What's more important, the two pieces of paper he received or the fact that his own arguments clearly depict he doesn't understand? He says:
" Does anyone – even Jonah Lehrer or the neuroscientists he consults – think that the brain, perhaps in cohort with the gut, is making decisions about how much we should eat, on how long we stay hungry and when we get full, so that we don’t overshoot by 20 calories a day. That’s matching intake to expenditure with an accuracy of better than 1 percent. (We consume, on average, about 2700 calories a day, so matching energy in to energy out and not overshooting by 20 calories requires better than one percent accuracy.)"
"...we actually have to be perfect in our matching of intake to expenditure or we’re going to get inexorably fatter (or leaner, if we err on the side of going hungry), or at least we have to average perfection over decades."
His argument is that the body is not accurate to within 20 calories a day. He appears unaware of the fact that this kind of regulation, which I agree isn't possible on a day-to-day basis (the brain never says "don't eat that last 1/12 of a candy bar"), is unremarkable when amortized over time. That is where his scientific inexperience shows. "Averaging perfection over decades" happens all the time and is perfectly unremarkable. He is oblivious to this fact.
This is a fatal error. Regardless of how it fits into his larger argument, he gets this basic and fundamental point wrong. When an author can't get facts like these straight, I become suspicious of the rest of his arguments. And indeed, a random sampling shows they are fundamentally broken. I would not trust him to explain any kind of complex science.
When an author can't get facts like these straight, I become suspicious of the rest of his arguments.
I agree that this is a pretty good standard to adhere to, but there are other explanations: perhaps Taubes understands the issues well, but didn't do a great job of translating them to analogies. Or perhaps you (as reader) are not correct in your understanding of his argument. I suspect Taubes would agree with you that given an appropriate long-term feedback method that fine regulation is possible, thus I presume the actual issue is something else.
I'm inclined to trust Taubes because I've enjoyed some of his prior writings. Here's an award winning article of his that was published in Science: http://www.junkscience.com/news3/taubes.html.
You might enjoy this earlier article as an example of his style applied to a different topic. While it's certainly possible he's completely wrong here, I don't think it's because he lacks any fundamental understanding of science.
As I read it, Taubes' basic critique is that the 'calories equals weight gain' formula is so flawed as to be almost useless. The more I look into it, the more I agree with him. Yes, obviously at the extremes there are physical limits involved, but presuming a purely linear response just seems silly. I cheer him on in his attempts to come up with something better.
" Does anyone – even Jonah Lehrer or the neuroscientists he consults – think that the brain, perhaps in cohort with the gut, is making decisions about how much we should eat, on how long we stay hungry and when we get full, so that we don’t overshoot by 20 calories a day. That’s matching intake to expenditure with an accuracy of better than 1 percent. (We consume, on average, about 2700 calories a day, so matching energy in to energy out and not overshooting by 20 calories requires better than one percent accuracy.)"
"...we actually have to be perfect in our matching of intake to expenditure or we’re going to get inexorably fatter (or leaner, if we err on the side of going hungry), or at least we have to average perfection over decades."
His argument is that the body is not accurate to within 20 calories a day. He appears unaware of the fact that this kind of regulation, which I agree isn't possible on a day-to-day basis (the brain never says "don't eat that last 1/12 of a candy bar"), is unremarkable when amortized over time. That is where his scientific inexperience shows. "Averaging perfection over decades" happens all the time and is perfectly unremarkable. He is oblivious to this fact.
This is a fatal error. Regardless of how it fits into his larger argument, he gets this basic and fundamental point wrong. When an author can't get facts like these straight, I become suspicious of the rest of his arguments. And indeed, a random sampling shows they are fundamentally broken. I would not trust him to explain any kind of complex science.