Of course!

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10180745/

Those considering creatine supplementation for the goal of regional muscle hypertrophy should consider the practical significance of the small magnitude of effect

compared to a placebo, the magnitude of this effect was trivial to small

To be clear, there is a minuscule effect observed over the relatively short time scale of the studies. What people do is erroneously assume that your “gains” will compound the same way interest compounds with money, so someone hawking the supplement will point to one of the more positive studies (for every hundred studies, we’ll get 5 that erroneously say it’s extremely good, with 95% confidence!) and argue that even minuscule amounts of extra progress will result in much better results over a long period of time.

In reality muscle hypertrophy actually works the opposite way. The further along you are the slower you progress lol. Furthermore, there has literally never been a study on the muscle building effects of creatine supplementation over a long period of time. We have no evidence whatsoever to suggest you’ll be better off at the 1 year mark, 3 years, 5 years, and so on. (There have been observational studies performed up to the 5 year mark, but only looking for negative side effects. No word on the benefits at that point)

This is all also ignoring serious methodological issues regarding the studies themselves. We just don’t have a reliable way to measure regional muscle hypertrophy at such a small scale. There is work being done at the moment trying to repeat some of the more positive studies while controlling for sudden water retention (which causes most measurement methods to false positive) and so far every time they do that they fail to replicate the original findings.

But yeah, even awaiting the controlled reviews to play out, based on the current flawed and overly optimistic studies, experts are saying “trivial to small” to the point where it has questionable practical significance. Which is why I say next to worthless instead of totally worthless.

As a side note, believe it or not, the international powerlifting federation officially recommends against creatine supplementation and even protein powder. Mainly because there are significant systemic contamination issues across all supplements and they keep finding banned substances in the powders. The amounts are probably small enough not to affect your health but pose a problem for athletes during drug testing

My epidemiology professor explained it to me.

In principle, iffy results would be countered by other scientists researching the same area, but you know, replication crisis.

Scientists need to be aware of their own biases, including feelings of gratitude towards the people funding their research. These biases can absolutely influence how and which evidence is presented in the results.

Considering the context of this comment, I'm honestly confused about why you're confused.

I get the moral argument you're trying to make but as an archaeologist it's not a great argument for what I was trying to convey.

For the majority of all human history meat was a very important component of our diets, and for the vast majority of our ancestors this has been needed for our survival.

Once agriculture was invented, fairly recently compared to all human history, meat was still needed to supplement the diet.

Each culture that has existed developed their own foods and ways of preparation. After thousands of years these traditions have evolved and survived to today. People across the world value their food traditions immensely. There are so few things we see of repeated importance in human culture, but food traditions seem universal.

This doesn't speak of the morality or necessity of these food ways, but we'd be ignorant to ignore their very real cultural importance and impacts.

The option to not eat meat in terms of human history is basically brand new and I do believe it will begin to grow generation by generation as more people make the switch and then those new traditions spread.

But anyway don't confuse a culture's very real existence with a statement of morality. Those are two different topics entirely.

What's an ALF polycule?

Unsurprisingly, both of them are pretty bad for health and big industries.

This implies health and big industries are aligned, whatever fence you're on, that makes little sense. Contradictory.

Who is exploiting anyone? Choosing to not eat meat is a dietary preference, regardless of your irrelevant use of quotation marks.

Maybe you'd make more progress if stopped calling people "brainwashed". That's ACTUALLY disingenuous.