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Something doesn’t quite sit right with me about him linking to a couple things that mention Walker’s rebuttal https://sleepdiplomat.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/why

Something doesn’t quite sit right with me about him linking to a couple things that mention Walker’s rebuttal https://sleepdiplomat.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/why-we-sleep-responses-to-questions-from-readers/ https://sleepdiplomat.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/why-we-sleep-... but not linking to it directly. If you are trying to get people to think critically about the book it seems like they should at least be given the opportunity to see the authors response to your criticism.

nabla9 6y ago
In his response Walker walks back some of the most outrageous claims he makes, like the cancer claim. Had he put the same effort to sourcing the book and toning down the claims, there would have not been a controversy.
- jkhdigital 6y ago
  It’s “human centipede” science: make up a false claim (“all animals sleep”) with a bogus but practically unverifiable citation, then have your claim repeated in papers which cite yours.
- foolmeonce 6y ago
  > Had he put the same effort to sourcing the book and toning down the claims, there would have not been a controversy. Had he put effort into ruining the success of his book by toning down his claims, expressing caveats, adding footnotes of where he was using a small study, etc, then someone else willing to take the risks of not being diligent would get the fame and opportunity to defend their book.
mikedilger 6y ago
Interesting. I briefly checked into one of his retorts and it appears just as poorly sourced. Take this one: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has stated that, “Insufficient sleep is a public health epidemic.” If you follow the link (which doesn't even go to the CDC site!), it's dead. If you go get the 473 page report from the CDC for 2014 (implied by the dead link) from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus14.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus14.pdf, you find the word sleep used only 3 times (once in the index) and no such quote.
- prostoalex 6y ago
  The quote, however, does seem to check out through other sources like https://www.aaas.org/news/sleep-deprivation-described-serious-public-health-problem https://www.aaas.org/news/sleep-deprivation-described-seriou... (which also links to a broken site) Perhaps just a CDC redesign fluke?
  - waterhouse 6y ago
    Guzey's appendix addresses it directly: Between late 2010/early 2011 and August/September 2015 [1 (a), 2 (a), 3 (a), 4 (a)], CDC had a page on its site titled “Insufficient Sleep Is a Public Health Epidemic”. More than 2 years before Why We Sleep was published, the page changed the word “epidemic” to “problem”, so that its title became “Insufficient Sleep Is a Public Health Problem”. https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#possible-origin-of-the-sleeplessness-epidemic-thing https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#possible-origin-of-the...
- djedr 6y ago
  Not to take any sides, but I also did some digging and found confirmation for this particular claim from the blog post. It was written December 19, 2019. The link was most likely not dead then. It was archived in July 2019 and does point to what is claimed (consistent with the screenshot): http://web.archive.org/web/20190712132614/https://www.accqsleeplabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/CDC-report.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20190712132614/https://www.accqsl... The PDF seems to be a snapshot of the CDC site from 2014: http://web.archive.org/web/20141031142147/http://www.cdc.gov/features/dssleep/ http://web.archive.org/web/20141031142147/http://www.cdc.gov... So this much checks out.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    Reading the CDC blog post, it seems like an exaggerated use of "epidemic". An epidemic is something that has arisen, or is spreading, in some growing of transient fashion. The blog article describes a problem that exists, and may have always existed. A behavior that contributes to bad health outcomes - well that's tremendously common. There are probably many thousands of human behaviors that have negative consequences. Would you say there's an "epidemic" of poor posture in the world? No, it just is a constant reality - something we need to work on continuously. Overall, while it might have been an accurate source - it's not a very meaningful notion or weighty reference.
pps 6y ago
Walker talked about errors in his book also in this podcast in 1:20:45 https://peterattiamd.com/matthewwalker4/ https://peterattiamd.com/matthewwalker4/
- djedr 6y ago
  This is also linked in the official website (https://www.sleepdiplomat.com/author https://www.sleepdiplomat.com/author) along with the blog post where he addresses the criticisms.
guzey 6y ago
I just linked to Walker's response at the top of my essay. (I did not link to it when it was published because Walker never acknowledged being the author and it took a while for UC Berkeley to confirm authorship at which point I had already stopped thinking about this. Notably, Walker still never acknowledged being the author of that post)
- guzey 6y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26685755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26685755 this comment points out that Walker linked to that blog post from his official site after all.
hntrader 6y ago
He still seems to be twisting and misrepresenting the NSF guidelines of 7-9 hours to mean the point value of 8 hours. No, Walker, 63 percent of people don't have unmet sleep needs, as you are still falsely claiming. You're either being dishonest or you are too innumerate to understand what an interval is.

nabla9 6y ago

In his response Walker walks back some of the most outrageous claims he makes, like the cancer claim. Had he put the same effort to sourcing the book and toning down the claims, there would have not been a controversy.

jkhdigital 6y ago
It’s “human centipede” science: make up a false claim (“all animals sleep”) with a bogus but practically unverifiable citation, then have your claim repeated in papers which cite yours.
foolmeonce 6y ago
> Had he put the same effort to sourcing the book and toning down the claims, there would have not been a controversy. Had he put effort into ruining the success of his book by toning down his claims, expressing caveats, adding footnotes of where he was using a small study, etc, then someone else willing to take the risks of not being diligent would get the fame and opportunity to defend their book.

mikedilger 6y ago

Interesting. I briefly checked into one of his retorts and it appears just as poorly sourced. Take this one: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has stated that, “Insufficient sleep is a public health epidemic.” If you follow the link (which doesn't even go to the CDC site!), it's dead. If you go get the 473 page report from the CDC for 2014 (implied by the dead link) from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus14.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus14.pdf, you find the word sleep used only 3 times (once in the index) and no such quote.

prostoalex 6y ago
The quote, however, does seem to check out through other sources like https://www.aaas.org/news/sleep-deprivation-described-serious-public-health-problem https://www.aaas.org/news/sleep-deprivation-described-seriou... (which also links to a broken site) Perhaps just a CDC redesign fluke?
- waterhouse 6y ago
  Guzey's appendix addresses it directly: Between late 2010/early 2011 and August/September 2015 [1 (a), 2 (a), 3 (a), 4 (a)], CDC had a page on its site titled “Insufficient Sleep Is a Public Health Epidemic”. More than 2 years before Why We Sleep was published, the page changed the word “epidemic” to “problem”, so that its title became “Insufficient Sleep Is a Public Health Problem”. https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#possible-origin-of-the-sleeplessness-epidemic-thing https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#possible-origin-of-the...
djedr 6y ago
Not to take any sides, but I also did some digging and found confirmation for this particular claim from the blog post. It was written December 19, 2019. The link was most likely not dead then. It was archived in July 2019 and does point to what is claimed (consistent with the screenshot): http://web.archive.org/web/20190712132614/https://www.accqsleeplabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/CDC-report.pdf http://web.archive.org/web/20190712132614/https://www.accqsl... The PDF seems to be a snapshot of the CDC site from 2014: http://web.archive.org/web/20141031142147/http://www.cdc.gov/features/dssleep/ http://web.archive.org/web/20141031142147/http://www.cdc.gov... So this much checks out.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Reading the CDC blog post, it seems like an exaggerated use of "epidemic". An epidemic is something that has arisen, or is spreading, in some growing of transient fashion. The blog article describes a problem that exists, and may have always existed. A behavior that contributes to bad health outcomes - well that's tremendously common. There are probably many thousands of human behaviors that have negative consequences. Would you say there's an "epidemic" of poor posture in the world? No, it just is a constant reality - something we need to work on continuously. Overall, while it might have been an accurate source - it's not a very meaningful notion or weighty reference.

pps 6y ago

Walker talked about errors in his book also in this podcast in 1:20:45 https://peterattiamd.com/matthewwalker4/ https://peterattiamd.com/matthewwalker4/

djedr 6y ago
This is also linked in the official website (https://www.sleepdiplomat.com/author https://www.sleepdiplomat.com/author) along with the blog post where he addresses the criticisms.

guzey 6y ago

I just linked to Walker's response at the top of my essay. (I did not link to it when it was published because Walker never acknowledged being the author and it took a while for UC Berkeley to confirm authorship at which point I had already stopped thinking about this. Notably, Walker still never acknowledged being the author of that post)

guzey 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26685755 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26685755 this comment points out that Walker linked to that blog post from his official site after all.

hntrader 6y ago

He still seems to be twisting and misrepresenting the NSF guidelines of 7-9 hours to mean the point value of 8 hours. No, Walker, 63 percent of people don't have unmet sleep needs, as you are still falsely claiming. You're either being dishonest or you are too innumerate to understand what an interval is.