Jen and I had some friends over for dinner recently and a cooking topic of conversation came up. The question was, should you pepper steaks after grilling instead of before because pepper burns easily and thus you’ll burn it on the grill. I’ve always peppered (and salted) steaks before grilling, but I could see the point that it might in fact burn or become toasted – especially if you’re searing.

So I decided to do a simple experiment. I’d grill a couple steaks with pepper before grilling, and a couple I’d add fresh pepper after grilling. Then we’d have a blind taste test. The hypothesis was that fresh pepper after grilling would taste better.

This is fundamentally how science works. You have a question, you come up with a hypothesis, and you develop a method to test your hypothesis.

And though a very simple experiment, it gets pretty close to the gold standard of science experiments in which you directly test the hypothesis with blinded participants.

As usual, that’s where the problems started.

Last night when I went to grill the steaks for dinner I realized I was almost out of charcoal and it was too late to go to the store. No big deal, I had just enough to make it work.

But the result was that I didn’t have as much heat as I normally would, and the heat was more concentrated in one spot on the grill than I would have liked.

As a result, I wasn’t able to grill all 4 steaks perfectly the same like I normally would.

Which means that if there was a detectable difference in taste, it could be down to the difference in grilling rather than the difference in peppering.

If you’re at this point wondering who cares so much about grilling and pepper you haven’t zoomed out to look at the bigger picture.

SCIENCE IS HARD.

This experiment should have been very simple to execute perfectly, and it should have been easy to adhere to the methodology and experiment design. And due to unforeseen circumstances it turned out to be impossible.

Imagine how hard it is to examine nutritional differences across populations and decades.

Imagine what happens in a complex drug trial.

Imagine how hard it is to isolate any one factor in a moving, changing system.

Thinking critically about this, to say nothing of noting the mountains of evidence that have been dumped in the trash after we realized we were wrong about something that we were previously so sure of, should lead you to the conclusion that the results of most scientific studies are total bullshit.

It’s only after time and many, many, many iterations of same and similar experiments that we can even begin to have confidence that we have a handle on how something works and what factors correlate with what outcomes.

To use one of the biggest nutrition arguments as an example, the notion that we can say “carbs are bad” or “fats are bad” based on some garbage pop science is preposterous.

This is not to say science is worthless. It’s not. But science is not canon. It’s the best method we’ve found thus far to investigate the world around us and approach problem-solving. But it’s limited, extremely limited.

In fact by the very nature of the approach it’s almost entirely useless on an individual level. At best what you get from a large study might be a good starting point for self-experimentation. At worst it’s incredibly and dangerously misleading.

So next time you see the results of the latest pop science study being pushed into the media firehose by authors hoping to lasso more funding for their programs remember that regardless of whether the conclusions coincidence with or refute your existing beliefs it’s probably worthless and you should give it no more weight than the latest celebrity opinion.

 

 

This is sort of a spoiler alert: If you plan on attending Tom Brown’s Tracker School at some point in the future and you don’t want any spoilers of the lessons he might impart, read no further. That said, if you’ve ready any of his books (I haven’t, yet) I’d wager there’s nothing surprising here.

One of the main over-arching lessons that Tom tries to impart by the end of the week is essentially one of awareness. Not awareness in the sense of noticing that someone is about to jump out of the bushes or from behind a dumpster to attack you, but a more general and greater sense of connection, appreciation, and consciousness of the world around you.

Through this, he contends, you can actually appreciate more of the the natural (and unnatural) world.

But he actually goes a step further, to argue that reaching a higher level of awareness actually leads to a higher level of consciousness – beyond the base level of physical presence in the world.

Physical presence is fine, if you’re satisfied with sort of the absolute minimum level of living. It’s a passing grade, but it’s a C. At that level you’re reacting and responding, and your knowledge and wisdom is limited to just what you have right in front of your face.

But, through awareness you step up to a higher consciousness. You’re taking in more than what is immediately obvious, and you’re able to utilize inferences and wisdom that you might not be completely conscious of.

Which is interesting, because that’s exactly what we see happen with biofeedback training.

Going through the motions of a training program, following it verbatim isn’t bad, it’s just that it’s the lowest possible level of operating. Your results aren’t going to be as good as they could be, you’re probably going to get hurt more often, and the best you can do is what is presented immediately before you.

But by tapping in to your body’s feedback you can unlock a higher level of interaction and performance. You can utilize feedback you couldn’t possibly be consciously aware of to tune your program. The result is better progress, fewer injuries (because you often stop short of doing the thing your body is subtly signaling isn’t a good idea) and much greater, much deeper, engagement with your own training.

It’s not a coincidence that one of the most common pieces of feedback is of people being surprised at what they’re capable of. Even those who aren’t new to training at all.

If you’re still not using biofeedback here’s two ways to get started: this blog post or this program I sell. Biofeedback is at the core of all of my programs, but Get Stronger Faster is my favorite general overall strength program. Some people can make things work just by reading articles, some people like a clear path to follow.

Either way, if you’re still not using biofeedback you’re playing blindfolded.

As I mentioned, last week I was at a week-long survival class at Tom Brown Jr’s survival and tracking school in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. It was an experience that I won’t soon forget and something that I would recommend to almost everyone, with few exceptions. I’ll have more to write about the experience when I have more time to process and digest, it was possibly the most intense education I’ve ever received in a short 6 days, but for now I have one story to share with you. On the Monday, Tom says that after Friday you’ll never look at the ground the same way again. To be honest with you, I thought it was bullshit, and I was wrong.

But let me tell you a little story to illustrate my point.

On the drive home my buddy Dom Matteo and I were riding with another student from the class who needed a ride back to the train station in Philly. At some point in the hour and a half ride he and Dom got to talking about climbing, something Dom is pretty passionate about.

Dom has built a bouldering cave in his basement and his young kids both climb. Having found another climb, Dom excitedly pulled out his phone to show the other guy, Rob, a video of his 3-year old daughter bouldering.

Upon watching the video, Rob exclaimed “Oh, wow!”

Now, this wasn’t just a random shining on about someone’s kid. Rob was able to see something that a regular person, a non-climber, would never see. He was able to appreciate it in a unique and special way.

This general concept is something I’ve written about before, where skills allow you to appreciate more of the world.

This little kid, barely past speaking age, had performed a complex climbing move most climbers don’t even learn right away. And Rob could spot it, and appreciate it, immediately.

I call this “having eyes.” For example I have eyes for movement. I see mistakes and inefficiencies in my clients that a layman would never see. Conversely, I can see the beauty in an athlete’s unique and highly efficient movement. I also have eyes for dozens of other things I’ve invested time into developing.

Circling back to Tom’s exaggerated promise: I now see the natural world in a way that I never could before.

I’m not joking or exaggerating when I tell you that I can find mouse tracks in the forest.

This in turn gives me greater appreciation for every moment I spend in nature. I literally get more out of it. It’s like seeing everything in color when before I only saw black and white. If I had to invest a week to experience more every time I go hiking for the rest my life it was worth many times the investment.

I don’t know about you, but I want to have eyes for as many things as I possibly can. I want to be able to appreciate as much of the world as I possibly can.

Turns out again and again skills are the key to that end.