Transcript
So yesterday I posted a video that made a lot of people angry at me. Or maybe hungry? It was about why you shouldn't eat eggs and avocado together. Very controversial, I know. And it led to over a thousand people unfollowing me. Which is great because it means that over 99% of you can actually take a joke. And maybe have learned something about science literacy, which is actually the side reason why I posted that video because today we're going to go over all the little Easter eggs I put in to try and actually test you guys to see if you could pick up on them. And a lot of you did, so great. We'll dive into it in a second. But remember the whole point of what I'm trying to to do on this account is teach you guys science literacy, is to teach you to not trust me because I'm me, but to trust the sources that I bring and learn to recognize what's a good source and what's not. So with that being said, let's look at the source that I brought for the whole avocado egg thing yesterday. Oh, and today is April 2nd. Yesterday was April 1st. So here's the study. The avocado egg interaction and its unprecedented dermatological implications, a comprehensive study. Sounds legit, right? But when we're evaluating a study, step one is looking at, okay, what journal was it published in? The American Journal of Clinimical Nutrition. Off to a good start. Now, if you want to look it up yourself, you can look at the DOI number, which is like the study identification number that allows anyone to easily look up a study. And we look and we see DOI.org slash 10.3.14159. Bring any bells for anyone? And moving on. Published April 1st, And now let's look at the authors. Now, I know most of you probably would not have recognized most of these terms, so I will show you what they mean in other languages. We've got Passen d'Avri, France for April Fool, literally April's Fish. And basically, all these other names are really just the names for April Fool's or what you say to people on April Fool's when pulling a prank. A couple of you in the comments actually did pick up on this, so good job. But for those of you who are monolingual, and I don't speak any of these other languages either, I included one other one, which is, did you look closely? Not many did, but a few of you got it. But I get that a lot of you are not going to pause and look very closely at the study. So let's move on to what it actually said. So step one, we've got the bacteria that causes acne, propione bacterium acinus. That's legit, and that does actually cause acne. But next up, I said that there is an enzyme contained in the eggs called Veridicinase. Latin Verde is green colored, and then kinase is. is like a suffix for a lot of enzymes. So it's basically an enzyme that makes things green, foreshadowing. And then lambasate as a superfood. Bring any bells for anyone? Lombus. Okay. Lambus bread. And look more lambas bread. Next up, we have those two together. Oh, the Lombasaate feeds another bacteria called Holkos logisophage. Phage is the name for something that eats. Like, bacteriophage is actually a virus that eats bacteria. and logitophage is essentially something that eats logic. No one picked up on that, but I'm not surprised. And now let's move to the study itself. Again, most people aren't going to stop and read the methods here, but three individuals n equals three big study sample size, super reliable, and then participants were enrolled for T equals 4,320M, which in this context is obviously minutes, because 72 times 60 is, 4,320. So it was a three-day-long study. And the results, we've got first the eggs and avocado group, no increase in bacteria. Totally fine. And then, oh, we've got the egg plus avocado group. First, big increase on day two of the acne-causing bacteria. Yeah, seems legit. Makes sense. Then, for some reason, the next day, we've got, oh, an explosion in the egg plus avocado group of the Hocus logisiophage. this bacteria is going to cause a problem at minute 4,320. Again, zero minutes, 1440, that's day 1, 2880, day 2, and 4320, day 3. You really can't have a nutritional study that's only three days long. There's no possible way to tell. And there wasn't even a control group here. It was just eggs, avocados, and eggs plus avocado. Not matched for calories, not matched for nutrients, nothing. This would be the worst study design in the way. the history of study designs. And the final results, we've got the increase in hocus logisophage turns people into the Hulk. I don't understand how people still thought that this whole thing was legitimate when I literally showed one of the listed study results changing skin color and putting on weight and turning into the Hulk. But, you know, some people, I guess, just have a lot of trust in me. And if you felt betrayed, I apologize. But for the rest of you, I hope that. next time when you see anyone on the internet talking about any type of scientific study with certain results, before you go and share those results and apply them to your own life, stop and just think about it for a little bit and think, is this something that actually seems like it has good evidence behind it, as opposed to just some person in a lab coat, talking and saying something that sounds scary and therefore you should share it. So next time we'll actually do more or some combination they're up.
Additional notes
Replying to @Dave P How many did you spot? #science #edutok
References
- Follow-up to the April Fools/science-literacy video about the fake eggs-and-avocado claim. No real study references were found in the spreadsheet caption or matched source page.