG websites - as per wiki rules. "No original research" - in that case this whole page on "The China Study" should be deleted as The China Study is original research. "The only way you can show that your edit is not original research is to cite a reliable published source that contains the same material" - I do not think the book "The China Study" passes this requirement. That edit took me hours to write as I am not a whiz at wikipedia. I do not know who these other users are, I am a self taught noob wiki helper that works by myself, trying my best to improve wikipedia and impove on entires that blatenly have a one sided view. Kelly2357 —Preceding undated comment added 11:32, 11 November 2010 (UTC).

- - -

Hi SlimVirgin I see you are a Wikipedia moderator who along with Akhran, is a also an animal rights activist and member of the Animal rights WikiProject. Please be fair to other contributors when censoring articles without good reason. Please don't let emotion get in the way of fact. Kelly2357

Kelly, please stick to the sourcing policies rigidly: WP:V and WP:NOR. Doing that tends to resolve most disputes, and means we don't need so much back and forth on talk pages. Specially, please read these sections carefully: What counts as a reliable source and Sources that are not usually reliable.
Can you please post one citation here to source material that you feel is being excluded in violation of the sourcing policies? SlimVirgin talk|contribs 13:30, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
Chris Masterjohn and his article on the china study conform to What counts as a reliable source and Sources that are not usually reliable where " Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work 'in the relevant field' has previously been published by reliable third-party publications.". Chris has two peer-reviewed papers published in the field of nutrition and health. Found http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17145139? and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17466237? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robchez (talk • contribs) 07:26, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Isn't it kind of a stretch to call Masterjohn an "established expert?" Has he even received a PhD or any other advanced degree in Nutritional Sciences yet, or is he still a student, as he says on his website? I can't really tell, his bio doesn't seem like it's been updated in a while. And it seems to me that most medical and scientific experts have published tens or hundreds of papers in their field of expertise. Also, I'm not sure if this is an issue, but he seems like he may not be completely neutral, since his whole website (and career?) is dedicated to promoting non-vegetarian diets and cholesterol. Including his viewpoints might violate Wp:fringe and wp:undue weight. I would completely support including something he has actually had published as a source, but because of the concerns I mentioned, his blog post just doesn't seem to be reliable or representative of notable criticism. I hope SlimVirgin returns and comments though. --Aronoel (talk) 16:42, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
I have worked with many professors which have worked on only 1 study there entire lives post PhD. The amount of studies a person has published should not be used as a gauge. His website is about science, by chance the science shows valid criticism in the book here in question. i.e you wouldn't not publish Newton as a source because his formulas of gravity would seem biased against the churches teaching.
I was hoping someone would post the source that is not being used. Which is the Masterjohn source? His previous articles are on vitamins D and E, so those would not make him an expert in this field, and we would need to know who he was. All I can see from Google is that he is some kind of pro-meat activist.
His study was about those vitamins and nutrition and was published in the Journal of Nutrition. This book is about nutrition.
The best thing is to stick to book reviews or similar in regular publications, rather than trying to introduce self-published sources and blogs. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 17:10, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
The source they are talking about is this one: http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html --Aronoel (talk) 17:14, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, we can't use that. It's from someone's personal website. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 17:16, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree, however the clause on personal websites clearly states that they can be used from recognized authorities. Where a recognized authority abides by wikipedia veriafiability statements on recognized sources. Which as I noted above is met, as Chris Masterjohn has two published, peer-reviewed articles in journals related to the field of nutrition. Further to that the website has been referenced by the Weston Price Foundation as well as others, so again, please state why this source can not be included. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.213.90.70 (talk • contribs)
I think you misunderstand. For exceptions to self-published sources, the person has to have published articles in a related field, and they have to be an established expert. Having articles published doesn't mean that the person is necessarily an established expert. Also there are the other concerns with the Masterjohn source that have been mentioned here. You can read about Wikipedia policies on self-published sources here: WP:SPS I hope that this helps explain why that source is not considered acceptable. --Aronoel (talk) 19:52, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
He writes here that he's a student. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 18:50, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
OK, thanks for clearing this up. --Aronoel (talk) 19:19, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

NYT

Hi Aronoel, the NYT piece isn't a review of the book, so it shouldn't be included in the reception section. [3] SlimVirgin talk|contribs 20:18, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, it's in the lead though, so shouldn't it be included somewhere in the article? Or should the NYT quote not be there either? --Aronoel (talk) 21:34, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
It's fine in the lead as an explanation of what the book is about, but the Reception section is meant to describe how the book itself was received, not the study. It looks odd to have a 1990 article in the Reception section for a 2005 book. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 21:36, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
That makes sense, thanks for explaining. --Aronoel (talk) 21:50, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Conflict of interest ?

Quote: Vegan animal rights activists at 30bananas forum have committed to hijacking the Wikipedia page on the China Study (seemingly in cahoots with some of the editors), removing any mention of the most relevant critiques of the book. You can see what tampering has been done on the revision history of the page. To give you an idea of what we are up against check out the comments from a 30 bananas member below:

I am sorry if this request lands in the wrong thread, but please alert all VEGAN Wikipedia editors and admins of this (if you know any)! "Denise Minger" is very likely a large scale underground defamation campaign against Dr.Campbell! No matter if she is a real person or not, this is no "private blogger". I wrote already to Dr.Campbell himself, I hope there will be more awareness of the case. But what is essential is urgent protection and following up on the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study Please do not take this lightly. This is a war somebody is leading on, but it can be stopped by focused and clear approach at the major concentration points (like the Wikipedia). Please consider adding this possibility to your agenda and to support the Wikipedia article on a daily base.


I just come back from the Wikipedia with a small first victory :) I was alerting many (vegan) admins and long term editors, and other people were on the move as well, and finally one of THE major Wikipedia admins, who happens to be vegan, is now watching over the article. ALL the "Denis Minger" blah got removed :) Plus some of the other only blog published, not peer-reviewed and not in the least scientifically backed nonsense too!

References:

Kelly, this is silly. SlimVirgin and I are both obviously not from that blog since we've been on Wikipedia a lot longer than that. Also, I have added criticism to this article myself. Anyway, if you feel like uninvolved editors need to weigh in, you can request mediation or post on the alerts page or neutrality noticeboard. I really think that would be a more productive way to handle this if you think what's going on here is unfair.
Also, on an unrelated note, I think that website you linked to is a good example of something that could not be added here under reception as a reliable source. Wouldn't you agree that its reliability is questionable, since it's self-published and self-promotional? That's why the Minger and Masterjohn sites can't be used as sources. --Aronoel (talk) 15:40, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Websites

Kelly, you've been asked many times to stop adding material from websites, including blogs and lobby groups. Please find reviews (negative or positive) published in reliable newspapers, magazines, journals, or books. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 03:04, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

In that case I will help you clean up this page by removing everything on this page that relates to a website (that is not in a newspaper, magazine, journal, or book) cheers Kelly2357 (talk) 03:16, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Kelly, can you say what your interest in this is? Your edits are giving the impression that you're connected to a lobby group, to be honest. I apologize if that's incorrect. But you seem to be focused on removing material that represents criticism of fur, milk, meat, seal hunting, and the Center for Consumer Freedom, a lobby group that represents the fast-food industry. This edit of yours, for example, to Public health-care in China, removed that the China-Oxford-Cornell Study (the China Project) was the most comprehensive epidemiological study of nutrition ever conducted. But you know, through your editing of this article, that the reliable sources have said that about it. So why did you remove it, rather than add a source? SlimVirgin talk|contribs 03:27, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm a young scientist from Melbourne, just trying to make this page have a WP:NPOV I am focused on keeping wiki a place where information is not biased. Your edits are giving the impression that you're an animal rights activist who censors and edits everything to conform with your vegan ideology. I apologize if that's incorrect. In regards to that edit of mine you pointed out, I only meant to remove the reference from 'the china study' not from the study itself.18:32, 28 March 2011 (UTC)86.159.48.220 (talk)
If secondary sources from websites are not accepted on this article, then why are they everywhere else on wiki? If websites that are not from journals, news and books are not allowed in the article, why are they allowed in the external links? Kelly2357 (talk) 03:54, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
People have explained this many times. The policy on this kind of source is at WP:NOTRELIABLE: "[Questionable] sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional, or which rely heavily on rumor and personal opinion. Questionable sources should be used only as sources of material on themselves, especially in articles about themselves." The policy on when self-published sources are allowed is at WP:SPS. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 04:38, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm unclear why a scientist would be so interested in promoting fur, milk, meat, seal-hunting, and the Center for Consumer Freedom. In any event, please read the policies (WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:NOR), and stick closely to them. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 04:38, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
"Questionable sources should be used only as sources of material on themselves, especially in articles about themselves" - thank you for explaining that, it makes more sense now. I am learning everyday.
I find it interesting that you are unclear why a scientist would want to show the facts without emotion or bias. That is what scientists do eveyday of their lives! I am confused why you are accusing me of promoting fur, milk, meat, seal-hunting etc. lol! I am lactose intolerant, it's too warm in Australia to wear fur, and there is no sealing industry hear in Australia last time I checked! These subject pages are controversial, so need constant attention, that is why I have helped with edits, many years ago I was once an animal rights activist and vegan, I am quite educated (and interested) in the field of animal rights and the animal rights movement.Kelly2357 (talk) 21:52, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Kelly, I noticed in some of your edits that you have been removing The China Study as a source from other articles, such as in this edit here. I would like to discuss whether this book qualifies as a reliable medical source. I think it does since it is a secondary source (academic book) and as far as I can tell, is not actually that controversial outside of the Minger, Hall, and Masterjohn blogs. --Aronoel (talk) 23:41, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
  • The China study was an 'observational' study. It is not peer reviewed. The vast majority of medical doctors, nutritional experts, MD's and scientists do not agree with the books conclusion (animal protein is bad for humans). I could probably name at least another 10 experts who do directly refer to the China Study book in a negative light, but of course, those references are not 'good enough' to include here. i.e - The National Council Against Health Fraud, Quackwatch and The Weston A. Price Foundation.Kelly2357 (talk) 01:20, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
I'd be surprised if a scientist were to make an edit like this. But regardless, the point is that we have three key content policies, and the way to resolve most disputes is to stick to them very closely. It also helps if editors learn how to apply the policies by editing a wide variety of articles, rather than focusing for or against any particular topic. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 06:13, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
The China Study (study) was definitely peer reviewed, and apparently it was published in the Oxford University Press and The American Journal of Cardiology. I don't think its being an observational study disqualifies it. The China Study (book) is a published, secondary source by an expert reviewing the The China Study and other studies. Also, I tried to search for articles about The China Study on Quackwatch and the NCAHF, but I couldn't find anything. Maybe you can include links to what you've found there. The Weston A Price Foundation source, as far as I can tell, is just Masterjohn blogging on their website. And the organization promotes dairy and animal products, so they have some conflict of interest anyway. If this book is so controversial, why aren't there more published criticisms in reliable sources? SlimVirgin, do you think it can be added back to the other articles as a source? --Aronoel (talk) 16:10, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
The study itself was peer-reviewed (e.g. here's a paper in the American Journal of Cardiology that was derived from it), and the book is a reliable source because written by one of the scientists in charge of the study. There's no reason to go around removing it from articles. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 16:27, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
The study may be, but this wiki is about the bestselling book, in which only 39 pages are actually devoted to the China Study.Kelly2357 (talk) 23:47, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
The book is a reliable source, according to our sourcing policy, because written by the scientist in charge of the study and published independently. His is a valid perspective, even if you personally disagree with it, and he's a scientist who specializes in that field, unlike any of the sources you've tried to use, which have included bloggers and students. Yet you not only add them, you systematically remove him, something an editor who cared about good sourcing and neutrality would not do. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 07:08, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
You're still removing references to The China Study from other articles, [4] which is adding to the impression of you as a single-purpose account. I also notice that you and two of the bloggers you wanted to use as sources say they are ex-vegans who saw the light. [5] [6] [7] One apparently became so anxious after one year of vegetarianism (note: just vegetarianism) that he was unable to drive his car or leave his home.
I don't know what's going on here, and which of the other accounts you're related to (if any), but it looks like lobbying, and it's not what Wikipedia's here for. If references to The China Study need to be removed from other articles, someone else will get round to it eventually. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 07:10, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
That Quackwatch article is a repost from the NCAHF, both are by Dr. Jarvis. You may be able to make a case for using his criticism in the article China-Oxford-Cornell Study on Dietary, Lifestyle and Disease Mortality Characteristics in 65 Rural Chinese Counties, since it's about the study and not the book. However his criticism is tangential to the rest of the articles and kind of nonsensical: "He cited a study conducted by Colin Campbell in China. Campbell had focused on the relative morbidity for certain diseases without pointing out that life expectancy in China (66 years) is lower that that (sic) in the United States (75 years)." But from what I understand the study didn't include US diets at all. Maybe he's referring to something else, it's unclear because it isn't cited, whatever it is. --Aronoel (talk) 20:54, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
The articles are self-published and barely mention Campbell. Jarvis is a former assistant professor of preventive and community dentistry, and professor of health education, at Loma Linda University, a Seventh Day Adventist university. [8] He's written a lot about chiropractic, including an instruction course about it in 1975, though he now seems critical of it. He has written about dental ethics, [9] about football, [10] has worked as a gymnastics coach, and has a masters in health education. His PhD thesis was on chiropractic (see his foreword in Chiropractic: The Victims' Perspective, 1995); it doesn't say where the PhD is from. I can't see anything that would qualify him to discuss biochemistry, and the websites he has posted his articles on can't by themselves qualify the articles as reliable source material. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 14:50, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Lobby

This page is nothing short of a scandal. It is so clearly being hijacked by the pro-vegetarian lobby with no allowance for a growing and considerable bulk of contrary evidence. Anyone familiar with the extensive work by Dr Uffe Ravnskov, Gary Taubes and Malcolm Kendrick to name just three, would know that the Fat is Bad argument is about to be completely over-turned. In particular Ravnskov shows conclusively that not only is cholesterol important but is in fact protective and correlated to longevity in the over-55 year olds; but that our species has thrived for tens of thousands of years on animal protein, many cultures exclusively, and we benefit from animal fats in many ways - some vitamins are only fat soluble for instance! Then to openly attack and denigrate the work of Denise Minger who is clearly and demonstrably by her writing statistically very aware and who exposes some of the weak work of Campbell, but is abused in these edits and reviews as someone not to be listened to as she is not a scientist or relevantly qualified is underhand. Play the ball, not the man/woman! If you have doubts about her critique, say so, but to edit out valid and well-argued statistical analysis is unacceptable. Lastly Campbell makes so many unsupported, or weak connections it is hard to know where to start but for now, please recognise this article is blatantly and inexcusably biased. For the record, I have no connections with any food, animal, medical or other lobbying drive other than for the truth and for clearing the fog over cholesterol, diet, statins etc. which is currently leading to millions being prescribed damaging statins for a "raised" cholesterol number when the true cause of cardiovascular disease is increasingly being accepted to be due to inflammation in the artery walls leading to plaque formation (which starts IN the wall and NOT in the flowpath) and that of patients presenting for the first-time with cardiovascular disease, almost exactly 50% have below average, so immediately exposing one fundamental untruth of the lipid hypothesis: that serum cholesterol levels are correlated to heart disease. To disallow reputable blogs by reputable qualified scientists such as Dr Mary Enid of Weston Price Foundation, or the many qualified and medical scientific contributors at THINCS.ORG is to use a Wikipedia rule in an unintended way: yes arbitrary, ill-informed, unsubstantiated sites or sources should be ignored, but Ravnskov, Enid, Kendrick, Taubes and many others one could cite ARE qualified and published and respected. And at least Minger tackles the statistics directly to contrast, challenge and illuminate. As an internet based resource itself, Wikipedia should recognise the growing dominance of web sources of all kinds and not just dismiss them out of hand. For the sake of Wikipedia I urge slimvirgin to demonstrate more objectivity and neutrality: this discussion and the edits (some only suggested by others and not implemented) on the actual page are evidence of deliberate cant against any criticism of the Campbell study. Good science well performed is robust enough to tolerate such criticism and this should be allowed to stand - comments suggesting that any criticism of this valuable book be expunged are evidence of those who do not understand how scientific progress is based upon critiques of hypothesis and experimental validation. Please take this as genuine and sincere concern about the quality of this pages management by an unbiased, uninvolved contributor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RPainter (talk • contribs) 16:51, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

WEAK. PSEUDOSCIENCE. BELOW WIKIPEDIA'S STANDARDS. This research will never hold up in the laboratory or in-vitro. It's hippy vegan lunacy, like people going crazy about vaccinations. Any ultra low calorie diet will decrease a population's cancer risks. Big deal. Chemotherapy is an elaborate drug-induced way of taxing and wasting-away the body in a war of attrition. Same approach. Any grow-factor-promoting nutrition will effectively increase cancer issues in individuals with uncontrolled cancer cell growth in their body. That doesn't mean the nutrient or food-stuff is a carcinogen. That's basic science: correlation versus causality. There needs to be an entire section in this article dedicated to Criticism, not a minor note at the end. 66.178.144.217 (talk) 00:09, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Anyone is free to add reviews to this article that meet Wikipedia's criteria for reliable sources. Self-published sources, such as blogs, do not meet the standards for reliable sources. --Aronoel (talk) 16:56, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

PSEUDOSCIENCE! Below Wikipedia's Standards

This research will never hold up in the laboratory or in-vitro. It's hippy vegan lunacy, like people going crazy about vaccinations. Any ultra low calorie diet will decrease a population's cancer risks. Big deal. Chemotherapy is an elaborate drug-induced way of taxing and wasting-away the body in a war of attrition. Same approach. Any grow-factor-promoting nutrition will effectively increase cancer issues in individuals with uncontrolled cancer cell growth in their body. That doesn't mean the nutrient or food-stuff is a carcinogen. That's basic science: correlation versus causality. There needs to be an entire section in this article dedicated to Criticism, not a minor note at the end. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.182.124.123 (talk) 00:28, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I just saw this new documentary, much of which is about this book, and argues its case. I'm not sure, though, if adding the link to this documentary is acceptable for this article. Once I got in trouble when I tried to add a link that I thought was. So now I learned my lesson to ask on the talk page first. :) Anyway, the link is http://www.forksoverknives.com/about/synopsis/ Thanks. BernieW650 (talk) 18:49, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Probably not appropriate, looks like a promotional website so fails WP:ELNO.Yobol (talk) 21:37, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. That is what I was thinking, maybe, too. Would probably be okay for an article about the documentary film itself, if there is an article about it yet. BernieW650 (talk) 23:21, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Animal Rights Lobby

This has been brought up many times before, just check out the history of this page. Wikipedia has many 'high up' administrators that are also animal rights activists and vegans, anything added that criticizes this book will be challenged and removed, no questions! ...my 2 cents Kelly2357 (talk) 03:28, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
All you need to do is find criticism of this book published in a scientific journal instead of someone's personal website or blog. Then no one can stop you from adding it to the page, not even "high up" admins. Nothing can really be accomplished by QQing here about it over and over. Kelly, you obviously know how reliable sources work here so you should know better.--Aronoel (talk) 17:05, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Comment

This is ridiculous that the people managing this entry used their bias in favor of vegetarianism to keep the critique from Dr. Harriet Hall out of here. What a terrible abuse of wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.180.9.166 (talk • contribs)

Here are 2 links to Hall's take on the issue: https://skepticalvegan.wordpress.com/tag/harriet-hall/ and http://www.theveganrd.com/2010/11/how-the-health-argument-fails-veganism.html as well: http://www.veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/ is her personal website, it appears. Hall's criticisms of a vegan diet seem to admit that it is helpful in some regard (especially since her personal blog is all about vegetarian recipes!), but she claims the vegan diet is not a panacea or cure all. For a balanced view in the opposite direction, see this blog, which I found in the comments of Minger's blog: http://GordonWatts.com/consumer.html or http://GordonWayneWatts.com/consumer.html or even: http://Gordon_Watts.Tripod.com/consumer.html These 2 web-rings (Hall and Watts) appear well-sourced, and meet the same criteria that allowed Minger to be used. There should be discussion as to whether we include these (or similar) links.71.101.36.16 (talk) 10:48, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Seeing no dissent the relative changes were made.71.101.36.16 (talk) 12:08, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Though I am sympathetic to the author's findings, I have a hard time taking it seriously when there are no serious critiques for me to weigh the evidence. This does not look like objective reporting to me. Eriostemon (talk) 06:14, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

FAQ for this Talk page

Maybe this Talk page should have an FAQ section at the top explaining why Minger, Hall, etc don't meet WP:RS? --Aronoel (talk) 19:20, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Not including them violates WP:NPOV in the extreme, and WP:COI is huge here. This overrides the minor WP:RS issue over their analysis of the study. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.180.106.231 (talk) 19:29, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:RS is a core policy of Wikipedia, it's not minor. It applies equally to all pages. --Aronoel (talk) 19:35, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
WP:NPOV is also a core policy, see WP:SELFPUBLISH guidelines and Hall is certainly included as a viable source even if you want to edge out Minger. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.180.106.231 (talk) 19:40, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Does Harriett Hall have 3rd party publications about topics in nutrition? I personally trust her as an expert but using self-published sources is an extreme case on Wikipedia. She's been published in reliable 3rd parties before, so I think if the essay she wrote for her blog was a very serious review of the book she would have actually had it published. Instead of trying to push her blog post through the one WP:SELFPUBLISH loophole, I think your time would be better spent looking for critical reviews in sources that are clearly reliable. --Aronoel (talk) 19:58, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
WP:RS quality critical reviews of specific studies are rare in general. Bringing in more general published material to contrast the China Study's claims would dilute the page's focus. A contrasting view is desperately needed, however that is incorporated, and I recommend simple external links to the contrasts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.180.106.231 (talk) 20:09, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Popular science books are reviewed in science sections of newspapers and science magazines all the time. If you know of any 3rd party published reviews directly critical of The China Study, you should definitely add them. They wouldn't dilute the page, and that would be a much better solution than including a questionable link. --Aronoel (talk) 20:16, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I do NOT agree with the conclusion Ms. Minger makes (namely that meat and milk are healthy), and for many of the statistically documented reasons elucidated in the comments section of her pages, where posters tear her apart; nonetheless, I would NOT remove her link as a violation of the 'reliable source' policy, since very few people have dared to take issue with this Dr. Campbell's premise, and seeing the dearth of reliable sources, I'd say that her source, since it has many references (incorrect conclusion notwithstanding) is about as 'reliable' as you're gonna get for a 'dissenting' view here. Furthermore, Minger raises one good point that I recall seeing in comments on her blog: namely, it is possible that vegans have healthier lifestyles due to their personality or whatever common cause exists, and that *these* healthy lifestyle habits are the cause of the lower incidence of diseases, not the vegan diet --but even though vegans & vegetarians are healthier as a whole, this is not always the case, as one commenter mentions that the Japanese smoke cigarettes quite a lot and yet Japanese citizens are healthier, lower cancer, longer life-spans, etc., due (we presume) because of their more vegetarian diet. And, I add: Japan is one REAL stressful country, which works their employees with a work ethic second to none. So, the peanut gallery commenting on Minger's blog make valid criticisms of HER work, which equate to "supportive" comments for this book here -and, i would consider looking at the comments sections of her blog and seeing how many well-sourced commentaries -either for or against Dr. Campbell's book exist. They might be just as reliable (if not more so) than Minger's work.71.101.36.16 (talk) 09:59, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Gary Taubes

An editor recently added that Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories extensively criticized Campbell's book, [11] but I can't find even a mention of it. Can anyone else? SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 22:31, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

@ Slim Virgin: http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=Gary+Taubes'+Good+Calories,+Bad+Calories+extensively+criticized+Campbell&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest#sclient=psy&hl=en&client=opera&hs=na8&rls=en&channel=suggest&source=hp&q=Gary+Taubes+Good+Calories+Bad+china+campbell&pbx=1&oq=Gary+Taubes+Good+Calories+Bad+china+campbell&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=48983l56255l0l56563l16l15l0l0l0l0l583l4717l0.1.7.3.1.2l14l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=c468c29a33fdf853&biw=1680&bih=819
and http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/why-we-get-fat
and http://summertomato.com/tag/the-china-study just to name a few. I notice that many sources cited, both notable and nonnotable sources (e.g., both those with professional degrees and those that were just self-published blogs), were removed. Since all the sources, both the pro and anti sources, seemed well-sourced, this looks like it depletes natural resources to cite sources and should be added back in at least some of those deleted..71.100.183.82 (talk) 23:32, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Hi 71, my question was whether Gary Taubes mentions it in his book. I couldn't find any reference to it. There's a reference to the study itself (not the book) in his bibliography section, but otherwise no mention of Campbell that I could find. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 23:35, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
I don't know, Slim Virgin -- become good friend with Google like me.
Also, just to clarify, we can only use reliable, published secondary sources for the reception section, including criticism. No blogs or other self-published material. See WP:SPS, which is policy. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 23:38, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
I guess I am what you would call an 'inclusionist.' Nonetheless, whether Taubes, Minger, Hall, Watts, Messina, and et al mention the China study by name or not, they all address the conclusion of the author, namely whether or not vegan diets are good or not, and some of these authors are reputable and with letters behind their name (eg professional degrees), and all authors appear well-sourced, so that even if a particular author is "non-notable" in Wikipedia terms, nonetheless, the stuff they cite is reputable and/or notable, and for balance, all sides must be included.71.100.183.82 (talk) 23:42, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
I was unclear: All authors cite to sources that are reputable, and thus may possibly be included --and some authors have professional education, and are thus notable. Therefore deleting all of them is unlogical in my view of Wikipedia policy.71.100.183.82 (talk) 23:44, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Some (most?) of these are bloggers only, so we can't use them. Someone added that Gary Taubes' book included an extensive criticism of Campbell's, but it doesn't mention it. If you want to add that someone criticized Campbell's methods or conclusions, we need a reliable, independently published secondary source who actually does that, explicitly, because this is an article about this book. It's not about the general topic. It's about this book. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 23:47, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
If a non-notable source cites to references that are notable (like a scientific peer-reviewed study), then maybe these 'blogger' could be included. Otherwise, you would have to cite to numerous 'scientist' sources instead of one 'blogger' source. Economy in link references. Many things seem askew on Wikipedia, where citing a source that is less than, say, a triple PhD who is also the US President and an angel (slight exaggeration) is a verboten taboo sin. This seems a might bit extreme. As a compromise, the 2 or 3 'bloggers' with dregrees could be cited, and then we could go to ALL of the bloggers' pages and look for more 'notable' sources, so we don't cite a non-notable source and get cursed for life by the Wiki-demon 'reliable source.' -- Honestly, if a source is an advocacy page (which all are, even the scientists advocate one view or the other), the standards are not as much as if it is making a scientific claim of fact. After all, if even scientists disagree with one another, and we know both can't be right, then at least half the so-called 'bloggers' are also right. Wikpedia seems to be cutting off its nose to spite its face in demanding perfectionist 'reliability' with its sources. I say post ALL the sources, and we report and let the reader decide. But, at least 2 of the 'bloggers' had professinal degress, so they are notable and should be included.71.100.183.82 (talk) 01:05, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi again, our sources don't have to be triple PhDs, presidents, and angels (though we're partial to all three). :) Here are the sourcing rules, from our policy, Wikipedia:Verifiability:

  • Almost everything you add needs a reliable, independently published source; see WP:SOURCES for what we mean by that.
  • There are two exceptions where we may use self-published sources (see WP:SPS):
1. When the material has been self-published by the subject of the article, and where no third parties are discussed (i.e. John Smith writing about John Smith), and
2. When the material has been published by a widely acknowledged expert in the field (that is, someone regarded as an expert by other experts), who has previously been published in that field by third parties.
  • But note: self-published sources, even if they are experts, may never be used as sources of material on other living persons: see WP:BLPSPS.

So basically you need to find reliable, independently published sources, preferably secondary sources, for anything you want to add. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 16:40, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Refs

Eisfbnore, can you say why you're adding templates to well-formed refs? CITEVAR say not to do that. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 18:59, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, can you say why you're removing templates from well-formed refs? CITEVAR says that one ought "Imposing one style on an article with incompatible citation styles". Before my edit, the majority of the refs used templates. --Eisfbnore • talk 19:02, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Hi again, CITEVAR says not to add templates to references. You did that earlier because some refs were already templated. I therefore removed the remaining templates (harvard refs), partly for that reason, but mostly because I'm about to start adding Google page ref links so readers can go straight to the page (in Campbell 2006, p. 20, for example). SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 19:06, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but nowhere does CITEVAR state that one should avoid adding templates to citations; it says that one should avoid "Adding citation templates to an article that already uses one of the other citation formats listed in this guideline". Can't you see the difference between those two statements? Also, there weren't just "some refs" that were templated; there were only six untemplated citations amongst 24 templated ones. As mentioned on your talk page, I would be very glad if you would read the policies before you cite them. In this case, you performed an obvious CITEVAR breach and should hence revert yourself. I might also add that GBOOKS links are not compulsory and should be added to an article just because of your own taste. P.S: You can link to GBOOKS pages inside the harv templates; simply write {{harvnb|Campbell|2006|pp=[http://books.google.com/books?id=KgRR12F0RPAC&pg=PA72 72–78]}}. Eisfbnore • talk 19:17, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
CITEVAR asks editors not to add templates to well-formed references. Eisnore, you're not editing this article. I'm in the process of expanding it, checking the sources, making the refs consistent, and add page links to help readers. I can't understand why someone would arrive to start reverting that, on an article he had never edited before. SlimVirgin TALK|CONTRIBS 19:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Nor does it state that editors should go about removing templates from citations. As already mentioned, there were 24 templated citations and six untemplated when I arrived at this article. Doesn't that imply that the untemplated should be templated if one wants to standardise? If there had been a majority of untemplated citations when I arrived here, I would of course have removed the cite templates to make the citation style consistent. Doesn't that make sense to you? Can't I be allowed to standardise the refs simply because I haven't been editing the article before? Are you WP:OWNing this article? Eisfbnore • talk 19:34, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Sinister involvement in Wikipedia

I think there is something seriously wrong going on with regard to this article. It has been put up for deletion and has also been marked as relatively unimportant. This is quite surprising, since the book talks about the most important epidemiological study ever undertaken. I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but there is a deeper issue here of sinister interests manipulating Wikipedia articles. In particular, in the case of this article, Wikipedia is highly vulnerable to sophisticated manipulation by the pharmaceutical industry and the meat industry. Such anti-vegetarian economic interests may be subtly suppressing this article. --Westwind273 (talk) 21:52, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

As a person who has read "The China Study" and seen the movie "Forks over Knives", I would have to disagree with your statement that this is the most important epidemiological study ever taken. This is a single study that hasn't been able to be verified with any other epidmiological or clinical study. The biological explaination on how meat products cause age related disease is flawed. One of the main problems with the study is the fact that the people in rural China have a shorter life expectancy than in North America. This is because people in rural China have higher rates of death due to accidents or other things that cause the death of people before they are old enough to get age-related diseases.
Rather than pushing conspiracy theories and blaming the pharmaceutical and meat industry, why not provide clarification as to why this this study is so good. There are a lot of flaws in vegetarinism and instead of pushing one flawed study, you should learn a bit more about vegetarianism.DivaNtrainin (talk) 00:07, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
@ DivaNtrainin You ask for "clarification {or proof?} as to why this this study is so good." Well,... If you look at recent comments on her page, there are some well-sourced and STRONG dissent of Minger's analysis, and while they do not always address directly, Dr. Campbell's book's methods, nonetheless, many of the comments from rabid vegans DO make the case solidly that the vegan diet is healthier with a VERY strong correlation and as a VERY statistically significant degree. Thus, these comments prove Cambell's conclusion, even if not his methods or data, and so here is your proof "as to why this this study is so good."71.101.36.16 (talk) 10:16, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
@ 71.101.36.16 You do realize that there were no vegans in the study? It compared people who eat more meat with people who ate less meat. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.183.178 (talk) 21:19, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
@ 70.19.183.178 This is irrelevant, since linear regression does not require one to have data points at one extreme or the other (total vegan or total meat-eating).71.100.183.82 (talk) 23:37, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Sure, the data analysis doesn't "require" anything but a best fit. It's pretty ridiculous to push for a pure vegan diet without actually comparing appropriate population samples, wouldn't you say? Or actually figuring out that correlation doesn't "prove" anything. -98.149.25.150 (talk) 13:31, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
There are a lot of assumptions that have been made. You have assumed that there is a true linear regression, which isn't a good interpretation of the data.
Eh? The data points ARE indeed linear regressed through the analyses. Why would you think this is not true? If the graph says they were treated to linear regression then the burden of proof is on those (you) who say otherwise.71.100.183.82 (talk) 06:45, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
You have assumed that a vegan diet is actually healthy. However, in 2011, this isn't true. If you look at your local organic store and you will find a large amount of food that is sugar laced.
I didn't say ALL vegan diets are healthy. Of course, if it is stuffed with sugar, that brings the value down. LOL71.100.183.82 (talk) 06:45, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
For the sake of discussion, please go to www.veganstore.com and take a look at all the chocolates, baked goods, macaroni and cheese, and sweets that are for sale. Refined sugar is acceptable to vegans.
It's a known fact that sugar is unhealthy. It's been linked to weight gain and diseases such as cancer and diabetes. It's also a fact that many populations like those studied in "The China Study" consume significantly less sugar than the western diet.
Granted that is true for some countries, but you are inappropriate in making a broad assumption that ALL vegan or vegetarian countries or people are ALWAYS consuming less sugar, thus confounding the correlation. This is simply not necessarily true, and even if it is the case, the burden of proof is on you to show that the other factor(s) (e.g., sugar) are what is causing the pattern, and not the vegan diet.!!!!
This leads to the main flaw in the study. Is the lower incidence of age related diseases, such as heart disease and cancer, due to the lack of meat in the diet or the lack of refined sugar? When you look at similiar cultures that eat low quantities of sugar and eat meat, you find very low rates of age-related diseases, like the Japanese who have the longest life expectancy. This study doesn't show that meat is unhealthy. It shows that sugar is unhealthy, but this is hardly news-worthy.DivaNtrainin (talk) 05:47, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
OK, I infer that you have doubts about the China Study. That's fine. Although I disagree with you, there may be some merit to your points. So, in conclusion, if you feel this way, then I would ask you to join your voice with mine in making the case to Slim Virgin, apparently a high-ranking editor, that the various sources that were deleted are 'notable' for two reasons: First, we must present arguments to support your assertion (against the China Study), and, in balance, present others to support it. Secondly, and more importantly, at least two of the authors of these 'blogs' had professional education in related fields, making them 'notable,' and not just 'bloggers.' So, why weren't they included? One of these, is a registered dietitian, Ginny Kisch Messina, MPH, RD, who argues for your case, namely that the China Study is not valid. The other, Watts, is a B.S., Biological/Chemical Sciences graduate and makes a well-sourced case that the ADA is right in supporting a vegan diet. To rub salt into the wound, editor, Shamrox, when he/she deleted the other stuff also deleted the American Dietetic Association link, which IS 'notable' by any measure of the using. I bet there were other 'notable' bloggers with professional degrees who were deleted by editors here, even though this violates the Wikipedia policy on 'notability,' and that nonsense is a chief reason I will not edit through a registered account. Wikipedia is pure nonsense, and you can take that to the bank. I will be telling these 2 editors what I think of their lack of compliance with the notability or reliability standards for these 3 links (Messina, Watts, and the American Dietetic Association), and these were just the ones I could find by casual looking. God help us.71.100.183.82 (talk) 06:45, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Science?

Milk proteins are broken down to amino acids during digestion, and these are the same as for any other protein. Until there is a convincing explanation of why milk proteins are toxic (which seems a priori extremely unlikely), one must regard some of the "China Diet" claims with suspicion.Paulhummerman (talk) 13:08, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The entire book is based on correlations, essentially - correlations found that the authors suggest are due to definitive causes. The media ran with it and ignored that there are alternate hypotheses put forward even in the book that would account for some of the correlations found. Your question is, by the way, answered in the wikipedia article itself (and there's a section on it in the book) as to why milk (casein specifically), containing higher calcium levels, would interfere more with vitamin D levels in the body (and this also why all milk, barring raw milk, is fortified with vit D in the US - which is NOT the case in China). The study finds a correlation, pushes for the "aha, it's due to animal proteins, especially cow" reason, while it's due to elevated calcium levels and likely no fortification with vitamin D or insufficient supplementation with vitamin D (food/supplements/sun) that is the real issue.
The milk section is one of the more glaring issues that does stand out, for sure, but similar alternative, and often better, explanations can account for many of the other correlations found. It's not good science, but it's great popular science and sells lots of books, to run with pet theories pushing an agenda. The book does cover alternate explanations, usually as sidenotes, and if someone reads the book seriously most of the conclusions are only one of an array of explanations that might be possible - but an audience made up of critical readers doesn't create as much hype and profit. -98.149.25.150 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:19, 21 September 2011 (UTC).

New York Times

Hi דין נוזאור, can you say why you keep removing or wanting to add commentary to what this source said about the study? SlimVirgin (talk) 20:32, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

In small article more than 20 years a reporter write something. So  ?
It isn't not "The new York Time" - writing so it's too big compliment. It isn't encyclopedic. It isn't formal price from the newspaper. It's mean nothing. I think that sentence should remove. What is the meaning of "the Grand Prix of epidemiology"? Is there any scientist that think so ? Is it base on academic article? – Of course not

דין נוזאור (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:51, 20 March 2012 (UTC).

Hi again. The point of including that description is to show the reader that this was a mainstream study that an uninvolved, secondary source described as significant. This is the article. It is not a small article, as you wrote, but is five pages long. The confusion may have arisen because someone inserted another, shorter, and more recent NYT article that managed to get between the phrase in question and the original NYT article. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:40, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Wholesome

Hi Bsr969, could you say which aspect of the book you'd like your edits to highlight? [12] [13] [14] As things stand, it's not entirely clear. Many thanks, SlimVirgin (talk) 15:49, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

one-sidedness

this article does a good job of summarizing the information in the book. it does however do a bad job at 'showing both sides of the issue'. all criticism is discounted as 'coming from people who have an agenda'.

surely some reputable source will have pointed out that for all the supposedly healthy effects of the chinese diet the chinese actually LIVE SHORTER than these o-so-unhealthy westerners (and japanese) with all their meat and fish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

or that a lot of the found results do not actually show a better health and higher life-expectancy (as measured by number of people dying), but rather measure some hormones or such and deduce from that that the subject will probably have a higher life-expectancy. Selena1981 (talk) 00:16, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Neither the article nor the book "dismiss" all criticism as "coming from people who have an agenda", so I must disagree. Viriditas (talk) 04:57, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Editing the section titled "Misinformation about nutrition"

If we are going to keep this section, then we should keep this section brief. I have shortened this section and edited so it is less inflammatory and more consistant with Wikipedia's policy on NPOV In general, when editing a Wikipedia article about books, we shouldn't include a huge number of quotes and it shouldn't reprint every point the author makes. This entire Wikipedia page is far too long. Take a look at any other non-fiction book like The World Without Us. The summary of that book is only six paragraphs long and only covers the main points of the book. In relation to this point(i.e.industry backing scientific studies on nutrition), then this point is not a main point of the book. It's not even a well sourced point. I would prefer not including this point, but for the purposes of compromise, I have shortened the section to the main points.

Wikipedia is not a place for soapboxing and these quotes are inflammatory. More importantly, when you read the pages where the quotes come from, the book doesn't support the statements that are made. There are other Wikipedia pages that discuss veganism. If you want to ensure the issue of industry backed scientific studies on nutrition is in a Wikipedia page, please consider editing other pages that better support this point with better evidence. DivaNtrainin (talk) 04:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Diva, you would need a source for your claim that "The authors dismiss the majority of scientific studies regarding nutrition ..." Otherwise it's what we call "original research".
It's common in articles about books to tell people what the authors say, for obvious reasons, and this can be done in detail if editors put the work in. I can't see anything contentious about the part you're objecting to. The criticism of the Nurses' Study isn't uncommon, the section isn't long, and the argument that the food industry is powerful and acts to defends its interests is obviously true. Exactly which part of that section do you feel is inappropriate? SlimVirgin (talk) 16:20, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree with SlimVirgin, here. Please specify exactly what is inappropriate and what you specifically propose to fix. No more generalities, please. As far as I can tell, the section accurately and adequately represents the book, and that's exactly what we are trying to do here. DivaNtrainin, there is a big difference between editorial soapboxing and representing the topic. Viriditas (talk) 04:56, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Huh? Something's mission

I read the following sentence several times; it still makes no sense:

"The study collected diet and lifestyle variables (ignoring all other factors) approximately 10 years later, and found that one of the strongest predictors of Western diseases on a county level in 1973-75 was the fact that different people ten years later had blood cholesterol with a statistical significance level equal to or exceeding 99.9 percent certainty."

The part that says "with a statistical significance level equal to or exceeding 99.9% certainty" simply means that the researchers were pretty sure: pretty sure the person had blood cholesterol. But everyone has blood cholesterol. I say that with a statistical significance of 100% certainty. Sooo... apart from pointing out that people in general are more likely to contract Western diseases than, say, rocks, what was actually intended here? Fuzzypeg★ 14:24, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi, it's just a typo. It's referring to blood cholesterol levels. Here it is in context:

The study included a comparison of the prevalence of Western diseases ... in each county, using 1973-75 death rates. ... [It] found that one of the strongest predictors of Western diseases on a county level in 1973-75 was the fact that different people ten years later had blood cholesterol with a statistical significance level equal to or exceeding 99.9 percent certainty. The study linked lower blood cholesterol levels to lower rates of heart disease and cancer. As blood cholesterol levels decreased from 170 mg/dl to 90 mg/dl, cancers of the liver, rectum, colon, lung, breast, leukemia, brain, stomach and esophagus (throat) decreased.

SlimVirgin (talk) 18:40, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
If your quote above is accurate then the typo exists in the original context, not just in the WP article. He's talking about different people having serum cholesterol ten years later, and this being a predictor of Western diseases. But everyone has serum cholesterol, so the only "different people" who have serum cholesterol but didn't have it ten years earlier are children aged 9 or under! I presume he means high serum cholesterol, rather than just 'serum cholesterol'? Fuzzypeg★ 06:06, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
The quote above is from this article, not from the book. I've edited the page to make it clearer. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:35, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Untitled

Why is the reception section so heavily biased in favour of the book? There is no criticism to balance the opinion. Denise Minger's statistical analysis should be added here. Someone do that, please. 121.74.155.219 (talk) 05:20, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Here's DM's roundup of critiques:
http://rawfoodsos.com/the-china-study/
, including a post that lists and links to "a collection of peer-reviewed papers based on the China Study data that contradict or conflict with Campbell’s interpretation in his book, “The China Study.”":
http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/07/31/one-year-later-the-china-study-revisited-and-re-bashed/
"alyosha" (talk) 01:34, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

fish

The authors conclude that people who eat a plant-based/vegan diet—avoiding animal products such as beef, pork, poultry, fish, eggs, cheese, and milk, and reducing their intake of processed foods and refined carbohydrates

There is no evidence, and plenty of evidence to the contrary, that fish belongs on that list. And there's nothing in this article that indicates how the authors drew their conclusions from the study or that the conclusions are warranted by the gathered evidence. -- 68.111.35.169 (talk) 02:17, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

There is evidence that fish is not a health-promoting food. See http://nutritionfacts.org/topics/fish/ --Calclements (talk) 22:19, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Reception section

I reviewed this today and made a bunch of changes. First, sorry for my first edit on the Willet/Hu thing.. i missed the boat that they were responding to a critique by Campbell of their earlier study. Fixed that now. But the description of Willett's response was just off - the content in our article made it seem like Willet was dead opposed to Campbell and that Willet flip-flopped; neither is borne out by the sources. There were 2 reviews of the China Study book by non-notable reviewers who were also non-expert in nutrition which I deleted. Strange choices. Added 2 recent reviews that cite China Study papers. Happy to discuss. Jytdog (talk) 01:43, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Jytdog, I'd like to put back two of the reviews (Arnold and Hal Harris). I'm also not sure about the addition of the Lanou paper. I've only glanced at it, but it seems to make the mistake of conflating vegetarianism and veganism. Campbell writes about the latter only, and while some researchers use the term vegetarianism to refer to both, this paper doesn't. I'd also like to restore Campbell's point about the Nurses' Health Study being one of the chief sources of public misinformation about nutrition. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:56, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
Hi Slimvirgin, thanks for talking! Can you please reason with me? I'll put the questions separately so we can discuss them in turn.Jytdog (talk) 16:17, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Why are the two book reviews that I removed notable in your view? (I explained why I think they are not, in my earlier comments)Jytdog (talk) 16:17, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I was looking for book reviews of the China Study book by relevant experts in the medical literature and have been having a hard time.. I guess you already looked?Jytdog (talk) 16:17, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Also, why repeat that rather flaming criticism by Campbell in a section on reception, when it is already stated above? It seemed kind of tendentious to me, to repeat it.Jytdog (talk) 16:17, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
  • With respect to removing the secondary medical source (Lanou), two things:
    • 1) it cites him positively which is a validation of his science;Jytdog (talk) 16:17, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
    • 2) Campbell has insisted that he is not into labels, so why emphasize the distinction between vegetarian and vegan in article about his book? I know the distinction is super important to some vegans and vegetarians but why push that onto this, to the point of excluding one of the few high quality secondary sources (as per WP:MEDRS, what we want) that cites him? Jytdog (talk) 16:17, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for talking! Jytdog (talk) 16:17, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Jytdog, sorry for the delay in responding. I have some real-life things that are keeping me offline at the moment. I've removed the Lanou and Dean studies. The Lanou study seems to be about vegetarianism. This isn't a question of labels: vegetarians eat animal protein and animal fat – in fact, they tend to eat more of the latter than meat eaters – whereas the book is about avoiding animal products entirely. Similarly, the Dean study didn't seem to be about Campbell's work; in fact I couldn't see where he was mentioned. I've left the Hu/Willett paragraph, but I'm not sure I see the point of it in a reception section about this book.
I restored the Arnold book review because he's a professor of biochemistry, so it seems appropriate. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:17, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

This is not a real conversation. I'll work on other things!Jytdog (talk) 16:33, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone know how to remove the 'reliable, independent, third-party sources' needed tag/ i think i have addressed this need in recent posts. Not sure why fish follows this post?? :o) TonyClarke (talk) 18:44, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

There is a remark about very high stomach cancer rates in China. That may be explained (or at least this may be a clue) by the fact that seemingly pickled food is a risk for gastric cancer, and that pickled foods are part of chinese culture (it's to be found how much pickled food the China Study participants ate compared to other parts of the world) (I read about this possible connection in PlantPositive article about China Study, an article I would recommend for these interested to collect different point of views on China Study, the guy at PlantPositive seems pretty eager to find The Truth).

Why so little criticism?

I am puzzled at the difference of this article to the German Wikipedia article [15], which contains several critical mentions of misleading use of statistics. The English version here only seems to contain two brief critical views. The amount of contradiction between this article and the German one is too much: something seems wrong. --Theosch (talk) 09:55, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ http://www.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/%7Echina/monograph/Mono_Mortality.pdf
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