One of the first managing editors of The New Yorker had a slogan: “Don’t get it right, get it written”. My philosophy with regard to the Shangri-La Diet was similar: “don’t get it exactly right, get it written, and get feedback.”
Here are some ways the Shangri-La Diet has been improved by feedback (almost all from the SLD forums):
1. It is much clearer what rate of weight loss to expect.
2. The idea of nose-clipping. Which makes any food a weight-loss food.
3. With nose-clipping, you can use flaxseed oil to lose weight. The benefits of omega-3 have become much clearer.
4. Putting the oil in water makes it much easier to drink.
Setting aside the virtues or defects of nose-clipping, etc.: Getting it out and getting feedback does seem like a good idea. In Seth’s case, a key intermediate step was the publication of the Behavioral and Brain Sciences article on self-experimentation, which gave potentially critical readers some data and theories to chew on.
By "feedback" I was thinking of the feedback I got from the Shangri-La Diet forums. The BBS paper by itself didn't generate much feedback. You raise a good point: It is hard to get feedback about scientific work. The web has helped "broadcast" scientific work (because it is easy to email or download reprints) but doesn't seemed to have helped retrieve "echos" — that is,reactions. Not yet, anyway.