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I really hate bad science, and this is an example. Springer Science+Business Media (the publisher) does not transfer copyright of the paper from the author to
by max76 8y ago
I really hate bad science, and this is an example.
Springer Science+Business Media (the publisher) does not transfer copyright of the paper from the author to the publisher like many other journals. This begs the question, why isn't this article open access? The primary author, Dorothea Schipp, is a statistics consultant in small town Germany [0] not associated with a University and the blood work was done in Slovakia. No PHDs or MDs among them. [1].
Digging deeper into their research method [2] the study looked at DNA breakage over a four month period in blood sampling for a coffee and non-coffee/caffeine group. I have a few questions about this, mainly around how effective the time period and method for determining total DNA stability. How many individual cell gnomes were measured in the before/after? What's the random variance for genome variability among cells in the same body? I suspect the variance is high enough to explain their unbelievably low p.
My guess is that the statistician is having fun with p-hacking [3] while collecting some funding from industry.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenthal-Bielatal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenthal-Bielatal
[1]https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00394-018-1863-2 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00394-018-1863-2
[2] https://www.mdlinx.com/journal-summaries/coffee-comet-assay-human-intervention-study/2018/11/20/7549520/ https://www.mdlinx.com/journal-summaries/coffee-comet-assay-...
[3] http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/P-hacking http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/P-hacking
- rv-de 8y agoAlso the study was ordered by Tchibo - a producer of dark roast coffee. What a coincidence. So naturally they didn't have an interest in finding that (assuming that the result is valid at all - which I doubt) tea with caffeine (or maybe just caffeine pills) has the same effect. Also why did they use a blend on earth? This study doesn't make sense on so many levels. But nobody diggs into it so it's successfully feeding the nutrition misinformation circle jerk.
- pergadad 8y agoAs you have access to the paper - do they take blood only once and compare the groups or do they they take 2+ times and compare the change? With such a small sample the first option would be very dubious.
- sebbo 8y agoRight. At root, the protocol was not published and the outcomes were not prespecified, ergo this is dogshit.