It's not as simple as that. Most "indecisiveness" that appears to come from science is from different studies being taken out of context, or poor media reporting. Most wild claims you see aren't from the researchers themselves.
See Steven Novella's recent blog post on this subject.
I'm not sure that matters. It's ok to eat cholesterol now, right? All these "mistakes" give science a black eye. We've already got a Climate Change trustworthyness problem and for some reason people don't trust vaccines, mostly educated people. As a nation, we refused to fund both the Hubble and the Supercollider, which would have been bigger than CERN.
It's probably time that we stopped making excuses and think of a better way to explain the "science" to people.
The position of "science" has been to eat a balanced meal and exercise for as long as I can remember. You won't see a medical journal recommending fad diets. Steve covers this fairly well in the article I linked.
But still, public outreach could be greatly improved. It's unfortunate that many public doctors or educators on the subject are shills like Dr. Oz.
You could start by providing the links to the science! Why should I trust what you're saying? There's always someone on the Internet making claims. People debate have raging debates and few people actually provide real data.
Fair enough. :) Though in my case, showing where something "doesn't exist" isn't the most possible. But there's plenty out there on recommending balanced meals and exercise.
> It's ok to eat cholesterol now, right? All these "mistakes" give science a black eye.
You're confusing central planning and science. Governmental politics and advisory is a form of central planning, and in that realm mistakes are shunned upon.
Science is a protocol that, if duly practiced, will evolve our understanding towards the truth. But the path is not straight. And science does not give any way for determining whether we have found the truth at the present moment.
That's why in proper science everything is in constant flux. For some people that's terrifying, so they prefer central planning and static advisory from above.
"Proper science" is practically practiced by no scientist outside of Math and possibly Physics and Chemistry. Biology, medicine and nutrition, for example, are not "proper sciences".
E.g. the lipid hypothesis (cholesterol causes heart problems) does not, and never had, scientific support (In the "proper science" sense), and did have data against it for about 30 years, but it's very hard to find any scientist who would admit it. Similarly, the hypothesis that cholesterol intake makes a significant difference to serum levels was never proved, essentially disproved many times - and yet, it is taken as an axiom but most "scientists".
So, the fact that some "proper scientific practice" would have shown differently is of no practical consequence.
I think it's more of a problem of misaligned incentives rather than the method itself. There's a lot of room for politics, ass-covering, etc. Studies that fail to replicate something are shelved, even though they're useful information. Studies that indicate a negative, ditto. Studies are "nudged" to show something so the author can show that it wasn't a complete waste of time, etc.
They're understandable, but they're bad for science.
See Steven Novella's recent blog post on this subject.
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/scott-adams-on-...