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From the study's abstract: Differences in taste among individual players, along with differences in playing qualities among individual instruments, appear more
by parfe 13y ago
From the study's abstract: Differences in taste among individual players, along with differences in playing qualities among individual instruments, appear more important than any general differences between new and old violins.
Another case of science reporting failing miserably at understanding and conveying the results of studies. The three articles all come up short at even reading the abstract:
Daily Mail "Concert violinists can't identify the sound of a multi-million-pound Stradivarius"
Phys.org "Study shows even professional musicians can't tell old master violins from new"
Npr.org - Doesn't even come close to the same universe as the study in the submitted article to the point I wonder if the npr article covered something else entirely?
- herge 13y agoIt's the Daily Mail; we should be just happy they aren't claiming playing a Stradivarius causes cancer.
- Centigonal 13y agoHave you seen http://kill-or-cure.herokuapp.com/ http://kill-or-cure.herokuapp.com/ ? I think you might get a kick out of it.
- golergka 13y agoIt is awesome. At least they don't claim that vaccines are causing cancer.
- avaku 13y agoSome other people do!
- Tyrannosaurs 13y agoThey've said coffee causes cancer which is worrying. To counter this I drink coffee in a 1:1 ration which they say cures cancer so I reckon I'm good.
- brianmcc 13y agoperhaps it's on the "cures" side...
- cmsmith 13y agoI didn't read the original study, but based on your quotes it seems like you could append (p>0.95) to any of those headlines and have a meaningful statement which is supported by the data.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mason240 13y agoDaily Mail, Phys.org, and NPR all mess up, DM get singled out.
- phaemon 13y agoI know. It's very easy to mock the Daily Mail...so that's what we should do.
- Fishkins 13y agoI wouldn't call it "failing miserably." Although it doesn't appear to have been the main focus of the study, the antepenultimate paragraph of the results section does say most violinists couldn't identify whether their violin was new or old (3 got it right, 7 got it wrong, 7 said they didn't know) [0]. There aren't p-values provided for that result, though. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/3/760.full http://www.pnas.org/content/109/3/760.full edit: Also, you criticize the publications for not reading the abstract, but I wonder if you read it closely. It says "most players seemed unable to tell whether their most-preferred instrument was new or old," which seems right in line with those headlines to me.
- saurik 13y agoThere is a fundamental difference between being unable to tell the difference between two things, and having a difference of opinion on which is better; the article titles seem to claim the former, while the paper's abstract only states the latter.