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Comment by iamthirsty | Hacker News Reader

> It's his formal training, he is a licensed acupuncturist. The man has absolutely no business talking about heart disease, especially with an experienced cardiologist.

This is an extremely closed minded view—not everyone with formal training is automatically an expert. This is the appeal to authority fallacy, and a poor one at that.

> From a scientific point of view, the only diet that as ever shown to stop the progression of heart disease is a whole-food plant-based diet.

This is not true either, and I find it ironic it’s stated authoritatively with no sources.

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Not everyone with formal training is an expert, but its the minimum requirement. Literally no one without formal training can be an expert in such a complex topic as heart disease.

Why is Joe Rogan asking about heart disease to a licensed acupuncturist in a podcast with 60 million downloads a month? It's like asking for legal advice from a massage therapist.

If you had heart disease or someone in your family had it, would you ask an acupuncturist for advice?

For the sources:

"proved decades ago that heart disease could be reversed solely with diet and lifestyle change"

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/our-number-one-killer-can-b...

The video is a summary of the studies listed via the "Sources cited" button, that you find scrolling down after the video.

> Not everyone with formal training is an expert, but its the minimum requirement. Literally no one without formal training can be an expert in such a complex topic as heart disease.

I have no bone in this particular fight. I'm inclined to agree with you, most of the time, but it's clearly possible to be an expert in nearly anything without formal training:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan

Lots of absolutes in this discussion, but reality is usually far more nuanced.

It depends, if looking for advise on how to use excel from someone, I don't think that they need to be certified or whatever.

For asking someone to do some web design or a logo, I don't think it's necessary either, but there is a limit somewhere.

Think about this way, if you yourself or someone in your family would have heart disease, would you take advice from an acupuncturist?

I bet you wouldn't. What are the odds that Kris Kresser without any formal training or experience managed to better understand the science behind such a complex topic like heart disease than full-time scientists and cardiologists?

Self-learning is great for a lot of things, but heart disease is likely not one of them.

How dare you question dietary proselytizing which is clearly masquerading as scientific fact.

FWIW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study YMMV

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