By Matt Stone
On Friday I received the following review on my new book Eat for Heat
?It alarms me that the author of this book has no credentials at all. He seems to just search out other peoples research and then puts it together into what he believes to be true. Perhaps if he were to somehow get a study funded into his nutritional beliefs it might be better then just printing a book which anyone can do.?
Grammar and punctuation errors aside, this brings up an extremely important erroneous belief that many people in the modern world simply cannot think their way beyond. Credentials are almost completely meaningless.
Anyone with mediocre intellect, some spare time, and some money (or student loans) can obtain credentials. Credentials are mostly obtained through committing lots of ?facts? as defined by a pre-established school of thought, into the short-term memory in order to answer enough of the questions correctly to obtain a passing grade. The information itself may or may not even be correct. Even the information dispersed from some of the world’s most respected learning institutions is just as prone to error, blindness, corruption, and manipulation as any other.
In the fields of health, nutrition, and fitness this is particularly so. Anyone can pursue any health ideology and obtain some form of certification from it. Certification, and formal education, are both big businesses – and?most are funded by large corporatations with their own?interests in mind. Any moron can obtain a degree in ?Nutrition? or get themselves a fancy Crossfit certification. There is absolutely no reassurance that the information taught is accurate or even safe.
Consider the field of nutrition for example.
In 2007 I once considered pursuing formal credentials to reassure both myself and others that I was qualified somehow to discuss health matters. I wasn’t too excited about this prospect, especially with my suspicions that nutrition education and much of the health field had long ago been hijacked by commercial interests. But I gave it a looksee. Not one to short-change myself, I decided to look first at what is considered to be the finest Nutrition institution in the United States ? perhaps the world? Tufts University.
I browsed through the program they offer for a Master’s in Nutrition Communication, as that seemed the best fit for a writer. They promised that the program was ?designed to prepare graduates for the growing job opportunities available to professionals trained to communicate sound nutrition information effectively. I scrolled through the list of mundane and uninspiring superficial courses in the curriculum, already nodding off just like I was back in school, and then something quite dramatic caught my attention. To get your degree, you had to complete an internship ‘to give students practical field experience that complements academic study, to give students experience in an institution where they might work in the future, to allow students to determine the kinds of jobs they wish to find after graduation, and to give them an opportunity to make contacts in the professional sphere where they will seek employment.
What caught my attention was the list of ?past Nutrition Communication internships??
- American Dietetic Association
- Burson-Marsteller Public Relations
- Cooking Light magazine
- Eating Well magazine
- General Mills, Inc.
- Healthgate.com
- Kellogg USA, Inc.
- Ketchum Public Relations
- Kraft Corporation
- Massachusetts Department of Public Health
- Nestle
- Porter Novelli Public Relations
- National Cancer Institute
- Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter
No bias or commercial influence there! Just the straight facts! The real story! The scoop, or two scoops rather if you are to intern with Kellogg’s.
Of course, such an education would have done nothing for me but put me to sleep. Worse, I might have, like so many others often do, have bought into the idea that the information I was receiving was the best of the best, blindly and diligently downloaded every shred of it to my brain, and then going on to believe that my credentials made me too knowledgeable to give conflicting information the time of day.
Credentials and knowledge are not the same thing. And even the accumulation of vast amounts of knowledge doesn’t yield the only true metric of having acquired useful information ? expertise. Expertise comes from learning broadly and passionately, subjecting that information to the intense scrutiny of critical thinking and differing opinion, keenly observing the real-world application of that information, building useful skills along the way, and then communicating it in a relatable way.
Yes, anyone can do that. But only few have, in large part because the archaic, commercially-tainted, and watered-down educational system that most people have enslaved themselves to forms a tremendous barrier between information and the achievement of expertise. The few who have taken such an expedient route to attaining expertise through their own self-guided, curiosity-driven, knowledge-hungry pursuits are the pioneers and leaders in their respected fields. People like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs come to mind. Their expertise is sought because it is valuable, not because they have obtained the same meaningless credentials as many thousands of others.
I learned this long ago when I passionately pursued the culinary arts by working under the most prestigious chefs all across the country. After only a year of work I found myself frustratingly having to train graduates from the top culinary schools how to cook, which wasn’t easy because they all assumed they had expertise because of a piece of paper they paid for in exchange for learning from instructors with minimal talent and expertise themselves. I can still hear this one kid saying… “That’s not how you make dauphinois” right before the’ticket machine started spewing dozens of little pieces of paper at him. He froze like the stiff in the freezer in The Goonies. An hour later he was ushered down to the “Garde-Manger” station where he remained a salad bitch for the rest of his tenure there.
Credentials are becoming increasingly irrelevant in today’s modern information age. Go to college?? Are you kidding me?? Going to college to learn something is like wearing headphones to a concert. I mean, ?Mr. Borophyll is up there talking about god knows what? when you could be reading dozens of studies, watching informational videos, communicating directly with dozens of leading pioneers in any field and asking specific questions, and even perusing the curricula of Ivy League?classes ? all with a few clicks of a button at hyperspeed. Not only that, but you can be learning about what you are interested in, precisely when you are interested in it, which yields accelerated learning and greatly-heightened retention and comprehension of the information learned.
The good news for you reading this is that one such pioneer, Clare Graves, actually identified someone’s inability to judge information based on its own merits ? but instead having to have it approved by some authority to be valid, as a definitive characteristic of a more primitive level of cognitive maturity.
The other good news is that you don’t have to sit through boring classes, shell out tens of thousands of dollars, get a bunch of certifications and a bunch of letters by your name to acquire skills, expertise, or financial and vocational success. You just have to spend your time in active pursuit of skills and knowledge in your greatest area of interest, and keep doing it for many years.
The other other good news is that even if you get absolutely nowhere in terms of fame and success, never even use your expertise to benefit others in any way, and never make a damn dime with all your passionate exploration, you will still have spent most of your life immersing yourself in your greatest area of interest. Few are so fortunate.
What a joy it was to read this post. Very inspiring, Matt!
I’d just like to say that I’m a biochemistry student at ASU (and going to ASU may or may not have something to do with it) but I wouldn’t trust half the students that have made it to the actual biochemistry course with my life. Plenty of them are actually smart people, for sure, but graduating with a bachelor’s in biochemistry would not make you more trustworthy in my eyes, speaking from first hand knowledge. We can talk your ear off about RNA transcription, but that won’t exactly help you practically, will it?
Now someone who has been through medical school I would have greater trust in. Somewhat. I used to hate modern medicine when I started dieting, but I’ve grown to be somewhat neutral to it. It helps as much as it hurts.
I wouldn’t trust a fresh medical school graduate either. The residency system is designed to create the expertise that Matt is talking about. You spend 4-5 years developing expertise by working with real patients under the supervision of experienced doctors. That is where you really learn to practice the profession of medicine.
The Genetic Fallacy:
“This fallacy avoids the argument by shifting focus onto something’s or someone’s origins. It’s similar to an ad hominem fallacy in that it leverages existing negative perceptions to make someone’s argument look bad, without actually presenting a case for why the argument itself lacks merit.”
I’ve also had my arguments dismissed on the basis of my credentials. When it happens, it tells me that the person dismissing my argument is doing so because they can’t come up with a logcal, relevant rebuttal to my facts, so they attack my credentials instead. It means I win.
Lesser minds who cannot refute your ideas will attack you personally….so it goes
Wow! I feel like I just read a post that I wrote myself!! :) This part – “Anyone with mediocre intellect, some spare time, and some money (or student loans) can obtain credentials. Credentials are mostly obtained through committing lots of ?facts? as defined by a pre-established school of thought, into the short-term memory in order to answer enough of the questions correctly to obtain a passing grade.”- has escaped my lips (nearly verbatim) so many times that I almost wonder if you’ve been following me around. lol If I had a dime for every person I’ve offended with that remark, I’d have a whole lotta dimes!!
I wholeheartedly agree with this wonderful post, and it sums up one of the main reasons why I read your blog. The information shared by you and many of the commenters here is not only a big ol’ stew of awesome, but also has been tested by the writer (in many cases, anyway), so is much more interesting than a dry bunch of “facts” I could get while pursuing a formal education. I find it absolutely invaluable!!
Write on, dude!
Well said — and let’s not forget that credentialism often serves the elite (think about who goes to Harvard undergrad, and the story that came out several years ago about how many A’s they hand out there).
More generally credentialism, certification and licensing have the general function of keeping established “insiders” on top, by creating barriers to entry that limit both qualitative and price competition, and substituting advertising and “brand association with quality” for actual quality. Think about what kind of marginal food comes out of most kitchens, despite their being inspected by the health department. The “seal of approval” of the bureaucracy is actively harmful, because it leads people to turn their brains off.. instead of thinking what they could really do to ensure they are getting top-quality food from a pristine kitchen. Just as an example.
The net effect is to create an environment that is especially friendly to mediocrity and dogma, and allows less-qualified “insiders” to artificially limit supply in order to make themselves richer.
As the mother of 3 unschooled Autodidacts I have great respect for the self educated, and am far more inclined to trust their research and findings than that of government or industry funded postgraduates. I’m fortunate that the M.Ed. I pursued decades ago has not hindered my ability to seek out and find beneficial and honest information; so grateful to Matt and all I continue to learn from him.
Unschooling my son here too,,
It is good to read posts like this- very compatible with unschooling ideas!
And my own experience..
I was basically unschooled through high school. The only downside to my experience was the lack of social interaction with others of my age.
Anyway, I went to University for the first time this year, and saw everything Matt’s post describes right away. XD I thought maybe there would be a bunch of nerds there, and that would be cool, but um, no not really. There were just people who made fun of me for reading science books in my spare time–and these were layperson science books, I’m not a genius or anything.
A majority of the information I learned this semester, I could’ve easily learned when I was thirteen years old. Reminded me of some of the homeschool courses I took at that age (my junior high homeschool courses were about six times as difficult as University). I wanted to put some of the lecturers on chipmunk mode so they would talk faster. I won’t be going back in January, cause I don’t think a degree will help me in my plans for the future at all, but I’m kind of glad I at least tried it to get it out of my system. :P
While I was there, I started reading a bunch of stuff from John Taylor Gatto, Jerry Farber, and others. I also read articles by psychologists on the negative impact grading has on learning–and yet school equates the two. XD Probably should’ve waited until after school to read this stuff–made me feel like everyone was crazy haha.
My little sister, who is a first year in University also, gets fairly bad grades on tests, because she has a learning disability (dyslexia is part of it). And yet, she loves and absorbs the information she’s taught, and can write better than most of the kids in my class. Meanwhile with my kick-ass short term memory I can ace tests without even studying. But if I don’t take the time to think about what I’m learning, it’s not as though I gain much. :P
My point is… Testing is dumb. And school was just… A very confusing experience for me. >.<
I love this post! Unfortunately, most hiring managers wouldn’t agree. :( My husband, after a decade in working in information technology, was forced to go back to school, take out over sixty grand in student loans and finish his degree because nobody would even look at his resume without a bachelors. He wasted seven years (takes a while when you’re an adult student working two jobs and trying to spend time with three kids) taking stupid classes and going into major debt just so he could secure a better paying job doing what he had already been doing for years. He’s not any more qualified now than he was before going to school but, with that little degree in hand, people at corporations that know nothing about information technology feel he can do the job better.
Was he getting interviews at all or was he getting completely passed over?
He was getting completely passed over. Within a month of receiving his degree he had four interviews and two job offers.
Well said. 100% agreement.
I was pursuing an B.S. in Nutrition Science at UMD when I realized how bigoted the institution was. They ridiculed raw milk, and organic food, and promoted food science, the field devoted to engineering food like products. I switched to kinesiology, which still is bigoted. The School of Public Health promotes fluoride consumption and has advertisements for it by the water fountains. Incredible.
I feel bad for my parents because they are spending tens of thousands of dollars for an inadequate education, just credentials which offer higher learning opportunities. But I attain peace in knowing that one day, I will truly be able to learn the things I want, freely, unhindered, and this is just an obstacle.
I really appreciate your work and I wish I could spend my time learning about cool relevant things like you instead of wasting my time here. You definitely made the right decision. Peace!
I run into this all the time. My impression (through the tales I am regaled with by a steady stream of clients) is that if a concept or material isn’t taught in a sanctioned academic setting (say like the role of nutrition in health being absent from medical school training) it isn’t worth even being curious about. I have many clients who have remarkable experiences of healing after being essentially abandoned by their allopathic care providers and the doc will say “I don’t know what you’re doing (patient just told them) but keep on doing it (and I won’t ask or want to know anything about it).”
Just made a presentation to a couple of local social groups about somatotype and osteoporosis, complete with material on embryological germ layers and the homologous concept in Ayurveda, the Tridoshas, and my audiences were stunned. “Why don’t people know about this?” Good question. This is valid and relevant information which our ancestors discerned with an amazing level of accuracy, and is completely supported by “real science”. I am all for skepticism, but sometimes skepticism is only a cover for being incurious and resistant re:new concepts and critical thinking.
Thanks for being a curious and critical thinking Mofo, Matt!
I have often had good ideas, based I will admit on a hunch, which in time tend to prove to be correct. Does the fact that I have not obtained a degree in the field somehow render my ideas automatically incorrect? It would appear that those in academia lack from a basic understanding of logic.
Btw, I have found several helpful tips in ayurvedic and alternative medicine.
In the beginning, I had no faith in the idea that anything other than western medicine was of any use. When I was a teen I developed interstitial cystitis, I went to see doctors for 7 years to no avail. They performed an exploratory surgery and discovered that I was not lying (as they told me often.) and that yes I did indeed have bleeding in the lining of my bladder. Needless to say that pain was debilitating and maddening. My Aunt Peggy suggested something called billberry. I thought ‘whatever, this will never work.’ Within the first day my pain was improved enough that I wasn’t at a 4 of 10. Within 3 weeks the pain was gone. I took 3 of the standardized pills, 3x/day for a couple of years (out of fear that it would come back.) One time I forgot to bring it on a trip, within 2 days the pain was back. Then, when I went home and restarted it, the pain reduced, and then disappeared entirely. In time it became clear that I just didn’t need it anymore. I haven’t had to take it for years. That experience is what taught me to be proactive in my own health. I knew that if there were medicines that the western doctors weren’t aware of in one area of medicine, that it probably was true in other areas of medicine. I stopped thinking of ‘doctors’ as being some sort of all knowing all seeing God. They aren’t Gods. They are no more able to think than I am. They just paid a lot of money, wasted time sitting for exams, and get paid for it.
Doh, looks like they got paid twice. I must be tired.
Wow I’d love to learn more about that. please send some info my way! Cheers
I’ve actually been meaning to write an article about the work of Alan Savory and the Holistic Management Institute. There are so many similarities to the work that you are doing (in nutrition) and his work (in desertification). Essentially, everyone in the world of environmentalism and sustainability knows that desertification on grasslands is caused by overgrazing and subsequent land degradation. Because everyone knows this, no one went back to test assumptions that are taken as fact. In essence, there is an implicit trust of an oversimplified hypothesis and even with decades of failure in reversing the problem, a myth that is supported by short-term impact has taken hold. Anyway, Savory actually tested different hypotheses and found that desertification is caused by not having enough animals on the land and not working with the natural decay and regeneration cycle. Grasslands in ?brittle? areas are prevented from turning into deserts because of animal grazing. The scientific community has been ignoring him for decades, because it is outside of orthodox thinking. Original research of this caliber (and importance) could not have happened within the existing pedagogy because of fundamental prejudices that go unrecognized and unquestioned.
Woah, this is fascinating. I’ve been a fan of rotational grazing and mob grazing because they don’t overgraze. The conversation I’ve always heard is about how farmers used to burn out the land with their overgrazing or over-farming. I wonder if what you’re talking about fits with the concepts in Grass Productivity.
http://www.amazon.com/Grass-Productivity-Conservation-Classics-Voisin/dp/0933280645
I was going to read that book but it was a little too in-depth for a non-farmer, so I didn’t. I want to know more about this. What articles or links should I follow up with? And yes… write that article. I know some people that would be interested in that kind of information.
Well, I think we really need to be clear about our terms and what we mean by overgrazing. My understanding of Savory, and folks like Joel Salatin who do ‘mob-sticked, rotational grazing,’ is that the land is used *very* intensively for a day or a few days a year, with long rest periods in between so that that specific parcel can regenerate. Then they go on and intensively use another patch of land.
Now on one hand, this is ‘over-grazing’ by volume compared to typical stocks, since you’re using far more animals per acre than convention dictates. But on another hand, conventional practices are ‘over-grazing’ temporally, by keeping the animals on the same bit of land for days, weeks, or months at a time.
That said, totally dig Alan Savory, and I think he is bolstered by the willingness to look closer at inherited assumptions and presumed wisdom.
Thanks AaronF, I’ll see about working on the article this week. I think that the application for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge is good place to start to understanding their work: http://challenge.bfi.org/2010Finalist_OperationHope There are a number of holistic management institutes that have been formed recently, the one that Savory runs is the Africa Centre for Holistic Management. The most important concept to understanding his work is the idea of ‘brittleness’ as the determining factor for the appropriate management technique. http://www.holisticdecisions.com/LA_FREE_brittleness.pdf
Sounds like there are some similarities between Savory’s work and the Grass Productivity book, I don’t know enough to say more. Savory looked at the grasslands of Africa which have large herds of migrating ruminants as the ideal condition with the greatest resiliency, burning is one of the tools used, but not a preferred method. Savory claims to have increased stock yields by 400% while reversing desertification and restoring other native flora and fauna. The results are so impressive that he was dismissed by the mainstream.
Ah interesting. I’d read about this, but never heard the conventional thought about it. XD
I posted an article titled “Eat beef: Save the Grasslands” to a blog http://pandaseatingpandas.wordpress.com/ I’ve been trying to develop a more sophisticated understanding of sustainability that breaks out of common knowledge solutions. The first few articles have been about food-related ecology issues.
Oh thank you for letting me know. :)
Very interesting indeed. I know Joel Salatin mentions this in his latest book, and I found it so fascinating. Please let us know where we can read more!
The environmentalist movement is essentially anti-humanity. Their goal is to blame all environmental issues on over-population. Thus our evil meat-eating ways are detroying the planet, blah blah blah. That is why he’s being ignored.
Oooh I like the sound of this dessertification. I’m pretty sure I’m already an expert in that. Lemon tart anyone?
A long time I read about a prank that had been played. Now I don’t have the source anymore, sorry. Even if it turned out not to be true, it COULD be true. This first time I heard the story was in the 90s. I think that’s when the prank was pulled. Could be wrong though.
Somebody made a resume based exactly upon the accomplishments of Thomas Edison. They sent the resume around to various companies, headhunters, took it to job fairs, replied to ads. Not one interview! Why? Probably because Edison didn’t have an engineering degree.
You’re right. Having credentials does not EQUAL knowledge. However, Not having credentials does not equal knowledge either. There are a lot of charlatans out there. Some of them have CREDENTIALS. Some of them don’t have credentials.
I think it’s important to write this because there is a strong streak of PHILISTINISM in the American psyche. A lot of contempt and derision for intellectuals. People with PhDs get mocked as Post Hole Diggers and the like. Look at the Internet. Anybody can pull any crazy conspiracy theory out of their ass and it gets wide approval. On the other hand, people who offer thoughtful, less fanciful observations get ignored.
Even the people who don’t have credentials make them up. People like to have those letters after their name. I laugh at this current people who call themselves Peat Practitioners. No child wants to grow up to be a PP….or, at least, so I thought!!!
..
Great point, Thomas.
I think about this as well- in the best of worlds, credentials are simply shorthands for earned expertise. We don’t live in that world, so the link is short-circuited.
There’s a benefit to contrarianism and radicalism (in the sense of returning to a root), but it has to be help up to rigorous standards too. The old adage about ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’ is a bit of bullshit. It conflates two meaning of extraordinary: non-dominant, and a higher quantity. It’d be as if a vote for the incumbent counts twice.
Still, that doesn’t mean that every vote for the challenger should count twice.
Yes, Rob, that’s the point. Any real knowledge, be it obtained formally or informally, requires hard work and lots of experience. Speaking of Edison, remember that quote of his about genius being 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration. There are a lot of people who sit on their ass all day and have an idea pop in their head during an intermission of the “Friends” marathon on channel 3 and think their untested, ill-considered epiphany deserves the same respect as that of somebody who has been busting their butt for 15 years researching something. Well, chances are that epiphany deserves no respect at all.
Generally agreed, though I’m of the opinion that Edison was a punk compared the Tesla ( http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla ). Hah
Anyway, point largely stands- it is the effort, the engagement, the continual progress and refinement that has to be bootstrapped, and is what counts.
Edison was a business man. Tesla was an engineer.
I won’t dispute that Tesla was “da man”, but let’s not quibble over details. You get my point.
Dude, I think you really need to be a C.P.P. – a Certified Peat Practitioner….I don’t take uncertified Peat Practitioners seriously. : )
Sean, personally, I am studying to be an International Certified Peat Practioner (ICPP). LOL!
Thomas your original post brings up a fantastic point. People should really dig deep and investigate what someone says if they decide to trust them before writing them off because they don’t have credentials or trusting someone solely because they do.
*trusting someone solely because they don’t
I was in nutrition several years ago, and think about going back sometimes. But mostly only for the credentials. Once you have them, you can go with what you believe, but it’s hard to really make a career without them because people are so set on seeing credentials. The professors often reminded us that no one really knew what optimal levels of nutrients were and it could vary by individual.
Be careful with this. I was an RD (I’m in recovery), but we were constantly warned any strays from the path of the ADA and your license would be revoked.
loved the post Matt… good points and well written. have shared :)
hope your well
Rob
Welcome, Rob. Awesome name, by the way! :-D
I’ve always wished my name was Rob. I’m feeling kind of left out.
Never too late to join the party, Thomas! http://www.wikihow.com/Change-Your-Name
Won’t work. I would be called out as a sham. Somebody on the Internet would accuse me of being a “Teenage Thomas”. I will just resign myself to my fate.
I couldn’t agree with this post more.
Right up there with “credentials” are “scientific studies.”
A lot of what I do as an acupuncturist and “doctor” of traditional Asian medicine gets critiqued because my “credentials” are not as solid as an MD – something that I find amusing since MD’s seem oddly incompetent for healing/curing any disease other than one that falls under the jurisdiction of acute emergency medicine (for which they excel).
I also don’t often have “scientific studies” to “prove” what I do is efficacious. The odd thing is that most MD’s and nutritionists don’t either, but because they are MD’s or nutritionists they don’t really have to. They are the High Priests of Medicine and there is much sleight of hand.
\
The thing is: In order to get a PhD or MD, you have to be REALLY GOOD at parroting the orthodox paradigm of your chosen field. If you don’t – your colleagues will squash you and you won’t “pass go” and collect your $200.
Timothy Leary once said “not to trust anyone over 30.” What he meant by that is that people – after 30 – tend to get more and more dogmatic and set in their ways. We might also say “don’t trust anyone with a PhD or an MD” – necessarily – because in order to get those credentials they have to excel not at original thinking or brilliant, ground breaking synthesis, but usually supporting the dominant paradigm of thought and research in their field.
As Ray Peat points out in one of his articles, when the research, which is supposed to be “objective,” shows a result that subverts the dominant paradigm (e.g. fructose is evil), authors – that is, subjective humans – have a funny way of interpreting and writing up abstracts that obscure untidy results or results that would be politically incorrect.
When you add in the seriously disturbing economic conflicts of interest that exist in nutrition, medicine, and science in general, it’s hard to know what or who to believe.
Chinese medicine, like Ayurveda, is based mostly on empirical observation over long periods of time.
What I like about Matt’s work is that he bases a lot of his ideas on real-world empirical observation.
You can have a thousand PhD’s doing research about water and hydration, but how many folks can’t put simple two-and-two together when it comes to over drinking and feeling cold and peeing all the time?? Do you need a PhD to “get” that you’re drinking too much?? Do you ignore your own exquisite biofeedback mechanisms and sense awareness in deference to “experts” with “credentials” who tell you you need to drink 8×8 glasses of water a day??
I’ve been studying health and nutrition for twenty years now and have seen and done it all pretty much. What I like about Matt’s work is that while it does take science and research into consideration, much of his ideas are based on careful observation of what’s actually happening. Not theoretical. Not overly complicated.
Do we really need to understand complex biochemical and physiological minutiae in order to know how to eat and thrive?? Could it be that the answers are not as complicated as we think? For thousands of years people have found wisdom in paying attention to the results of their actions.
Elegant theory is nice but good results are better.
It shouldn’t take a PhD program to figure out how to EAT.
{Post written under the influence of two cokes, a plate full of fried potatoes, and two “egg mc muffins, sean style}
Nicely said, Sean. Good to see another colleague on here!
Yes, the “medical establishment” is great at dealing with acute trauma. But it is a dismal failure when it comes to improving and maintaining good health. Chinese medicine is much better in that area.
This sums it up nicely:
The whole thing is here: http://www.bluntinstrument.org.uk/elfman/archive/KeyboardMag90.htm
“Elfman, in his Oct ’89 Keyboard interview confessed to having had only a skimpy musical education; most of his savvy as a performer and composer stems from onstage experience as leader of a 12-piece musical/the atrical troupe, the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. This admission outraged Rubenstein, whose subsequent letter in our Jan.’90 issue accused us and Elfman of “glorifying musical ignorance. . . . In the complex world of film and orchestral music, there are no shortcuts. If you can’t do it yourself, you have to have the money to hire competent, conservatory-trained people such as (orchestrator) Steve Bartek or (conductor) Shirley Walker,” whose contributions to the Batman sessions were discussed at length in our Elfman interview.
Danny Elfman’s response:
“Whether I achieved good, bad, or mediocre results with the music is not the issue here. As with any art, that’s a subjective point which will always be up for lively debate and scrutiny. But, having worked my ass off for 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, for a month and a half to write that score and yes, you dumb fuck, I actually wrote it down – I will not sit back passively and allow myself to be discredited for the work I did by an idiot who mistakenly thinks that I lazily hire people to do it for me, or that only a conservatory can produce a real film composer.”
…
“?Danny Elfman
Graduate, with honors American College of Hard Knocks
Post-graduate studies, Nose to the Grindstone University”
I’d also like to point out that Jimi Hendrix didn’t have a degree in music ;)
My personal take is that it doesn’t matter — what matters are the results. That’s all. Ideas have their own self-contained merit. But academic elitism really is one of my pet peeves.
This is yet another reason I love guitar work. You can’t get credentials as a guitar tech. It’s all word of mouth. I’ve been apprenticing with someone for a number of years and I’ve learned way more than I can say. Just like Matt said about working with top chefs and getting hands-on experience as opposed to learning ideas out of a textbook.
I’ve also dealt with severe psychological problems my whole life, and I’ve spent my whole life working through them and analyzing them. I’ve had more hands-on experience with psychiatry than you’d ever get at a school, having spent so much of my life in mental hospitals and ‘therapy’ sessions and actually living with the problems that they’re reading about in these books.
I’m going to get all worked up if I keep going on about this. (*going* to get? As my heart rate continues to rise and I feel like I could crush a tiny woodland creature in the palm of my hand)
xD
>:D
Haha this is awesome. XD <3 Danny Elfman's scores, too.
My seventeen-year-old brother is doing a similar thing with sound tech–he apprentices, practices, reads, practices, watches youtube videos about it, buys recording equipment, practices. =P
I love that because I was classically trained in music, musical composition, counterpoint, theory, harmony and arranging, and where I learned the most was jazz camp. I could have skipped 75 percent of it. And, seriously, what a joke conservatory is, once you really understand how to substitute harmonies, the entire thing opens up in incredible ways and its fun to listen to. Incidentally, I feel the same way about film school, I also went to film school and went to work in the industry. I wish I could tell everyone to skip film school entirely, learn how to do screen direction, learn how to supervise a script, learn what story arc is, learn how to use a camera, light a scene, and capture sound. Once you know how to edit (easily learned btw.) you are now capable of making films. You don’t need any schools, you just need to do it. In retrospect, the things I needed to learn were negotiation tactics, fund raising, and interpersonal communications. The technical aspects of making films, writing music, or any other artistic endeavor will always be changing anyway.
Sorry, I went off on a tangent.
Good tangent. :)
Aren’t a large number of your success stories people who didn’t get what they needed from People With Credentials? You don’t want to start thinking “I wish I had got some before I knew better”. I like what you do.
Nice, this is pretty much how I feel about college and following my interests. The one thing college has given me is an environment and enough free time to develop myself. Actually, thats makes it pretty awesome.
But I don’t really care about the piece of paper I will get at the end. Well, maybe it offers me some security and the possibilty for a decent job while I gain more expertise in what really interests me.
Awesome.
Consider also that the people criticizing “non-credentialed” experts are attempting to evade their own responsibility to learn and make their own judgments. They don’t want to have to reach a conclusion using the independence of their own mind, so they defer to those people with credentials. Enter someone who truly is an expert, and the sheep-minded people feel threatened by the realization that they don’t know how to make their own assessments.
PS “He seems to just search out other peoples research and then puts it together into what he believes to be true.”
In other words:
“He searches out research and then puts it together.”
How do you live with yourself :)
You wouldn’t believe the retardation level of some of the PhDs I work with. (I once had a post-doc ask me how to convert mL to mg.) That said, it is pretty hard to be proficient in my field *without* a PhD or at least a lot of experience.
You’ve chosen to work from outside the system, so expect to get questioned for it every once in a while.
My response to this is too long to post as a comment so I created a new blog post… Yay!
http://fon2.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/in-defense-of-matt-stone/
AWESOME post! I see examples of “extraordinary credentials” every day…usually from people that are sooooo smart that they can’t apply their knowledge to real life!
I learned this the hard way this year – I bought my degree. Spent years going back to school to earn my BS-Accounting…when indeed it really was BS. I spent $40,000 getting the degree my employer wanted, but really learned nothing more than I knew from my on the job training.
Love your blog! I’m learning (and learning to think differently) a ton, even if you don’t have “credentials.”
Don’t let education get in the way of your learning – Mark Twain
I read Eat for Heat yesterday morning and last night was the first night in at least ten years that I –
a – didn’t have to go to bed with a heating pad on my ICE COLD feet
b – didn’t have to get up to pee even once
c- didn’t wake up at least ten times with a completely dry mouth, needing sips of the glass of water I always have on my night table
WIll report back with further developments.
Hey Lulu! Glad you’ve seem some improvement! You remind me of the waking up ten times for sips of water episode! Glad that is way behind now! I’m sure you’re heading in the right direction, it all sounds so familiar to me! Best
Matt, this was an excellent post. This was my favorite part:
“Credentials and knowledge are not the same thing. And even the accumulation of vast amounts of knowledge doesn’t yield the only true metric of having acquired useful information ? expertise. Expertise comes from learning broadly and passionately, subjecting that information to the intense scrutiny of critical thinking and differing opinion, keenly observing the real-world application of that information, building useful skills along the way, and then communicating it in a relatable way.”
May we ALL become our own experts!
F—K Yay! Finally! I earned more money than all my friends (boyfriends) when I worked in the VFX department on a motion picture. Lame community collage for 2 years. Waste. My passion, my hard work, showing up 15 min early, staying late, “what else can I do for you” attitude is more valuable than any degree. PASSION. I had a passion for what I was doing. So glad to see you address this. THANK YOU! (I too have stopped peeing 2-3 times a night, stopped waking up, stopped wearing wool socks to bed) E A T F O R H E A T !
“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. ” – Galileo Galilei
PS.
That is a joke, BTW (the spelling error) C O L L E G E.
Amen!
I have spent over nine years in post-secondary education, have two degrees, two certificates, and am about to get another just to go through all of the legalities of what I want to do. If I am not a “professional” in my work sphere by now, I don’t know when I will be. Of course, experience is the real test–but you don’t go to school for that…
I will be paying student loans for the next ten years. At the end of it all, I make the lowest salary one can make in my profession and have no possibility of a pension. This is not a complaint. I just state this as fact. I love my job and wouldn’t trade it for anything but if all of this “education” has taught me anything it is that as Matt says: credentials mean nothing. The longer I live the more I value people like Matt who is committed to finding the truth no matter what. I have mulled over this a lot and I have come to the realisation that it doesn’t matter what other people think of you or how they wish to validate you, it only matters what you are willing to do to find the truth.
Way to go Matt!
I love love love this post. I’m one of those people who skated through school with A’s simply because I’m an awesome test taker, but I really didn’t learn shit. Mostly because I didn’t care. I only retain information when I’m interested in the subject, otherwise I’m great at remembering certain things for tests and the forgetting it as soon as I hand in that scantron. But no real knowledge comes from that. I’m really glad that I dropped out of college after my Associates Degree to actually pursue something I had a passion for.
Even after graduating from my holistic nutrition school I kept digging on my own for answers and that’s when I really started to learn something. I am a certified holistic health counselor but I don’t use ANY of the information I learned there…I actually had to UNLEARN most of it. I hate going to facebook groups of graduates from the school and reading all of the nutritional advice being given out. It’s actually really frustrating.
…but anyway, great post :)
I actually tried to pursue an online master’s in Nutrition Education. That didn’t go well, or last long, as you can imagine. My teacher kept telling me how great the blood type diet was. I finally lost it and freaked out. Only about 6 weeks in haha.
Hahaha, I definitely get it. I actually didn’t find the info I study now until after I graduated.
Loved this post. You are the Good Will Hunting of Nutrition…only hotter. Literally.
Amen to this. It’s all a government-enforced monopoly. They own the corporations, they own the schools, they own the media, and it’s all a profit-making runaround. Does anything beneficial come out of it? Only as much as is necessary to keep the public at bay, which isn’t much.
College basically a test to see if you can keep showing up, keep shelling out money, and keep working on shit you don’t care about, because that’s what employers want. Yeah, it’s also a prime dating site, because keeping up with it shows that you have money, abundant energy, and the commitment (or obligation?) to make money, which are attractive. And how about all those unrelated classes they want you to take? Well, I enjoyed them, but I bet each subject could be whittled down to a really fascinating 2-3 hour documentary. Let’s just have everyone watch those in highschool so that we all become “cultured”.
Why do credentials turn heads? Well, it does show something– it shows dedication; and you do have to be pretty smart to get through. But the public’s demand for credentials should disappear right along with its faith in our society as a whole.
“An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field. ” – Niels Bohr
I have purchased Eat for Heat a couple days ago, started to read it then I bought Diet Recovery and started to read that too. I was happy to realize that you are not Mercola or any of those gurus. You actually use your head and make sense :)
Matt, I am just wondering. In what order should I read your stuff? In Diet Recovery, you talk about wholesome foods but then I saw the video about your teeth mentioning ice cream, cakes and such. I guess I got the point that once your metab is fine the body can handle all sorts of junk, I am just not sure what to eat yet (I have an 80-90 percent cured acne problem)…
If somebody came up to you saying hey, douchebag, I am interested in this whole 180 stuff, which books/posts would you recommend first?
Hey BB King,
Welcome! Since Matt is always refining and building on what he knows, the best books to start with are usually the most recent. So Eat for Heat is great.
Here’s a good article on when junk food can be helpful: http://180degreehealth.com/2012/03/when-is-junk-food-healthy The basic idea is, for people who have become unhealthy eating ‘healthy’ food, junk food, as a tasty, concentrated source of calories, can be much more effective at getting the metabolism up than trying to create a calorie surplus on whole foods, which is much harder. It might take several pounds of potatoes to get the same calories as a pint of ice cream, and if calories are what you need, ice cream’s your bet.
A decent summary of where Matt’s at these days is here: http://180degreehealth.com/2012/08/thyroid-rehab-the-diet-and-lifestyle-approach. It describes why the anti-stress S’s (salt, saturated fat, starch and sugar) are useful (they help blunt stress hormones, and bring the body to an anabolic and pro-metabolic place, where health improvements frequently emerge).
That’s probably a good set of places to get you started- cheers!
Thanks a lot, Rob. I will check them out.
Matt, have you ever seen this one? Made me laugh out loud! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfdYfdENzdM
Haha- this is amazing. I can’t turn it off.
He’s seen ‘let’s just say over 100,000 patient visits!’
the parrot is rad!
There’s a lot to be said and respected about “life experience” and acknowledging that “not everyone is the same”. My brain hurts when I have to study things that I’m told I need to in order to get a degree. But when I study things that make total sense to me in my quest for knowledge on how the body functions and why or why not certain things work, my brain is like a sponge. Satiety feels much better than the pain of constriction! :-)
I agree with you, Matt, that credentials are not necessarily where it’s at. I also believe we have to use our own critical thinking skills and experiences to know who out there is worth following, who is helping and who is doing harm. For me, that excludes all the food journalists who don’t even know how to analyze research documents other than the summary, which may not even be the truth of what’s in the body of the research. And they just keep repeating the same old, same old.
My current lack of trust with you Matt, is this whole sugar thing. It’s like you’ve forgotten what you learned 300 books ago, back at the beginning of your research — that the good research of Weston A. Price and others showed that processed and refined foods cause physical degeneration. (And yes, those leaving their homes and going to cities no doubt accounted for a lot of stress that may not be accounted for in the research.) But now you’re saying these same refined foods will get us well. I’m all for the salt and good saturated fats and the hydration/dehydration parts of your book. I’m even for tons of carbs. But I’m sticking with whole foods grown well and processed gently instead of going back to the Standard American Diet that made so many of us so very ill in the first place. I have no desire to repeat that long slow dead bed and years of life lost. As my bones and teeth get stronger, I attribute it to remineralization through supplementation, not the inflammatory properties of refined sugar and grains.
I’ll keep reading because I do appreciate that you, unlike most, have really great stuff to share. But I have to go by my own experience too, which I’m sure you approve of.
Random question: if I’m only peeing 4 times a day and it’s still clear and my feet are still cold, what’s my next step? Even less liquids? More salt? More sugar? More carbs?
I would think more food in general, with a carbohydrate and salt emphasis.
Absolutely love this post. Made me think of that scene in Good Will Hunting, the one with the MIT student boasting the importance of his degree and how Matt Damon’s character will be serving him burgers on his way to the ski hill. And Will says “perhaps, but at least I won’t be unoriginal”. I told my husband last month that I appreciate the fact that you haven’t been tainted by a formal education. I thought that it made you a better, unbiased researcher. Besides you are doing your own empirical research through feedback from the people on this website, and with your own experience, and that of your girlfriend and her daughter. Anyway, this post made me appreciate you even more. And my chronic headaches are getting better thanks to your wisdom. Still feeling cold and achy at times but I’m getting there. I think it has to do with all of my food allergies making it hard for me to really get my body temp up. Can’t seem to get it above 97.7. But a major improvement over the last two months in which I froze to death and suffered a headache every. single. day. thanks to the advice of my naturopath to drinks LOTS of water and eliminate gluten and dairy. “Basically a paleo diet” were her exact words.
(Below is the same comment I accidently left as a “reply” to a discussion thread above. I am posting it as a new thread so it is easier for people to respond and call me out on any leaps in logic/facts I might have made. Matt or whoever, feel free to delete my other comment.)
Excellent post and commentary, Matt. People need to stop relying on experts, they need to learn to think analytically and have confidence in their own intelligence.
Anymore, I tell people ‘should they ever happen to ask my advice on the matter? to reconsider going to college unless they are interested in pursuing a career in science, engineering, mathematics, medicine, or a career where they have to jump through silly hoops to be viable competitors in the market-place, e.g. a teacher.
???????Begin (mild) rant:
As far as I can discern, science, mathematics, and engineering are three subjects where genuine knowledge is taught and communicated and the students are (generally) expected to show the ability to think independently (of course, mileage may vary considerably depending on the college and ones motivation, etc). Moreover, these three subjects are such that one generally learns more efficiently and with better understanding in the classroom (college) than self-study. I know plenty of people who have self-studied and think they know physics and mathematics but in reality know ?diddly squat. The reason for this is simple: These are complex subjects that take years ?yes, YEARS? to truly understand, and without the guidance of someone with a deeper understanding (at least initially) and peers (fellow students and scholars) to converse with, people can easily convince themselves they know more than they really do.
Granted, as Matt alluded to, people now have access to videos, leading pioneers in any field [to ask] specific questions, and the curricula of Ivy League classes via the internet. Not to mention, for example, resources like physicsforums.com, which puts you in immediate contact with fellow scholars. Indeed, all these things are making college less and less relevant, even in disciplines such as science and mathematics.
However, there are practical considerations. If someone is passionate about research in the sciences (physics, biology, chemistry), for instance, and wants to take the shortest route to gain access to research laboratories, getting a science degree the way to go.
In the end, people need to put aside their intellectual prejudices and biases while realizing not only do they have limitations in their own thinking and knowledge, but so does everybody else. This includes recognizing that there are pro’s and con’s to going to college which vary depending on the individual. (Most of this has been directed at the commentators ?including Matt? here who have ranted against college: get over your silly prejudices and let people decide based upon their individual circumstances and goals.) Ultimately what matters is people learn to think analytically as skeptical empiricists. I mean this in the sense that Nassim Taleb does.
???End (mild, I hope!) rant//
When i got a B.S degree in chemistry,i thought i knew a lot.
When i entered a Ph.D program, i realized i knew nothing and learned nothing, although i was doing research from my sophomore year.
I apologize, but i have no respect for MD’s. I can’t stand them, so much so that i didn’t take my babies for a single doctor appointment yet, and hope it will never be necessary.
On the other side, i can trust Ph.D’s and research professors and those in academia just a little more.
I think doing a Ph.D is great, especially if your professor allows you to pick your project. It’s essentially learning and exploring the topic you love, with the guidance of an expert, and all nicely accompanied by a monthly salary. And if you really like it, you can try to be hired as a professor.
Okay, I apologize for my post saying I think you were going down the wrong path with the sugar thing. I’m no more a traditional foods nazi than you are a sugar nazi. What I should have said is that it isn’t for everyone, and because I assume all opinions are welcome here, I hope my post will benefit some people too. When I eat sugar, my temp drops, I get bursitis, I get stiff and sore from sitting, and my face breaks out. And I’ve always had warm hands and feet, even when my temps in the past were running in the 95’s-96’s. Price saved my life, literally. And I know lots of people who don’t do well on sugar. So obviously it isn’t for everyone. I guess I wonder what you have against whole foods since it didn’t seem to harm Price’s little Swiss kids that were playing barefoot in the icy mountain streams while he stood by shivering in his overcoat. They weren’t Paleo — there were carbs in these traditions. Can’t we agree that it really depends on the individual and that it’s okay if we don’t all always agree, without being labeled Nazi?
Great post. I didn’t go to college until I was 29 and I was disappointed. I thought we were going to throw ideas around like you see in the movies, but here was the reality: The professors would rattle off a bunch of information, and the students would ask “Is this on the test?” “Is this on the midterm?” “Is this on the final?” I couldn’t believe it.
I love articles like this, but how can we make anything different? The education system is so entrenched in the ‘I give you information, you memorize it, and tell it back to me’ paradigm that I don’t see it ever changing. And don’t get me started on the two most overrated and complete wastes of time in the US education system: writing in cursive and memorizing state capitals.
I’m a recent Comp-Sci / Software Engineering Grad. Over Half of the people on my course after 4 years still can’t write a single line of code from scratch. 0_o
Higher Education is definitely not what it used to be.
Totally agree with this post. My parents were wise enough to see through the bull and even though my sister and I were top students, they never pushed college. They also didn’t volunteer to pay for it. If we wanted to go, they said, then we
were smart and we’d find a way. I got a scholarship for a 2-year college and studied a couple different languages, and got my associates. I prefer to study in my own way and learn things other than what the mainstream says, since I generally think that they are wrong, or at best, misguided. My twin is a great artist but it only took one year of art school for her to figure out that college was not going to make her a better artist.
Now I am a birth doula, and even birth doulas can be “certified”, as if that means anything really. I probably will not get certified, since I stink and paperwork and it really amounts to getting parents and nurses to sign off that you were at a certain number of births. I prefer to depend on experience and my own research. I’ve been to 4 births and haven’t had any paperwork signed off on…and I don’t care.
-Could we see with photographic evidence what the guru for “eat for heat” looks like please?
-I know plenty of people that eat for heat, diabetes and obesity seems a common trend in this segment of the population.
-When will you be presenting your theories to the mainstream medical establishment? Selling ebooks is one thing, but I think the whole world needs to have this information unleashed on them. I really think “eat for heat” will hold up to tough scrutiny from all of the top intellects in the world. Perhaps start with asking Denise Minger to give it a once over…I don’t think even she could debunk “eating for heat”.
I don’t think fat, disgusting Americans are eating enough for sure, they definitely need to start eating more. This is the one obvious glaring mistake that nobody in the established medical world has thought to touch upon….YET.
Two points from this thread that I have recognized for a long time: The education system in this country is seriously broken. And doctors ‘practice medicine.’ They also have a pill for anything that ails you. I won’t go further, because we all know that story.
I continue to educate myself about things that matter, and I shudder when I hear people say “my doctor says not to eat [whatever] …”. It’s YOUR LIFE! We all need to pay attention and ‘practice’ making ourselves our best. Doctors can advise us, but we are all ultimately responsible for our own health. Matt has helped me so much more than my doctors, with all their diplomas on the wall. Thanks for sharing what you are learning (dynamically) – there is always more to know for all of us! And by the way, I’ve never felt better!! :-)
That review really stood out when I was thinking of buying your book on Amazon. Your response is excellent. I remember thinking how annoying it was that the person didn’t respond at all to the content of your book but thought it was suspect because you don’t have a credential. I read somewhere that a college degree basically just shows an employer that you are disciplined enough to complete a list of requirements. Other than that it has little value to them and you have to learn everything on the job. The other review that stood out was the heart patient who kept complaining about how he would die if he followed your advice and you should write a book that is safe for heart patients. Oh please. Even if you are a heart patient you aren’t going to just drop dead immediately because you changed your diet.
Totally awesome post. Makes you realize how lucky we are to live in an era with so much prosperity and freedom. Hail Saint Germain!
So in other words, you have done the same amount of work as someone with “credentials”, but you sought all opinions rather than receiving letters from one facility by being capable of spitting THEIR opinions back at them when tested. Nice. XD
(Note: how many people have every thought about honorary doctorates from the most prestigious schools in the word given to ACTORS who never took a single one of the classes?? Credentials mean scat in my book.)
Thank you for the awesome post! New to the site, still reading through them all. I have a Masters in Science as a Family Nurse Practitioner. The only thing I learned sitting in the classroom was that I already knew more than most of my instructors. Not because I’m brilliant (I’m not) but because health, illness, and the human body had fascinated me since childhood and I’d indulged my craving for knowledge all my life; long before I sat in that $8000 a semester chair. Obviously, in my field, you have to be credentialed to practice or you go to jail. However, credentials don’t impress me. Not even the impressive M.D. Every education you purchase will come with the bias of those selling it. Thanks Matt! Now back to my RRARFing!
Matt, let me be blunt: Life is short.
What do I mean by that? Well, a person can only spare so much time on who he is willing to offer his attention. A common complaint about your books, which I can attest to, is your *writing style*. The content and conclusions are another matter, but these are not as heavily criticized as your writing style. What ends up happening is people are less likely to take you seriously. They are less likely to *finish* your book. They are less likely to purchase your other books. They are more likely to offer their attention to someone else.
This is not a minor point. It is really off-putting. A book should be written in a more formal approach with more thought and consistency put into the structure and formatting. A book is not a blog. This is why it’s important to have an editor, and perhaps a publisher, behind you. It makes a big difference. They can smooth out the edges, improve the flow, and cut out unnecessary verbiage.
Grammar, structure, formatting, and a self-respect give a book its “polished finish.” I get that you try to be witty, but there’s a difference between wit and immature wordplay. I have noticed the same from Danny Roddy in his web series. Not only does he overuse his colored charts (that rarely add anything meaningful), but he doesn’t even take them seriously. For example, he has a “flowchart” that reads: “Your Carbohydrate Consumption… Means Shit… Outside The Context… of Supporting The Metabolic Rate”
http://tinyurl.com/azb83nz
Another one of his graphs reads “Amion Acids” instead of “Amino Acids”.
http://tinyurl.com/auzchme
After quoting Hans Selye, he writes: “Energy?! Woah, woah, woaaaahhhh… I didn’t sign on for this hippy shit Roddy!”
And one of the headers reads “ESTROGEN: THE SHITSHOW HORMONE”.
There are many other examples, as well as grammatical and spelling errors. He also refers to people inconsistently. (Sometimes it’s “Ray Peat” or “Ray Peat Ph.D” or “Ray Peat, PhD” and so on.) He even uses the name “Chris” to refer to Chris Kresser, without first introducing or explaining who this person is. Sometimes his headers are ALL IN CAPS, and other times they’re not.
You lose potential readers when you come off as “young kids who just don’t care what others think of you writing style and attitudes.”
Look through the negative reviews about your books on Amazon.com and you will see this pattern. It’s not the content that irks them; it’s the writing style.
The reader’s thought process is: “If he’s not even willing to have a professional proof-read and check his stuff, then I can’t take his material seriously. I’ll go elsewhere.”
Theo,
I’ll let Matt speak for himself if he cares to, but will give you my thoughts. I have helped Matt edit some of his writing, and my goal as an editor is to help the author’s voice come through clearly. And I think Matt does that well. The issue you raise is one of stylistic preference, it sounds like. My goal is not to flatten the author so as to appeal to the widest possible cross-section of potential readers. There’s a balance to be struck- brilliance laced with profanity every third word will reach far fewer eyes than ‘clean’ brilliance. But there is indeed a grey line- would George Carlin or Dave Chappelle be as funny if they changed their humor to be less off-putting? Probably not, I’d say.
I’ve found that in the little bit of writing I do, and what my reading on the craft of writing suggests is, finding one’s voice is paramount for one’s success as a writer. You will not ever appeal to everyone. But if you continually nip and tuck away yourself on the alter of likeability, you will correspondingly increasingly attract no one.
I like to think that the audience here is fairly bright and either appreciates Matt’s humor and style, or can recognize that there’s substance behind it. Some people won’t. I suspect that even if he took a more scholastic tone, subdued the occasional swear word, and removed the odd pop culture reference or two, there would still be those who won’t hear him. Sure, maybe we’ve removed the barriers for some, but at what cost?
I’m not Matt and am not in his head as he writes, but my impression is that the words flow freely and quickly in large measure because he doesn’t continually cross-reference them against an avatar of ‘respectability’ in other’s eyes. He says in DR 2 of his writing style:
—
Some people love it so much they speaketh of me like a Messiah. Others hate it so much they can’t even read the whole thing, and don’t take the information I provide seriously. Well, you win some you lose some I guess. At the very least, I’m having a good time.
—-
Now again, this is not black and white, and I’m not presuming to commit him to one and only one path and style. I’d be happy to hear any specific editing suggestions from you and invite you to email me rob at 180degreehealth d o t com (convert to standard email format). In particular, I’d be interested to hear constructive feedback on how you’d change the “Grammar, structure, formatting, and a self-respect [that] give a book its ?polished finish. ”
Without intending to dig my heels in the ground too deeply, though, my impression is that the stylistic changes you envision may come at a cost greater than they’re worth. But I could be wrong, so please feel free to contact me to help me understand your suggestions better.
The books are not accidently written the way they are, but intentionally. One review suggests that maybe I should hire someone with a writing degree to help the books be better. I have a writing degree. I chose to write it, and most of my material, in such fashion. Danny Roddy and I are two of the most popular health bloggers on earth in our niche. If Roddy loses readers it’s not because he calls himself a hippy in the 3rd person, but because his writing tends to be dry and technical – something I go to great measure to avoid as I was criticized and my audience was limited by that type of writing in the past – which I am continually trying to get away from.
So, I appreciate the feedback. I was expecting this kind of feedback. I wrote the book with that tone anyway. It is more fun, easier to understand, appeals to people with a sense of humor, and ultimately distinguishes me from others. Without being unique, I am nothing.
Matt, you can still be witty and humorous without coming off as “dry and technical”. You have to try to put yourself in the reader’s perspective when reading over your own material. If I have time, I’ll try to shoot an email with a few examples to Rob. I’m not making a list as I read the book, so it will only be a handful of things I can remember bumping into.
But, here is one example to illustrate the point, if you don’t mind:
“Fiber’s worship began primarily with the work of Denis Burkitt and Hugh Trowell (although Graham and later Kellogg had been threatening to sic Tony the Tiger on people if they didn’t get enough roughage for years prior).”
Here are a few of things I found wrong with this single sentence. (Yes, I “get it”, and I do have a sense of humor myself):
1) You refer to the researchers with full names, but then use only the surnames of the breakfast cereal founders.
2) Not everyone is familiar with the history of breakfast cereals in the United States. In fact, I only knew the reference to “Graham and Kellog” because I happened to read an article titled “Drop that Spoon!” It’s an excerpt from Felicity Lawrence’s book that covers the founding of breakfast cereals and the fierce competition and marketing between the players at Battle Creek, Michigan: Sylvester Graham, James Caleb Jackson, John Harvey Kellogg, Charles Post, and others.
3) You used parentheses for a side note, yet in other places throughout the book you use a hyphen and a comma, which can be confusing, since I don’t immediately know when the side note ends.
Without making it “dry”, you can still refer to people (for the first time) with their full names, and give a brief description of the reference. It will end up as more sentences, but it doesn’t make assumption that the reader is familiar with your references. Sure, the flow will be less humorous overall, but it will help communicate the message more clearly.
You’ve also used words like “pansy”, which makes it hard to take you seriously on a book about diet and nutrition. “Pansy” is a word I haven’t heard since high school. No, it doesn’t offend me, but it’s a turn-off, just like with Danny Roddy’s web series about stress. I was excited to show others Danny’s web series, since it debunks some of their assumptions about health, but I had to change my mind because of the language and writing style. They would have brushed it off as “just some young kid on the internet trying to be crass and clever.”
Rob, I’m glad you brought up George Carlin, because it actually helps drive my point. Many of his standup routines covered topics about society, cultural norms, and history. How many people do you think seriously cite Carlin’s shows in papers on American culture and history? Are his observations and conclusions necessarily inaccurate because he doesn’t have the credentials? Of course not. It’s his informal delivery and format that is incompatible with serious research. He was first and foremost an entertainer: People bought tickets to his shows for laughs, not for note-taking. The 180 Degree books are about diet, health, and nutrition; not comedy. They target two entirely different audiences.
Thanks again for the feedback. How would it change your mind if I told you I wanted to be Carlin, not some really accurate and professional researcher that no one has ever heard of?