Exercises: Field Autopsy — Nutrition Science

Part A: Comprehension and Application

A.1. The chapter identifies nutrition science as the field where the "full failure mode stack" operates simultaneously. List at least 8 of the 16 failure modes from the table in section 26.3 and explain briefly how each operates in nutrition.

A.2. Explain why RCTs are largely impractical in nutrition research. What are the four specific barriers, and why can't they be overcome?

A.3. The "healthy user bias" is described as a confounding variable in nutrition research. Explain how it works and why it systematically inflates the apparent benefits of "healthy" diets.

A.4. Trace the authority cascade of the dietary fat hypothesis through its four stages of amplification (individual → institutional → national → economic). For each stage, identify the switching cost it created.

A.5. Compare Yudkin, Atkins, and Teicholz as outsiders using the framework from Chapter 18. What structural buffers (if any) did each have? Why was Yudkin destroyed while Teicholz survived?

Part B: Analysis

B.1. The chapter argues that nutrition science's problems are "structural, not personal." Construct the strongest counterargument: could better individual researchers have avoided the dietary fat error? Then evaluate your counterargument.

B.2. Apply the Correction Speed Model to nutrition and compare the results to medicine (Chapter 23). On which variables does the difference matter most? What does the comparison predict about relative correction timelines?

B.3. The "contradictory study problem" damages public trust in all of science, not just nutrition. Design a communication strategy that would help the public understand why nutrition studies seem to contradict each other — without either oversimplifying or undermining trust in scientific methodology generally.

B.4. The 2015 reversal on dietary cholesterol was implemented with minimal public acknowledgment. Apply the revision myth framework (Chapter 20): how was the cholesterol reversal presented? What was erased? Why does this matter for future correction capacity?

Part C: Synthesis and Evaluation

C.1. The chapter suggests that "the honest answer" for many nutritional questions is "we don't know." Evaluate the institutional feasibility of this position. What would happen to nutrition science as a field if it adopted radical honesty about its limitations? Would the consequences be better or worse than the current approach?

C.2. Design a reform program for nutrition science using the five acceleration levers (Chapter 22). For each lever, propose one specific intervention, identify barriers, and estimate feasibility.

C.3. Nutrition science's problems are partly intrinsic to the subject matter (diet is hard to study) and partly institutional (industry funding, authority cascades). If you could fix only the institutional problems, how much improvement would you expect? Is fixing the institutional problems sufficient, or are the intrinsic limitations too severe?

Part D: Mixed Practice (Interleaved)

D.1. A new nutrition study claims that a specific food dramatically reduces cancer risk. Using the failure mode framework, design a checklist of questions to evaluate the study's reliability before accepting the finding. Include at least 8 questions.

D.2. A government is considering updating its dietary guidelines. Using this chapter AND Chapter 19 (crisis) AND Chapter 21 (overcorrection), advise the committee on how to avoid both the errors of the past (false certainty about single nutrients) and the risk of overcorrection (refusing to give any dietary advice at all).

Part E: Deep Dive Extensions

E.1. Read the UCSF research on the sugar industry's funding of Harvard research in the 1960s. Write a 500-word analysis using the incentive structures framework (Chapter 11). How did the funding operate? Was it corruption or structural incentive alignment?

E.2. Research the precision nutrition / personalized nutrition movement. Evaluate whether it represents a genuine alternative to population-level dietary guidelines or whether it introduces its own set of failure modes.