5 ms·

But you can't tell the conclusion is flawed just from that. You're saying that funded research is by definition only valid if it yields results that are neutral

by deong 10y ago

But you can't tell the conclusion is flawed just from that. You're saying that funded research is by definition only valid if it yields results that are neutral or harmful to the interests of whoever funded it. That's blantantly, obviously false. You can take that as one piece of data that should tend to raise your level of suspicion, but you still have to look at the actual study to evaluate it.

Spooky23 10y ago
That's a critical thinking error. When an interested party funds research, they don't publish results that are misaligned with their interests. In technology, you'll see shill "analysts" publish white papers that the FooCorp Model Bar Computer delivers 46% more ROI. This is similar bullshittery.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- smcl 10y ago
  Ben Goldacre - a British epidemiologist - has done a lot of work on this area, but focused on the Pharmaceutical industry and their practices in running/publishing the results of drug trials. He's got a great blog at http://www.badscience.net/ http://www.badscience.net/ and a book called Bad Pharma.
- deong 10y ago
  That's a separate problem. It's true that the selection bias around a lack of negative results is a problem, all that means is that you cannot interpret a lack of support in the literature as evidence one way or the other. I can't assume that a drug has no side effects based on a lack of documented research pointing out those effects. Such a study would likely be kept quiet, I know. When a study is actually published though, you can hopefully interpret the study on its own merits. There's still potential for fraud and misconduct, but that's why we'd ideally devote more time to replication studies. That said, I was assuming from the article that there was an actual peer-reviewed study resulting from this research, but the only thing I can find online is an affadavit Hosoi filed on behalf of Fanduel. If there's no published study anywhere, there's nothing to really counteract the suspicion you assume based on funding.
slg 10y ago
When I said why its flawed I was providing the likely reason and not evidence of the flaw. Rereading my comment, I can certainly see how one might interpret otherwise. Sorry I wasn't clear on that. When it comes to the specific evidence of the flaw, I think schwap's comment that I was replying to has it covered.

by deong 10y ago

Spooky23 10y ago

That's a critical thinking error. When an interested party funds research, they don't publish results that are misaligned with their interests. In technology, you'll see shill "analysts" publish white papers that the FooCorp Model Bar Computer delivers 46% more ROI. This is similar bullshittery.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
smcl 10y ago
Ben Goldacre - a British epidemiologist - has done a lot of work on this area, but focused on the Pharmaceutical industry and their practices in running/publishing the results of drug trials. He's got a great blog at http://www.badscience.net/ http://www.badscience.net/ and a book called Bad Pharma.
deong 10y ago
That's a separate problem. It's true that the selection bias around a lack of negative results is a problem, all that means is that you cannot interpret a lack of support in the literature as evidence one way or the other. I can't assume that a drug has no side effects based on a lack of documented research pointing out those effects. Such a study would likely be kept quiet, I know. When a study is actually published though, you can hopefully interpret the study on its own merits. There's still potential for fraud and misconduct, but that's why we'd ideally devote more time to replication studies. That said, I was assuming from the article that there was an actual peer-reviewed study resulting from this research, but the only thing I can find online is an affadavit Hosoi filed on behalf of Fanduel. If there's no published study anywhere, there's nothing to really counteract the suspicion you assume based on funding.

slg 10y ago

When I said why its flawed I was providing the likely reason and not evidence of the flaw. Rereading my comment, I can certainly see how one might interpret otherwise. Sorry I wasn't clear on that. When it comes to the specific evidence of the flaw, I think schwap's comment that I was replying to has it covered.