The slight disagreements on some of the edges doesn’t change the strong consensus on the core parts.
The existence of a debate as to whether Kobe Bryant was better than Michael Jordan doesn’t mean that people have no idea who is or isn’t a good basketball player. No matter how you slice it, there are going to be people clearly on one end of the spectrum, people clearly on the other, and all sorts of people in between, where the precise rankings might differ from expert to expert, but where nobody is suddenly saying that Michael Jordan was worse than some random middle aged guy who can’t dribble or shoot.
You may find someone disagree as to whether whole wheat bread is worse for you than a grilled steak. You’ll never find a meaningful debate about whether a donut is healthier than an apple.
The existence of a debate as to whether Kobe Bryant was better than Michael Jordan doesn’t mean that people have no idea who is or isn’t a good basketball player
Isn’t that a matter of opinion though? I mean I’m not disagreeing with your point at large about the consensus on diet, but diet isn’t a matter of opinion like wether a sport player is better than another.
People will back their opinions with quantitative models, though. Someone with a true shooting percentage of 60% is going to be considered better than someone at 40%. Someone who gets 10 rebounds per 48 minutes played is going to generally be considered better than someone who gets 2. But it might be a matter of opinion as to how to weight different elements of a box score, like points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, turnovers, free throw percentage, etc.
Nutrition science is also quantitative, with some difference in opinion on how to weight different factors. But the data is collected, there are models of how food causes healthy or unhealthy outcomes, and different priorities of which features of health are more important. Any opinions worth their salt are going to be grounded in quantitative analysis.
True, very true (although I expect with sport you’ll still get them zealots who argue through their teeth for their favourite player regardless of stats, but I’m certainly not one of them)
The slight disagreements on some of the edges doesn’t change the strong consensus on the core parts.
The existence of a debate as to whether Kobe Bryant was better than Michael Jordan doesn’t mean that people have no idea who is or isn’t a good basketball player. No matter how you slice it, there are going to be people clearly on one end of the spectrum, people clearly on the other, and all sorts of people in between, where the precise rankings might differ from expert to expert, but where nobody is suddenly saying that Michael Jordan was worse than some random middle aged guy who can’t dribble or shoot.
You may find someone disagree as to whether whole wheat bread is worse for you than a grilled steak. You’ll never find a meaningful debate about whether a donut is healthier than an apple.
Isn’t that a matter of opinion though? I mean I’m not disagreeing with your point at large about the consensus on diet, but diet isn’t a matter of opinion like wether a sport player is better than another.
People will back their opinions with quantitative models, though. Someone with a true shooting percentage of 60% is going to be considered better than someone at 40%. Someone who gets 10 rebounds per 48 minutes played is going to generally be considered better than someone who gets 2. But it might be a matter of opinion as to how to weight different elements of a box score, like points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, turnovers, free throw percentage, etc.
Nutrition science is also quantitative, with some difference in opinion on how to weight different factors. But the data is collected, there are models of how food causes healthy or unhealthy outcomes, and different priorities of which features of health are more important. Any opinions worth their salt are going to be grounded in quantitative analysis.
True, very true (although I expect with sport you’ll still get them zealots who argue through their teeth for their favourite player regardless of stats, but I’m certainly not one of them)