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SCIENTIFIC REDUCTIONISM 287On occasions, when our paths have crossed, Professor Willett and
I have had discussions about the findings on fat as they relate to the
China Study and the Nurses' Health Study. I have always made the same
point: whole foods, plant-based diets, naturally low in fat, are not in-
cluded in the Nurses' Health Study cohort, and that it is these types of
diets that are the most beneficial for our health. Professor Willett has
said to me, in response, on more than one occasion, "You may be right,
Colin, but people don't want to go there." This comment has disturbing
implica tions.
Scientists should not be ignoring ideas just because we perceive that
the public does not want to hear them. Too often during my career, I
have heard comments that seem to be more of an attempt to please the
public than to engage in an open, honest debate, wherever it may take
us. This is wrong. The role of science in a society is to observe, to ask
questions, to form and test hypotheses and to interpret the findings
without bias-not to kowtow to people's perceived desires. Consumers
have the ultimate choice of whether to integrate our findings into their
lifestyles, but we owe it to them to give them the best information pos-
sible with which to make that decision and not decide for them. It is
they who paid for this research and it is only they who have the right to
decide what to do with it.
The perception in the scientific community that the public only
wants magic bullets and simple dietary tinkering is overrated. I have
learned in my public lectures that there is more interest in dietllifestyle
change than the academic community is willing to admit.
This method of investigating details out of context, what I call reduction-
ism, and trying to judge complex relationships from the results is deadly.
It is even more damaging than the misbehavior of the small minority
of scientists I discussed in chapter thirteen. Unfortunately, this flawed
way of investigating nutrition has become the norm. As a consequence,
honest, hardworking, well-intentioned scientists around the world are
forced to make judgments about whole dietary effects on the basis of
narrowly focused studies on individual nutrients. The greatest danger is
that reductionism science, standing naked from its larger environment,
has come to be the gold standard. Indeed, I know many researchers who
would even say that this is what defines "good" science.
These problems are especially egregious in the investigation of vi-
tamin supplements. As I noted at the beginning of the chapter, I spent
over three years during the early history of the nutrient supplement