GCBC does two main things:

1. It explores the dietary fat/cholesterol hypothesis of obesity and disease, and tears it to shreds. Not only does it show how little actual evidence supports this belief that everyone today takes on faith, and how easily it can be falsified; but it also explains the true sources of the belief, which were political and sociological, not scientific. (If he'd stopped writing after this point, he already would have done a great service to humanity.)

2. It presents an alternate hypothesis of obesity and the diseases of civilization (DoC) -- namely that they are caused primarily by excess consumption of carbohydrates, especially processed carbs like flour and sugar. It gives numerous examples of societies where obesity and DoC shot up when colonists came in and introduced the people to "civilized" food containing large amounts of those staples.

The important thing to remember about #2 is that it's a hypothesis. The purpose of a hypothesis is to set up an explanation that seems plausible, and then see if anyone can shoot it down (as GCBC does thoroughly with the dietary fat/cholesterol hypothesis). A hypothesis isn't really expected to be solid when you first present it. You publish it so people can poke around at it and see if they can find any contradictions, and you rethink it to see if you can make it withstand those. Rinse and repeat. If it holds up well over time and no one seems to be able to punch any more holes in it, you call it a theory and say you're starting to be pretty sure it's true.

GCBC is just the first step in that process. It presents the carbohydrate hypothesis as a simple cause-and-effect: eat a lot of carbs -- especially refined carbs that tend to convert to blood sugar faster than whole foods and have had much of their nutrition removed -- and you will raise your insulin levels. Insulin is the hormone that tells your cells to store fat, so chronically higher insulin levels means you'll store more fat, until your body balances the two at a higher level than if you hadn't been eating so many carbs. Keep up the consumption, and you may also wear down your capability to produce insulin and/or your cells' sensitivity to it, leading to one or the other type of diabetes. In the process, high levels of insulin stress various systems in the body, leading to heart disease and other maladies.

That's the starting point in a nutshell, but it still leaves a lot to explore. Do the type of carbs matter? Could you eat potatoes for generations and never have a problem, but one generation on white flour makes you sickly and fat? Could the carbs be "opportunists", only having a negative effect when some other culprit (industrial seed oils, fructose, gluten, stress, pollution, take your pick) gets the ball rolling? What part do genetic differences between peoples play in this; could some racial groups be better adapted to some/all carbs than others? If refined carbs are the culprit, do they cause obesity by the carbs->insulin->fat-retention method he suggests, or through some other mechanism where elevated insulin is more side-effect than cause? Whatever the mechanism, is cutting carbs the way to reverse the damage (and is the damage reversible?), or does something else have to be done?

So there's a lot left to explore, and it probably won't come down to Taubes being "right" or "wrong." He supplies plenty of evidence that he's onto something, but it will take time to figure out exactly what. How much of his hypothesis will remain when it's been whittled down and rethought in light of continued new study and evidence, we don't know. But I'd bet he's already a lot closer to the truth than the fat/cholesterol stuff ever was.

What’s wrong with Taubes?

Nothing. Not one damn thing.

(And yes, I want to have his low carb paleo babby.)

Taubes is not Paleo per se. Taubes has provided a treatise on the role of carbohydrates vis-a-vis obesity (which I personally do not subscribe to, but to each their own).

That low carb is correlated to many implementations of Paleo is exactly that - a correlation.

EDIT - The thing that is wrong with him is that he cuts in front of people when attending nutritional seminars. What kind of person does that?!?!

One of the benefits of age is that you develop the looooooong view...

Another great benefit of aging is often the growing impatience with that which is easily and rapidly identified as "drama."

You've reentered the paleosphere at a time of great drama.

We are a bunch of humans and lord oh lordy, are humans ever drama-kings and queens!

We stimulate and excite ourselves this way. ;)

Folks around these parts have been talking lots about food reward and self over-stimulation in general. Perhaps we should be looking at drama-reward just as we look at high-stim reward and what it does to our brains...

Anyhow, here's something handy to assist you in taking a longer view. It is a post from 2008 - 3 years ago - maybe a little less, in which the first commenter is our well loved (with good reason!)Dr. Stephan Guyenet. Let me quote it for you:

"Hey Peter,

Nice post. I think the connection between insulin, hunger and obesity is not really appreciated in mainstream medicine.

Gary Taubes has a nice discussion of it in "Good Calories, Bad Calories".

I'm working on a post about obesity that touches on this; I'll probably post it within a week or so."

http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2008/03/diabetes-and-hunger.html

I hold Dr. Guyenet in very high regard. I have spent hours poring over his site, and have read every post he has written. It is an extraordinary blog and gift he has given freely to anyone who will but read it.

The point here is that all things change. Sometimes they don't seem to change in quite the best way.

We now have a situation where not only Dr. Guyenet and Gary Taubes are thrown into "camps" but other relationships in the blogsphere have also become quite disrupted. Lines have been drawn. Strong alliances which were quite clear to readers exist no more, and new and sometimes very interesting alliances have been formed.. And around all of this is pressure, pressure, pressure on these bloggers by the flame fanning drama stimmers.

When you walk into the paleosphre right now, what you are walking into is actually a sort of artifically created situation which really isn't helpful to anyone. It's about hurt feelings, pride, and self defense and the ongoing fanning flames, all, regretably, played out in a very public way. In reality, imho, all of this has little to do with the content of Stephan Guyenet's work or Gary Taubes or anyone elses. On the surface it's played out that way....

We like here to do the: We are very rational and logical people routine...but the fact is, is this is all about E_M_O_T_I_O_N...F_E_E_L_I_N_G_S.

And to boot, it's decidedly un-paleo behavior that no hunter-gatherer tribe would have engaged in. Survival was paramount and therefore the guiding light of INTERDEPENDENCE reigned and still reigns in very old indigenous cultures I've spent time with.

Old hunter-gatherer cultures had gatherings and rituals with which to "flex" their emotions. One of these I am very familiar with is the Inupiaq's "Kivgiq" or "The Messenger Feast." This entails basically non-top drumming, dancing,laughing, hugging, eating and small gift-giving for about 5 days straight and traditionally, men who ran village to village as messengers ferrying gifts.

Personally, what I see we have to offer is alot of PART-truths. We have some information and we lack alot of other information. It sounds like you are making your way. What PART-truth works for you is likely to be dependent on what you come to ancestral health needing or wanting to change. Your PART-truth, imho, will be very different if you arrive here signficantly overweight or obese. If your goal is a small to moderate weight loss, and perhaps other health issues (or not) I would point you in the direction of Paul Jaminet, whereas, with really significant weight to be lost, I'd point you to Taubes and perhaps Cate Shanahan's site as well as Mark Sisson's, which forever manages to take a long and broad view and offers ALOT of info.

And I'd tell you no matter what, to read Stephan Guyenet's site, not just all the current food reward theory stuff, but so much that is invaluable that long preceeded FRT.

And there are many, many variations on the themes above. Not everyone comes to paleo for weight loss!!!!!

There are more than a few figurative "potholes" to be fallen in, in paleo land these days. You look to be a smart guy. Read, take what works for you and leave the rest. It'll all shake out in time. There are alot of part-truths to be greatly expanded upon.In a mere five years we are likely to laugh heartily about some of today's dearly held PART-truths and have greatly expanded on others, with a whole new picture to see.

Welcome!

Before others get into the details, let me offer that many of the "gurus" are pretty compatible on the big-picture items: eat whole foods, avoid processed foods, etc. If you condense each philosophy/manifesto to half a page or less they all sound pretty much alike.

I think many of the differences reside in what causes/drives obesity or how brain/body signals interact, etc.

Taubes is a genius at analyzing experiments to see if they conform to scientific method. That's all he does and he does it well. In the case at hand, he correctly deduced that the dietician community if full of very questionable experimenters, lots of leaping to conclusions, lots of confusion amidst statistical noise, etc. I think he came to the right conclusions in a narrow sense, and he doesn't want to jump into the wider fray. He'll just hold his ground, defend his position, and if that means hurting a few feelings now and then, it's okay, he'll win in the end.

Many see Taubes contribution to Paleo is his work vindicating saturated fat. He also kind of vindicated PUFA’s too while he was at it, and he says he eats low GI bread, so not really much in the Paleo camp.

His whole insulin hypothesis should have never been put to paper. It does not address all the Asians that eat white rice, so he should have come up with a better hypothesis initially. Especially after he spent a big part of GCBC showing how an entire class of macronutrients were unfairly demonized, then in the next part of GCBC he turns around and does the exact same thing himself to a different macronutrient. (Can you imagine how he would castigate idiot scientists for just ignoring half the world's population just so they could demonize a macronutrient?)

Similar things have been said about Wheat Belly. Most people here don't disagree with the idea that wheat should be avoided, they just don't think the author gave a scientifically sound rationale. The "problem" with Taubes is similar. His dietary advice is similar to all the other members of the paleo priesthood, but some argue his underlying theory is unsound.

That's why it's so important to try the diet out for yourself and see what works for you and what doesn't. There is a lot of conflicting science about what causes obesity, and it is great that there are some sharp minds searching for answers. But for most people the most important thing is to find a healthy diet that reduces their weight (if necessary) or keeps it stable in the first place. All of the authors you mentioned will get you started on the right track. Then it is up to you to experiment until you find exactly what works best for you.

Where to start! Well

1. He doesn't research comprehensively, or even extensively, though he gives the impression of doing so. Published in 2007, GCBC contained very few references dated even a decade earlier. His major source of his whole Adiposity 101 is a 1965 textbook. Quantity of references does not trump quality.

2. He doesn't do, as he claims in GCBC, and follow the research forward in time to see if anything has changed.

3. He violates the basic rule of formulating a scientific hypothesis and research. Observe → hypothesize → test. What Gary did was hypothesize → cherry pick in support → tell the world his alternative should be the "null" hypothesis requiring massive evidence to discard.

4. Despite being provided with said massive evidence, not to mention that observations would preclude even formulating such a hypothesis in the first place, Taubes continues to promulgate the same flawed science.

5. He misrepresents the science. The only other excuse is that he really doesn't understand it well enough to properly interpret it.

6. He thinks he's smarter than all those idiot scientists who just won't listen to him. This wouldn't be something that's wrong with him, I suppose, were it true.

7. He never addresses the specific criticisms of his science. Never. It's always his critics who are attacking poor Gary, who supposedly have nothing of merit to add, etc.etc. His loyal following eats it up, so I can't blame him in a way. But if facts were on his side he could be the "bigger person" in the face of criticism and answer the criticism.

8. He doesn't correct in print that which was factually wrong. Yes, I'm talking his whole G3P debacle and the "you can't store fat without carbs" magic that some still claim. A good scientist (or investigative scientific journalist) explains where they went wrong and why -- e.g. this is what I thought based on these studies, but I've changed my mind on the basis of new evidence. Instead he just drops the subject. There's no doubt he could have dumbed down the G3P theory in WWGF if he hadn't been called on the carpet in Q&A sessions and exposed for misrepresenting references by some bunny-eared biotch.

As to his hypothesis? I think it's been thoroughly dismantled by too many to count. Currently, by he, himself. In the words of Kurt Harris {paraphrase}, 'the Carb-Insulin hypothesis can't be rescued on the backs of refined carbs and fructose'. He's trying, but every time he does, he seems to shoot himself in the foot.

Oh I can't stand it any longer. Here are two things Taubes gets wrong:

1. By cherry picking, he makes the explorers the authors of poor native diets. Maybe in some instances yes. But consider that corn, potatoes and cacao were not eaten in Europe before 1500. Columbus' mission was not to turn natives into wheat farmers. The natives were gorging on bad calories for millennia before any explorers.

2. Taubes is dismissive of exercise. What part of hunt-and-gather is he missing? This is of first importance, and slighting it makes him anti-paleo IMO.

Feel free to vote me down. I'm hoping for a PR.

An article by Taubes from 4/2011, discussing his belief that sugar is toxic... just wanted to post this in case anyone wanted to read it. sharing time... :)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all%3Fsrc%3Dtp&smid=fb-share