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It would be standard deviations in some specific situation. Maybe in 2-3 situations. Like answering questions of a psychologist and inflating a balloon in a kin

by ordu 6y ago

It would be standard deviations in some specific situation. Maybe in 2-3 situations. Like answering questions of a psychologist and inflating a balloon in a kind of a computer game. Does it influence a driving style of a person? People could overcome biases, and possibly driving as a habit would be more strong than acetaminophen. The only reason to go numeric with this study is to measure statistical significance of their findings. I'm sure they did it, but their numbers have no meaning outside of their study.

aidenn0 6y ago
Numeric is also a good sanity check. If they claim e.g. 3 standard deviations of risk-taking increase on typical doses of paracetamol, then there's something wrong with the study, because we would have noticed that already.
- ordu 6y ago
  I'm sure they did all the math. It is just journalists do not report it, because it's too boring. And in this case this math would be meaningless if you didn't dig into methods, experimental plan, number of participants, how they where split into groups, and so on. With this numbers one would need to report all the science article. If you interested in such details, you should go to the original article. Speaking of skepticism, I personally just believe, that article is good enough. Mostly they are. In this case I see no methodological troubles, the experiment seems straightforward, I would have no troubles designing it, based on this journalist's article and I'm not a professional scientist (though I have a psychology degree). > If they claim e.g. 3 standard deviations of risk-taking increase on typical doses of paracetamol, then there's something wrong with the study, because we would have noticed that already. If they claimed 3 std-devs of increase, it would be 3 std-devs of increase in a specific model situation of risk taking from the experiment. It would be great news, it would mean that researchers found a good model situation with high sensitivity to a paracetamol. Would be nice to see how some other factors influencing risk taking show themselves in this setup.

by ordu 6y ago

aidenn0 6y ago

Numeric is also a good sanity check. If they claim e.g. 3 standard deviations of risk-taking increase on typical doses of paracetamol, then there's something wrong with the study, because we would have noticed that already.

ordu 6y ago
I'm sure they did all the math. It is just journalists do not report it, because it's too boring. And in this case this math would be meaningless if you didn't dig into methods, experimental plan, number of participants, how they where split into groups, and so on. With this numbers one would need to report all the science article. If you interested in such details, you should go to the original article. Speaking of skepticism, I personally just believe, that article is good enough. Mostly they are. In this case I see no methodological troubles, the experiment seems straightforward, I would have no troubles designing it, based on this journalist's article and I'm not a professional scientist (though I have a psychology degree). > If they claim e.g. 3 standard deviations of risk-taking increase on typical doses of paracetamol, then there's something wrong with the study, because we would have noticed that already. If they claimed 3 std-devs of increase, it would be 3 std-devs of increase in a specific model situation of risk taking from the experiment. It would be great news, it would mean that researchers found a good model situation with high sensitivity to a paracetamol. Would be nice to see how some other factors influencing risk taking show themselves in this setup.