The point was much clearer to me after I had read the precursor article: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2013/08/05/evidence-on-the-impact-of-sustained-

The point was much clearer to me after I had read the precursor article: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2013/08/05/evidence-on-the-impact-of-sustained-use-of-polynomial-regression-on-causal-inference-a-claim-that-coal-heating-is-reducing-lifespan-by-5-years-for-half-a-billion-people/ https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2013/08/05/evidence-o... "What I am suggesting is a two-step: the authors retreat from their strongly model-based claim of statistical significance, and the journal accept that non-statistically-significant findings on important topics are still worth publishing."