8 ms·

If they only intend to claim correlation, avoiding the word "linked" in the announcement would probably help with general public interpretation. I feel like in

If they only intend to claim correlation, avoiding the word "linked" in the announcement would probably help with general public interpretation. I feel like in English, "linked" usually implies some sort of potential causation, not just a general relationship. For example: "boyfriend linked to murder case".

pcl 4y ago
This reminds me of the intentionally-ambiguous "officer-involved shooting" turn of phrase. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-ambiguous-grammar https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-... https://www.cjr.org/analysis/officer-involved-shooting.php https://www.cjr.org/analysis/officer-involved-shooting.php
sudosysgen 4y ago
Correlations do imply a link, though. They don't imply causation, but in the absence of selection bias and with enough of a sample size, it is almost certain there is a link somewhere.
- hypertele-Xii 4y ago
  The word for when there is no link is, in turn, 'coincidence'. Causation, correlation, coincidence. And then there's quantum entanglement.
- toolz 4y ago
  Well let's test this theory out then. Would you say I was being ridiculous if I told you that the number of people who drown in a year is linked to how many movies nicolas cage appears in? If so, then you might not actually believe linked is simply a synonym for correlation. I know I certainly would think that was a ridiculous way to phrase it.
  - MrsPeaches 4y ago
    > the number of people who drown in a year is linked to how many movies nicolas cage appears in For those who don't know the reference: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    That's just being facetious though. We've all seen that website with funny correlations. This line of argument while an important lesson to look deeper into systems before claiming a correlation doesn't really add much here. Loads of people get the flu vaccine. Enough that I'd imagine the sample size is representative of the population at large. A large number of people also don't get the flu vaccine. So this is a surprising result. Especially since we are injecting a liquid into the people so there could reasonably be some effect we never thought of. Which is the whole point. These people aren't correlating things in completely unrelated fields and claiming a link.
    - native_samples 4y ago
      It's not facetious. It's quite the stretch to say that if you assume literally any injection could cure any disease, it's OK to describe any found correlation as a "link". This sort of intellectual looseness is not free. People are learning to treat claims by scientists as untrue, and it's partly because of this sort of press release/paper hacking. Finding a correlation between two random medical data sets does not mean there is a "link" in any English that normal people would use it. It definitely does not mean there's an "effect" or that one thing "reduces" the other. It might mean there's something worth a followup investigation there, though given the prevalence of non-reproducible p-hacked results in science, also maybe not. Regardless, before doing press releases and going to the public with such a claim there is a large amount of work needing to be done to actually prove causality. Moreover you'd then want to ask why does such a thing happen when there is no prior reason to suspect such an impact.
      - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
        > It's not facetious. It's quite the stretch to say that if you assume literally any injection could cure any disease, it's OK to describe any found correlation as a "link". I don't see it that way. Nick Cage has nothing to do with Alzheimers. We're not finding correlations with Nick Cage movies and then saying "Nick Cage linked to reduction in Alzheimers". They are suggesting that flu vaccination may have some 2nd order effect beyond protecting you from the flu. Which could be reasonable, science reporting and poor research notwithstanding. Either way, the refrain "Correlation does not imply causation" is over used in my view. And I'd rather learn the specific ways the research is flawed.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    Congratulations, you've discovered p-hacking. I said "almost certain". What you did is taken a database of someone who made millions of comparisons, such that coincidences that are very unlikely to occur happen via pure coincidence. Additionally, I said "enough of a sample size". Given that the analysis you're talking about was over 11 pairs of points, that doesn't even qualify as very unlikely.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- zugi 4y ago
  Indeed there is a link but we don't even know the direction of causation. I find it quite plausible that people with as-yet undiagnosed early-onset Alzheimer's forget to get flu shots.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Yet, you also find it plausible that people who spent years on this project would never have thought of that. Your misplaced trust in your own plausibility filter causes you to make foolish posts on HN.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      > Yet, you also find it plausible that people who spent years on this project would never have thought of that. I find it plausible that the few people who spent hours reviewing this paper didn't think of that, and that the people publishing the paper ignored it since ignoring it could help them gain more funding. > Your misplaced trust in your own plausibility filter causes you to make foolish posts on HN. It is foolish to believe that scientists does things properly. As an outsider you only see the outlier results, meaning that most of what reaches HN could be faked or statistical trickery or have simple explanations due to poor science since poor science is more likely to produce headlines, while most scientists could still do the right thing.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        Scientists are very frequently wrong. Any scientist who doesn't admit that is none. One example is adjacent to the topic here, continued adherence to the amyloid beta hypothesis. But their mistakes are generally subtle, and not what somebody who knows nothing about the subject invents in the first seconds after first hearing about the topic.
        native_samples 4y ago
        We're talking about epidemiology though. Their papers routinely contain major, grievous errors that anyone can spot in five minutes. There might well be subtle errors too but it doesn't matter when the field is overrun with papers that are quite obviously invalid on their face to any outsider, yet none of the insiders care. The primary COVID model that triggered lockdowns was full of programming errors. It had never been peer reviewed, and its prediction of deaths varied by 80,000 depending on whether you engaged a data loading optimization or not. It gave totally different results depending on available CPU features! There were no tests and the results had never been validated against anything. Outsiders pointed out these problems, and the team didn't care, nor did anyone else in the field of epidemiology. That's just one example of many. Epidemiology is kinda like the phrenology of our era (one of quite a few). It's not built on a firm scientific foundation.
kixiQu 4y ago
What's wrong with implying potential causation? Correlation is potential causation. The whole reason one says the boyfriend is linked to the murder case is because one isn't saying he's responsible -- and yet he might be.
- headsoup 4y ago
  Probably just because it isn't a very high bar. "People who eat McDonald's linked to fewer car accidents." I mean some data might just show that, but causality is a lot further away there. Hence, while a correlation might be interesting, when presented we need to also understand the methodology and go into the detail a little bit to see how extra factors have narrowed down that finding. E.g, without looking into any of the data, 'more Flu shots reduces risk of Alzheimer's' might be because people predisposed to Alzheimer's have a poor diet and the flu shot just counters some other terrible health effect. So first bit of detail to look at is whether the selection factors for diet, comorbidities, environment, general health, history, etc. Not saying anything about this article, but context is always important, hence those claiming 'correlation !== causation' are only correct as far as not looking any deeper. Same for 'well it could be' is useless without knowing how close to 'could be' it is. More critical imo, is the use of '40% reduction.' If this is relative risk (this study is not, it's absolute), the actual risk could be 0.0037%, where a reduction of 40% is practically nothing. So next check is: is this relative or absolute risk? If relative, relative to what baseline? So many studies are distorted by using relative risks against a meaningless baseline.

pcl 4y ago

This reminds me of the intentionally-ambiguous "officer-involved shooting" turn of phrase. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-ambiguous-grammar https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-... https://www.cjr.org/analysis/officer-involved-shooting.php https://www.cjr.org/analysis/officer-involved-shooting.php

sudosysgen 4y ago

Correlations do imply a link, though. They don't imply causation, but in the absence of selection bias and with enough of a sample size, it is almost certain there is a link somewhere.

hypertele-Xii 4y ago
The word for when there is no link is, in turn, 'coincidence'. Causation, correlation, coincidence. And then there's quantum entanglement.
toolz 4y ago
Well let's test this theory out then. Would you say I was being ridiculous if I told you that the number of people who drown in a year is linked to how many movies nicolas cage appears in? If so, then you might not actually believe linked is simply a synonym for correlation. I know I certainly would think that was a ridiculous way to phrase it.
- MrsPeaches 4y ago
  > the number of people who drown in a year is linked to how many movies nicolas cage appears in For those who don't know the reference: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  That's just being facetious though. We've all seen that website with funny correlations. This line of argument while an important lesson to look deeper into systems before claiming a correlation doesn't really add much here. Loads of people get the flu vaccine. Enough that I'd imagine the sample size is representative of the population at large. A large number of people also don't get the flu vaccine. So this is a surprising result. Especially since we are injecting a liquid into the people so there could reasonably be some effect we never thought of. Which is the whole point. These people aren't correlating things in completely unrelated fields and claiming a link.
  - native_samples 4y ago
    It's not facetious. It's quite the stretch to say that if you assume literally any injection could cure any disease, it's OK to describe any found correlation as a "link". This sort of intellectual looseness is not free. People are learning to treat claims by scientists as untrue, and it's partly because of this sort of press release/paper hacking. Finding a correlation between two random medical data sets does not mean there is a "link" in any English that normal people would use it. It definitely does not mean there's an "effect" or that one thing "reduces" the other. It might mean there's something worth a followup investigation there, though given the prevalence of non-reproducible p-hacked results in science, also maybe not. Regardless, before doing press releases and going to the public with such a claim there is a large amount of work needing to be done to actually prove causality. Moreover you'd then want to ask why does such a thing happen when there is no prior reason to suspect such an impact.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
      > It's not facetious. It's quite the stretch to say that if you assume literally any injection could cure any disease, it's OK to describe any found correlation as a "link". I don't see it that way. Nick Cage has nothing to do with Alzheimers. We're not finding correlations with Nick Cage movies and then saying "Nick Cage linked to reduction in Alzheimers". They are suggesting that flu vaccination may have some 2nd order effect beyond protecting you from the flu. Which could be reasonable, science reporting and poor research notwithstanding. Either way, the refrain "Correlation does not imply causation" is over used in my view. And I'd rather learn the specific ways the research is flawed.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  Congratulations, you've discovered p-hacking. I said "almost certain". What you did is taken a database of someone who made millions of comparisons, such that coincidences that are very unlikely to occur happen via pure coincidence. Additionally, I said "enough of a sample size". Given that the analysis you're talking about was over 11 pairs of points, that doesn't even qualify as very unlikely.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
zugi 4y ago
Indeed there is a link but we don't even know the direction of causation. I find it quite plausible that people with as-yet undiagnosed early-onset Alzheimer's forget to get flu shots.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Yet, you also find it plausible that people who spent years on this project would never have thought of that. Your misplaced trust in your own plausibility filter causes you to make foolish posts on HN.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    > Yet, you also find it plausible that people who spent years on this project would never have thought of that. I find it plausible that the few people who spent hours reviewing this paper didn't think of that, and that the people publishing the paper ignored it since ignoring it could help them gain more funding. > Your misplaced trust in your own plausibility filter causes you to make foolish posts on HN. It is foolish to believe that scientists does things properly. As an outsider you only see the outlier results, meaning that most of what reaches HN could be faked or statistical trickery or have simple explanations due to poor science since poor science is more likely to produce headlines, while most scientists could still do the right thing.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Scientists are very frequently wrong. Any scientist who doesn't admit that is none. One example is adjacent to the topic here, continued adherence to the amyloid beta hypothesis. But their mistakes are generally subtle, and not what somebody who knows nothing about the subject invents in the first seconds after first hearing about the topic.
      - native_samples 4y ago
        We're talking about epidemiology though. Their papers routinely contain major, grievous errors that anyone can spot in five minutes. There might well be subtle errors too but it doesn't matter when the field is overrun with papers that are quite obviously invalid on their face to any outsider, yet none of the insiders care. The primary COVID model that triggered lockdowns was full of programming errors. It had never been peer reviewed, and its prediction of deaths varied by 80,000 depending on whether you engaged a data loading optimization or not. It gave totally different results depending on available CPU features! There were no tests and the results had never been validated against anything. Outsiders pointed out these problems, and the team didn't care, nor did anyone else in the field of epidemiology. That's just one example of many. Epidemiology is kinda like the phrenology of our era (one of quite a few). It's not built on a firm scientific foundation.

kixiQu 4y ago

What's wrong with implying potential causation? Correlation is potential causation. The whole reason one says the boyfriend is linked to the murder case is because one isn't saying he's responsible -- and yet he might be.

headsoup 4y ago
Probably just because it isn't a very high bar. "People who eat McDonald's linked to fewer car accidents." I mean some data might just show that, but causality is a lot further away there. Hence, while a correlation might be interesting, when presented we need to also understand the methodology and go into the detail a little bit to see how extra factors have narrowed down that finding. E.g, without looking into any of the data, 'more Flu shots reduces risk of Alzheimer's' might be because people predisposed to Alzheimer's have a poor diet and the flu shot just counters some other terrible health effect. So first bit of detail to look at is whether the selection factors for diet, comorbidities, environment, general health, history, etc. Not saying anything about this article, but context is always important, hence those claiming 'correlation !== causation' are only correct as far as not looking any deeper. Same for 'well it could be' is useless without knowing how close to 'could be' it is. More critical imo, is the use of '40% reduction.' If this is relative risk (this study is not, it's absolute), the actual risk could be 0.0037%, where a reduction of 40% is practically nothing. So next check is: is this relative or absolute risk? If relative, relative to what baseline? So many studies are distorted by using relative risks against a meaningless baseline.