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I stopped reading as soon as I saw: > They began by recruiting 32 men and women who did not exercise. This is not worth reporting - certainly not in the matte

by QasimK 9y ago

I stopped reading as soon as I saw: > They began by recruiting 32 men and women who did not exercise. This is not worth reporting - certainly not in the matter-of-fact manner that they did. It is far far more likely there is nothing worth seeing here. I wish I had the resources on hand to explain why I believe this. It relates to p-hacking and finding results that just fade away with more in-depth investigations. 32 doesn’t mean the criteria for something that should be reported to the general public. Investigated further? Sure.

dcdanko 9y ago
Why? 32 is a big for a human study. They recruited 32 people that didn't exercise, they didn't choose them after they already had the data.
- Wohlf 9y ago
  It's far too small of a sample size for something as complex as human diet and exercise. You'd need a much larger sample size with people of varying types of diet and exercise regimes.
- QasimK 9y ago
  The evidence required for these kinds of studies is far greater than it might initially seem. The sheer number of other variables (environmental factors) makes it very easy to assign causal relationships incorrectly. I mean to say that I’m willing to bet most individual studies involving “32” participants (or on that ballpark) are basically wrong. By individual studies I mean those where the evidence for the phenomena is almost just that study. Some anecdotal evidence (lacking being able to share the resources that I’ve read in the past) is the “science” in (and media reporting of) the fields of nutrition, psychology, sociology and similar fields where the environment is impossible to fully control. They seems half-baked (or outright contradictory) because the media reports on findings that don’t have very strong evidence behind them (need further research) while making it seem like it is an established fact.

by QasimK 9y ago

dcdanko 9y ago

Why? 32 is a big for a human study. They recruited 32 people that didn't exercise, they didn't choose them after they already had the data.

Wohlf 9y ago
It's far too small of a sample size for something as complex as human diet and exercise. You'd need a much larger sample size with people of varying types of diet and exercise regimes.
QasimK 9y ago
The evidence required for these kinds of studies is far greater than it might initially seem. The sheer number of other variables (environmental factors) makes it very easy to assign causal relationships incorrectly. I mean to say that I’m willing to bet most individual studies involving “32” participants (or on that ballpark) are basically wrong. By individual studies I mean those where the evidence for the phenomena is almost just that study. Some anecdotal evidence (lacking being able to share the resources that I’ve read in the past) is the “science” in (and media reporting of) the fields of nutrition, psychology, sociology and similar fields where the environment is impossible to fully control. They seems half-baked (or outright contradictory) because the media reports on findings that don’t have very strong evidence behind them (need further research) while making it seem like it is an established fact.