Adjacent specialist domains: recognise and routeRung 1 · Introductory

An obesity specialist works next to a dozen fields that are real and hard: brain and cell science, genetics, causal methods, trade law, town planning, Ayush, procurement, media buying. You will be asked questions in all of them. The danger is not only that you do not know; it is that you may answer anyway, with a confidence your reasoning cannot support. This book teaches the one competence you need at that edge: notice it, say so, name the person who owns the question, ask it so their answer is usable, and judge whether the answer you got is an answer.

Read the first five chapters in order: they are the method. The field chapters after them can be read in any order, and each ends on the question you would ask that field’s owner. Start a contact list on the first day, one row per field, and add a name each time a chapter gives you somewhere to look. The last chapter runs one realistic ward-committee case through the whole method.

Book 0, in particular reading a figure (F2), checking a reference (F3), the shape of an argument (F4) and how government makes rules (F5); the biology sections E5, E7 and E8 help with the chapter on cell and brain science. There is no mathematics in this book beyond reading a percentage. It helps to have read Book 5 (who decides a policy) and Book 8 (explaining as a test of understanding), which this book points to rather than repeats. You need a notebook or a spreadsheet for the contact list you build as you read.