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This is worth reading purely for the writing alone. Scott Alexander is a treasure: > As best I can tell, this is some kind of Egyptian trial. It might or might

by Shank 5y ago

This is worth reading purely for the writing alone. Scott Alexander is a treasure: > As best I can tell, this is some kind of Egyptian trial. It might or might not be an RCT; it says stuff like “Patients were self-allocated to the treatment groups; the first 3 days of the week for the intervention arm while the other 3 days for symptomatic treatment”. Were they self-allocated in the sense that they got to choose? Doesn’t that mean it’s not random? Aren’t there seven days in a week? These are among the many questions that Elalfy et al do not answer for us.

jmcgough 5y ago
Oh, no wonder this was so entertaining to read, didn't even catch that this was astral codex. I laughed out loud at Cadegiani et al: > A crazy person decided to put his patients on every weird medication he could think of, and 585 subjects ended up on a combination of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and nitazoxanide, with dutasteride and spironolactone "optionally offered" and vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, apixaban, rivaraxoban, enoxaparin, and glucocorticoids "added according to clinical judgment". There was no control group, but the author helpfully designated some random patients in his area as a sort-of-control, and then synthetically generated a second control group based on “a precise estimative based on a thorough and structured review of articles indexed in PubMed and MEDLINE and statements by official government agencies and specific medical societies”.
WithinReason 5y ago
The patients got Sunday off of course
- thyrsus 5y ago
  If the study was in Egypt, that would have been Friday.
  - avs733 5y ago
    based on logic and statistics, that would be true based on the rest of study design I'm less confident
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> This is worth reading purely for the writing alone. Scott Alexander is a treasure This post is a breath of fresh air for the blog and feels refreshingly well-researched. Between that and the unquestionable popularity of COVID-related discussion, it’s no wonder this article is popular. Scott is undeniably a good blog writer with an entertaining writing style that resonates with his reader base. However, I’ve become disillusioned with a lot of his other recent writings like the “Great Families” post in which he presented a lot of conjecture that pandered to his core readership without any research or evidence to support it. Specifically, his position that genetics are the primary explanation for “Great Families” while ignoring obvious heritability of things like wealth and social status. Even the old Slate Star Codex and new Astral Codex Ten communities started calling him out on it after that article. Scott’s writings are undeniably entertaining and usually quite fun to read, but I’ve long since learned to read them more critically because his writings have a way of projecting a sort of humble confidence while either hedging any statements so much that little is actually communicated, or sometimes inserting conjecture or feelings with a lot of linguistic window dressing such that it’s easy to mistake it for fact. I hope this article is a sign that the writings are shifting more toward the old-school, heavily-researched style that made the blog so popular.
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  > ignoring obvious heritability of things like wealth and social status He addresses that in the section section - besides the intro, he leads with it: "the next generation becomes semi-famous fashion designers and TV personalities and journalists, which seem like typical jobs for people who are well-connected and good at performing class, but don't need to be amazingly bright. Sometimes they become politicians, another job which benefits from lots of name recognition. But I've tried to avoid mentioning these careers, and focus on actually impressive achievements that are hard to fake. And also, none of these families except the Tagores were fantastically rich; there are thousands or millions of families richer than they are who don’t have any of their accomplishments. For example, Cornelius Vanderbilt's many descendants are famous only for being very rich and doing rich people things very well (one of them won a yachting prize; another was an art collector; a third was Anderson Cooper)."
LeifCarrotson 5y ago
Spoilers ahead, but I loved this pun: > The fraud-hunters have examined this paper closely and are unable to find any signs of fraud. I think this paper is legitimate and that its findings need to be seriously considered. ... And there’s always the chance it was a fluke, right? Can something have a p-value less than 0.001 and still be a fluke? ... > And it was! It was a fluke! A literal, physical, fluke! Edit: If you like puns and this writing, you'll likely enjoy some of Scott's other works, like "The Study of Anglophysics" [1] and (especially if you're at least passingly familiar with Judaism and Kabbalah) Unsong [2]. [1]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/03/the-study-of-anglophysics/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/03/the-study-of-anglophys... [2]: https://unsongbook.com/ https://unsongbook.com/
- Terretta 5y ago
  Sort of undermined the entire payoff there. Maybe this is a rare time to use all caps: *** SPOILER *** Also in the SPOILER reveal, you could just quote ”And it was!” to show you enjoyed the setup and delayed gratification pun w/o tipping the whole game. ‘Twas a gem though.
- deell223 5y ago
  Small correction: you can very much enjoy and love Unsong without understanding of Judaism and Kabbalah.
- pieter_mj 5y ago
  In the pilot of House, M.D., a patient is treated with Albendazole for a parasitic worm infestation. Not a fluke, but closely related :) Albendazole is also considered for treating covid. edit : hm, I think I remember Dr. House making the fluke joke ...

by Shank 5y ago

jmcgough 5y ago

Oh, no wonder this was so entertaining to read, didn't even catch that this was astral codex. I laughed out loud at Cadegiani et al: > A crazy person decided to put his patients on every weird medication he could think of, and 585 subjects ended up on a combination of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and nitazoxanide, with dutasteride and spironolactone "optionally offered" and vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, apixaban, rivaraxoban, enoxaparin, and glucocorticoids "added according to clinical judgment". There was no control group, but the author helpfully designated some random patients in his area as a sort-of-control, and then synthetically generated a second control group based on “a precise estimative based on a thorough and structured review of articles indexed in PubMed and MEDLINE and statements by official government agencies and specific medical societies”.

WithinReason 5y ago

The patients got Sunday off of course

thyrsus 5y ago
If the study was in Egypt, that would have been Friday.
- avs733 5y ago
  based on logic and statistics, that would be true based on the rest of study design I'm less confident

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> This is worth reading purely for the writing alone. Scott Alexander is a treasure This post is a breath of fresh air for the blog and feels refreshingly well-researched. Between that and the unquestionable popularity of COVID-related discussion, it’s no wonder this article is popular. Scott is undeniably a good blog writer with an entertaining writing style that resonates with his reader base. However, I’ve become disillusioned with a lot of his other recent writings like the “Great Families” post in which he presented a lot of conjecture that pandered to his core readership without any research or evidence to support it. Specifically, his position that genetics are the primary explanation for “Great Families” while ignoring obvious heritability of things like wealth and social status. Even the old Slate Star Codex and new Astral Codex Ten communities started calling him out on it after that article. Scott’s writings are undeniably entertaining and usually quite fun to read, but I’ve long since learned to read them more critically because his writings have a way of projecting a sort of humble confidence while either hedging any statements so much that little is actually communicated, or sometimes inserting conjecture or feelings with a lot of linguistic window dressing such that it’s easy to mistake it for fact. I hope this article is a sign that the writings are shifting more toward the old-school, heavily-researched style that made the blog so popular.

commandlinefan 5y ago
> ignoring obvious heritability of things like wealth and social status He addresses that in the section section - besides the intro, he leads with it: "the next generation becomes semi-famous fashion designers and TV personalities and journalists, which seem like typical jobs for people who are well-connected and good at performing class, but don't need to be amazingly bright. Sometimes they become politicians, another job which benefits from lots of name recognition. But I've tried to avoid mentioning these careers, and focus on actually impressive achievements that are hard to fake. And also, none of these families except the Tagores were fantastically rich; there are thousands or millions of families richer than they are who don’t have any of their accomplishments. For example, Cornelius Vanderbilt's many descendants are famous only for being very rich and doing rich people things very well (one of them won a yachting prize; another was an art collector; a third was Anderson Cooper)."

LeifCarrotson 5y ago

Spoilers ahead, but I loved this pun: > The fraud-hunters have examined this paper closely and are unable to find any signs of fraud. I think this paper is legitimate and that its findings need to be seriously considered. ... And there’s always the chance it was a fluke, right? Can something have a p-value less than 0.001 and still be a fluke? ... > And it was! It was a fluke! A literal, physical, fluke! Edit: If you like puns and this writing, you'll likely enjoy some of Scott's other works, like "The Study of Anglophysics" [1] and (especially if you're at least passingly familiar with Judaism and Kabbalah) Unsong [2]. [1]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/03/the-study-of-anglophysics/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/03/the-study-of-anglophys... [2]: https://unsongbook.com/ https://unsongbook.com/

Terretta 5y ago
Sort of undermined the entire payoff there. Maybe this is a rare time to use all caps: *** SPOILER *** Also in the SPOILER reveal, you could just quote ”And it was!” to show you enjoyed the setup and delayed gratification pun w/o tipping the whole game. ‘Twas a gem though.
deell223 5y ago
Small correction: you can very much enjoy and love Unsong without understanding of Judaism and Kabbalah.
pieter_mj 5y ago
In the pilot of House, M.D., a patient is treated with Albendazole for a parasitic worm infestation. Not a fluke, but closely related :) Albendazole is also considered for treating covid. edit : hm, I think I remember Dr. House making the fluke joke ...