The Skeptics Guide to the Universe Forum

Quote from: jt512 on September 25, 2023, 07:28:55 PM

Quote from: CarbShark on September 25, 2023, 06:46:03 PM

Quote from: jt512 on September 25, 2023, 04:59:10 PMThey disprove the hypothesis that exercise doesn't increase total energy expenditure.

Strawman much?

Bachfiend has been arguing precisely that.

I got to confess that I basically just scan his long posts, can you quote where he actually made that argument?

Quote from: jt512 on September 25, 2023, 04:59:10 PMThey disprove the hypothesis that exercise doesn't increase total energy expenditure.

Strawman much?

The point is that China is positioning itself to transition from Coal to renewables. They are leading the world in R&D for solar, with a focus on industrial applications, lowering costs and increasing output.

The question is will they transition in time.

Quote from: Quetzalcoatl on September 25, 2023, 01:16:01 PM

Quote from: Harry Black on September 24, 2023, 07:44:07 PMJust to say that the malice/incompetence bit is not an actual logical rule.
It is a heuristic and one that becomes less useful every year as the malicious scumbags learn that they can hide behind it.
There is no inherent truth to it. It is just a handy way for people in power to avoid accountability.

It is a useful rule of thumb though.

If Bush had any direct influence or knowledge of things, why not blame it on Saddam Hussein immediately instead of spending two years trying to link al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein?

That's literally what Rumsfeld recommended in the days after 9/11.

Quote from: RickyDMMont2ya on September 25, 2023, 03:02:00 AMThe warming we experience starting in 2024 could very well activate significant methane releases from arctic circle permafrost, or cause the first Blue Ocean Event. Any prolonged decrease in economic activity could drop our aerosol shield even further. If any of those happen we could see 2.0°C (3.6f) by the end of the decade. If all of those happened together it could be 2.5°C (4.5f) or even higher. Nothing can adapt that fast.

Any time those numbers are used they should be converted to Fahrenheit.

Most Americans don't know Celsius and to many of them those numbers are meaningless. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant proportion thought 2c was less than 2f. And, it's those Americans who we need to reach to get public consensus on Global Warming.

I know scientists and the rest of the world like to look down at Americans for not embracing metrics, and that's fine just about everywhere else.

But Global Warming is too important to not do everything to reach the people we need the most.

1.8 * 2 = 3.6

1.8 * 2.5 = 4.5

Quote from: jt512 on September 24, 2023, 06:39:11 PMWeight loss by exercise alone according to the US National Institutes of Health Body Weight Planner.

A 5'11", 190 lb, 23-year-old, mostly sedentary male, wants to reduce his weight to 150 lb. in 180 days. According to the NIH Body Weight Planner, he can accomplish this goal by exercise alone by running at a moderate pace for 1 hour per day. To prevent further weight loss once he reaches his goal without changing his diet, he will need to reduce his exercise level to 30 minutes per day.



As the results in the lower-right corner of the figure show, these changes in exercise permit him to maintain his current diet of 3000–3100 kcal/day throughout his weight loss period and beyond.

Also, on that page, switch to expert mode and look at the graph. When I key in my data (64, 195lb to 180lb in 6 months, the range of outcomes is significantly greater than the desired weight loss.

A couple more points.

I'm wondering how examples of hunter gatherers or people surviving in tundra or speed skaters or weight lifters is even relevant to this conversation.

This is a discussion of how to lose body weight, and that generally means reducing excess stored fat. And that's generally something overweight and obese people want to do. And it's excess stored fat they're trying to remove, not muscle. So calling it weight loss is not correct. No one wants to lose weight by reducing muscle mass. They want to get rid of excess fat. 

Also, it's very likely that the diet of people in all of these groups is not the standard American diet (SAD) filled with highly processed carbs.

Maybe a study could be done to determine if exercise is effective for not adding excess fat. But even then the questions would be is exercise alone more effective than just dietary management; and if exercise with dietary management is more effective than just dietary management.

All that said, anecdotally, I am actually losing weight at the moment and I'm not trying to, and I believe it's due in part to exercise. My weight is lower than it's been in five years, and it's because I'm reffing more soccer than before. I'm down nearly 15 pounds in the last 18 months.

But, if I were a participant in one of those weight loss studies, my weight loss would be considered insignificant because it's happening so gradually.

Also, I don't believe that the weight loss that can be attributed to exercise is due to burning calories. As has been pointed out numerous times in this thread, the number of calories burned during exercise is pretty small, and the calories burned during hours of exercise can be literally cancelled out by one Gatorade.

I think the value of exercise for weight loss is that it reduces insulin resistance, which lowers blood glucose, which allows the body to release and burn more stored fat.

And when it comes to weight loss the goal is to burn stored fat.

Quote from: 2397 on September 25, 2023, 09:11:57 AM

Quote from: daniel1948 on September 24, 2023, 07:02:05 PMIf westerners want China to stop building coal-fired power plants, we need to give them massive aid to help them raise their population out of poverty in a sustainable manner. But of course, America sees China as a political and economic enemy. The human race is fucked because we're too fucking stupid to cooperate and share. The west developed at the expense of the rest of the world, and they're not going to live in poverty just because we have taken the world's entire carbon budget for ourselves. Either we share our wealth with them, or they'll continue to burn coal until we all suffocate.

We need to stop buying cheap stuff from them, stop incentivizing more fossil fuel consumption.

The cost of pollution needs to be included, either the cost of permanently removing 100% of the pollution from the environment within one year with current technology, or the costs of healthcare, wars and migration, losses in productivity, infrastructure, buildings, crops, everything that is caused by pollutants and the worsening climate.

Yes, China is building coal power plants. But, China is also ramping up R&D and production of alternative energy sources. The power plants are needed now to meet current demand, but they are far ahead of the West in developing systems to replace them.

Quote from: jt512 on September 24, 2023, 06:39:11 PMWeight loss by exercise alone according to the US National Institutes of Health Body Weight Planner.

A 5'11", 190 lb, 23-year-old, mostly sedentary male, wants to reduce his weight to 150 lb. in 180 days. According to the NIH Body Weight Planner, he can accomplish this goal by exercise alone by running at a moderate pace for 1 hour per day. To prevent further weight loss once he reaches his goal without changing his diet, he will need to reduce his exercise level to 30 minutes per day.



As the results in the lower-right corner of the figure show, these changes in exercise permit him to maintain his current diet of 3000–3100 kcal/day throughout his weight loss period and beyond.

So, let's see the study where that has been shown to be effective

Quote from: Belgarath on September 23, 2023, 08:07:34 PM

Quote from: CarbShark on September 23, 2023, 07:36:44 PMA weight loss intervention in a group of humans that includes exercise and fails to show a weight loss benefit is not contrary to the laws of physics.

I think it's far more likely that you're wrong than dozens of peer review studies published in scientific journals.

Oh stop it.  I have my disagreements with JT, but I try not to be disingenuous.  You know with 100% certainty that your first statement leaves out some really important facts of such a study.

In fact your statement says precisely nothing useful about said study.  From it I can't tell if people were sneaking in extra food, were lying about their exercise, or any of a myriad other factors that could affect such a study.  One thing we can say with certainty about such a study.  The participant's net calories per day, on the average, was not negative (Calories in - calories out)

Jut to be clear those studies are not designed to test the laws of physics.

They are testing interventions for weight loss.

But, even then the fact someone exercises more doesn't mean they're burning that many more calories in a day. If exercise leaves you exhausted and you rest for hours after, that mitigates the effect. 

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Quote from: jt512 on September 23, 2023, 10:07:44 AM

Quote from: CarbShark on September 23, 2023, 09:32:45 AM

Quote from: jt512 on September 23, 2023, 08:48:56 AM

Quote from: CarbShark on September 23, 2023, 02:59:29 AM

Quote from: jt512 on September 22, 2023, 10:44:20 PM

Quote from: xenu on September 22, 2023, 09:35:33 PM

Quote from: jt512 on September 22, 2023, 07:12:11 PMI can't possibly watch 13 minutes of that, but the video seems to imply that you have to burn 100% of the calories you consume through exercise. That is ridiculous. Unless you are a serious athlete, you burn most of your calories through resting metabolic rate. The video is self-refuting. The blond woman says that the McDonalds meal she ate was for her a typical meal, so she seems to be maintaining a lean body mass with her regular level of exercise.

Well That is not what the video is about. All it was showing was that you have to watch what you eat to loose weight and that it is very hard to loose weight just through exercise. You can do it but it takes a lot of exercising to burn off the food you eat in excess of body maint.

Don't eat food in excess of body maintenance. Then it is very easy to lose weight by just exercising.

On paper that's true. But when studied the results vary from what was expected.

Then the studies are wrong.

Or maybe applying the most basic law of physics to a complex system like human metabolism, compounded by the behavior of humans, both in studies and in the wild, doesn't work.

In fact, that's one of the themes of the SGU, that applying a basic law to a complex system is problematic.

No, the studies are not wrong. The studies are showing, quite clearly, the effect of specific interventions on humans. If the studies don't show what you expect, then maybe it's not the studies that are wrong.

And, no, there is violation of the laws of physics to account for the ineffectiveness of exercise as a weight loss strategy. Maybe, studies carried out in metabolic wards where every calorie in is measured along with TEE and REE (total energy expenditure and resting energy expenditure) might show why exercise is not effective for weight loss but those studies haven't been done.

There are scientific theories that are so well established that any experiment results that violate them mean that the experimental results are wrong. That's how we know that every experiment that purports to have demonstrated ESP is wrong.

Conservation of energy is just such a theory. If you burn more energy than you consume you must lose body mass.

The misinformation that exercise is not beneficial to weight loss is as harmful to public health as vaccine misinformation.

A weight loss intervention in a group of humans that includes exercise and fails to show a weight loss benefit is not contrary to the laws of physics.

I think it's far more likely that you're wrong than dozens of peer review studies published in scientific journals.

Exercise is beneficial for health and fitness. But, as a weight loss intervention it has not been found to have significant weight loss benefit.

Also, one of the whole points of doing science and studies is to question the well established theories. But, that said, the behavior of humans in a clinical trial when following a weight loss intervention has little to do with the laws of thermodynamics.

Quote from: Quetzalcoatl on September 23, 2023, 09:19:43 AMIf you assert that they deliberately eased anti-terrorism efforts because they hoped an attack would happen, which could then be used for nefarious purposes, then that is a conspiracy theory. You also have presented no evidence for it. Saying that there were "a number of 'interventionist' people in that administration" doesn't cut it.

I don't have time at the moment but Condoleeza Rice testified, I think before the 911 commission that president Bush, in the fight against terrorism, said he was "tired of stamping out little fires."

That was in the context of why more of an effort wasn't being made, including with anti-terror programs started by the previous administration. (It's interesting to note that his administration hadn't yet stamped out anything in regards to terrorism).

Try googling that. If you can't find it I'll look it up when I get a chance.

Quote from: jt512 on September 23, 2023, 08:48:56 AM

Quote from: CarbShark on September 23, 2023, 02:59:29 AM

Quote from: jt512 on September 22, 2023, 10:44:20 PM

Quote from: xenu on September 22, 2023, 09:35:33 PM

Quote from: jt512 on September 22, 2023, 07:12:11 PMI can't possibly watch 13 minutes of that, but the video seems to imply that you have to burn 100% of the calories you consume through exercise. That is ridiculous. Unless you are a serious athlete, you burn most of your calories through resting metabolic rate. The video is self-refuting. The blond woman says that the McDonalds meal she ate was for her a typical meal, so she seems to be maintaining a lean body mass with her regular level of exercise.

Well That is not what the video is about. All it was showing was that you have to watch what you eat to loose weight and that it is very hard to loose weight just through exercise. You can do it but it takes a lot of exercising to burn off the food you eat in excess of body maint.

Don't eat food in excess of body maintenance. Then it is very easy to lose weight by just exercising.

On paper that's true. But when studied the results vary from what was expected.

Then the studies are wrong.

Or maybe applying the most basic law of physics to a complex system like human metabolism, compounded by the behavior of humans, both in studies and in the wild, doesn't work.

In fact, that's one of the themes of the SGU, that applying a basic law to a complex system is problematic.

No, the studies are not wrong. The studies are showing, quite clearly, the effect of specific interventions on humans. If the studies don't show what you expect, then maybe it's not the studies that are wrong.

And, no, there is violation of the laws of physics to account for the ineffectiveness of exercise as a weight loss strategy. Maybe, studies carried out in metabolic wards where every calorie in is measured along with TEE and REE (total energy expenditure and resting energy expenditure) might show why exercise is not effective for weight loss but those studies haven't been done.

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