Results are in from last week’s email on i+1 learning!
- The email got far, far more replies than any email in Examine’s 12-year history
- 97.7% of respondents wanted more i+1 learning
- 2.3% of respondents did not want more
The replies were also more enthusiastic than for any email in our history.
TL;DR: We’re going to develop a free four-week email course on meat as a test of i+1 science learning.
Contact us to join the course!
What did replies from readers say?
Respondents ranged from physicians, professors, and dietitians to college students, busy executives, and elderly readers struggling with multiple chronic conditions. Here’s a tiny sliver of the responses:
Absolutely LOVE this concept Kamal, why haven’t I/we thought of this before? It’s a bite-size step by step mechanism to learning detail in a fascinating manner.
This is a fantastic idea. If I can doomscroll for 15 minutes I can certainly take 5 minutes to learn something useful.
As someone with ADHD, reading small chunks of information with logical breaks and spacing improves retention of information.
By focusing on a ”one card, one concept” approach, users will find it easier to remember and retrieve information. This could have profound implications for how information is absorbed and utilized.
I’m about to board a long flight, so no more email for the next 14 hours at least. But this was too good to let it go. Yes, I would definitely be very interested in that addition to Examine.
This is an amazing concept. I love this idea for more complex subjects. Whenever I am reading about a new subject I feel like I need to look up another 20 words just to understand that topic better.
Wow! You guys are going above and beyond what I signed up for. Yes please add the i+1 write-ups to your site.
This is an incredibly genius approach for learning more about science and not only applying what’s learned, but remembering it!!! 100% love it and hope you move forward with this!
Very interesting. I enjoy reading, however, on days when my brain has consumed enough long, jargon-heavy text; this method seems very effective. I enjoyed the simplicity and brevity very much.
What’s the next step?
We’re going to develop a free four-week email course on meat as a test of i+1 science learning.
Contact us to auto-enroll in our free i+1 email test course on meat!
This test will let us polish the i+1 learning format to get it ready for prime time. We need specific feedback on different things we’re thinking about trying. Note that nothing on the Examine site will be replaced by i+1 learning. We’ll continue producing our usual material in its usual format.
You might be thinking, why meat? While meat is a food source, meat is also the bulk of an organism’s weight and more complicated than it seems at first glance, so it serves as a unique launching point for learning.
As we incorporate each additional “+1” layer of knowledge, we can go from the ground up to explore interrelated concepts involving tissue structure, protein, cholesterol, micronutrients, plant versus animal physiology, muscle gain, fat loss, and more.
This learning is diet-agnostic: even if you eat little to no meat, you are made of meat. It helps to know what you’re made of and how that relates to potential food and supplement choices.
Note that Examine has no “stance” on meat’s health effects, just like we have no set stance on any health topic. We’ll explore the pros and cons of meat, including research you have likely never learned about before.
We employ omnivore researchers, vegan researchers, researchers who have eaten carnivore diets, and everyone in between. As new evidence rolls in, we update our knowledge base. There’s no cherry picking at Examine.
This course will start with simple, well-supported concepts interspersed with interesting facts and tips, and then build up to deeper concepts of increasing complexity. When there’s uncertainty around a concept, we’ll note that.
The course construction will be a team effort. We don’t pretend to know everything about this topic, let alone nutrition as a whole. But the 30 Examine researchers combined are quite the formidable force. Our internal debates help sharpen our knowledge bases and produce better ideas, kind of like Abraham Lincoln’s Team of Rivals, but with much tinier impacts. 🙂
As I mentioned in a previous message, I have a life-long habit of excessive self-criticism and self-doubt. Here’s proof from the day I first mentioned the i+1 idea in our team’s messaging app:
And even a few days later:
While it might indeed be difficult to construct, I think the results will be worth it.
All that is to say — this learning approach might have stalled if you all hadn’t replied like you did! This isn’t just lip service. We heavily rely on you telling us what you want.
So if you’d like to be one of the first testers of our i+1 course ...
Contact us to auto-enroll in our free i+1 email test course on meat!
Sincerely,
Kamal Patel
Co-founder, Examine