I would say that "C++ is more prone to bugs than other languages" is a quantitative claim and it is difficult to back up a quantitative claim without quantitati

I would say that "C++ is more prone to bugs than other languages" is a quantitative claim and it is difficult to back up a quantitative claim without quantitative evidence. I don't think it calling itself a "study" should have any bearing on your desire to see that quantitative evidence or on your general epistemic stance towards the claims. > I think most people assume the word “study” indicates something is backed by a rigorous method of research, like the scientific method. You can’t just make an opinion and then claim it’s a study. I get that there may be some connotation in the context of headlines that empirical evidence gathering was involved. Does that make it ludicrous to use the term? Not at all. The paper and the article are both clear about what was involved in the study. I really don't see how there is a "big problem" here (especially compared to issues of reproducibility in studies that are back by empirical data.) My big concern is the assertions that papers like this are not part of a "rigorous method of research, like the scientific method" completely discount the important role that such papers play in drawing the solid conclusions from data.