4 ms·

This is so ridiculous I'll repeat it in this thread. The "enlarged spleens" they saw (~200 cm^3) are actually closer to half the size of typical spleens accord

by nonbel 9y ago

This is so ridiculous I'll repeat it in this thread. The "enlarged spleens" they saw (~200 cm^3) are actually closer to half the size of typical spleens according to their own reference for spleen measurement (~500 cm^3). They apparently found another group to compare to with even smaller spleens, then acted like that was "normal" size to get this enlarged spleen for diving narrative. Details here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16884186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16884186

aje403 9y ago
Wow. Could there be any explanation for this or is this as bad as it looks? If so, serious question, how do they get away with things like this? It's at Cambridge, I mean you would have higher expectations? Maybe not?
- dekhn 9y ago
  Scientists are under intense pressure to post amazing results. How do they get away with it? All the other scientists are doing the same things and nobody wants to stop the merry-go-round.
- nonbel 9y ago
  It is common sense to check your control group measurements against the literature and see where they stand. I would also expect to mention the results of that search in the paper. Looking closer at the paper I see they also had some spleen sizes from a European cohort. They do not seem to tell us what those volumes were, instead only reporting p-values. Can anyone find it?
  - aje403 9y ago
    http://www.humanfunctionalgenomics.org/site/?page_id=82 http://www.humanfunctionalgenomics.org/site/?page_id=82 is what they used Those don't appear to be spleen sizes, though. It looks like they're just saying that they did a regression on some data linking "SNP"s to thyroid hormone levels. Then, they did a different but similar regression on data from the Bajau. I don't know what the relation of the SNPs are to spleen size but don't see anything noted in that area of the paper. IANA social scientist, but it looks quite goofy. They also note that they could not verify any relationship between spleen and thyroid sizes anyway.
    - nonbel 9y ago
      I think they did look at "other" spleen sizes and just chose not to mention it. This really just looks like another case of "reject null hypothesis -> conclude whatever we want".

by nonbel 9y ago

aje403 9y ago

Wow. Could there be any explanation for this or is this as bad as it looks? If so, serious question, how do they get away with things like this? It's at Cambridge, I mean you would have higher expectations? Maybe not?

dekhn 9y ago
Scientists are under intense pressure to post amazing results. How do they get away with it? All the other scientists are doing the same things and nobody wants to stop the merry-go-round.
nonbel 9y ago
It is common sense to check your control group measurements against the literature and see where they stand. I would also expect to mention the results of that search in the paper. Looking closer at the paper I see they also had some spleen sizes from a European cohort. They do not seem to tell us what those volumes were, instead only reporting p-values. Can anyone find it?
- aje403 9y ago
  http://www.humanfunctionalgenomics.org/site/?page_id=82 http://www.humanfunctionalgenomics.org/site/?page_id=82 is what they used Those don't appear to be spleen sizes, though. It looks like they're just saying that they did a regression on some data linking "SNP"s to thyroid hormone levels. Then, they did a different but similar regression on data from the Bajau. I don't know what the relation of the SNPs are to spleen size but don't see anything noted in that area of the paper. IANA social scientist, but it looks quite goofy. They also note that they could not verify any relationship between spleen and thyroid sizes anyway.
  - nonbel 9y ago
    I think they did look at "other" spleen sizes and just chose not to mention it. This really just looks like another case of "reject null hypothesis -> conclude whatever we want".