A scientific conclusion does not become intrinsically less interesting just because all it took was a regression a first-year stats student could do. Simple and

A scientific conclusion does not become intrinsically less interesting just because all it took was a regression a first-year stats student could do. Simple and obvious is often better. The suggestion in the linked article that, "hey, we ran a regression so now we can just come up with whatever interpretation we like" irked me as well, but you really do have to read the comments of the peer reviewers: one is peeved by the fact that they don't talk about his/her pet topic, another that they don't include this or that kind of historical context, another tries to be smart about statistical methodology but in the process shows their incompetence (a beta coefficient is a measure of effect size, you dummy)... when all the authors want to do is to point at the fact that opposition to pornography has declined over time. You can argue that this is not interesting, that this is obvious, but the whole point of science is to not accept things just because they seem obvious. A new journal launched recently, by the way, which is aimed at exactly this sort of finding: https://sciencematters.io https://sciencematters.io The idea is that scientists will be able to publish empirical results without the requirement to craft an entire story around it. Science needs theory but it also needs facts.