5 ms·

I don't see any reason to discount the authors, but a couple of things to keep in mind: 1) This is Time's popularization of their study, so Time is naturally g

I don't see any reason to discount the authors, but a couple of things to keep in mind: 1) This is Time's popularization of their study, so Time is naturally going to put forward the most interesting and least nuanced claims of theirs. 2) They may be accomplished researchers, but if you are well-versed in an academic discipline and read material in it, it quickly becomes clear that sometimes points which seem obvious have not actually been accounted for whether by mistake or because they don't allow for interesting publishable material. Again, I'm not saying that is the case, and my points above are overly cynical, but the original poster's question is valid.

anigbrowl 12y ago
The Time article is actually a very dry summary of the study's key finding, written in colloquial but not sensational language. It also has a link to the study in the very first sentence. I found the full text very easily: http://www.chc.ucsf.edu/ame_lab/pdfs/Leung%20et%20al%202014a.pdf http://www.chc.ucsf.edu/ame_lab/pdfs/Leung%20et%20al%202014a... The poster above could easily have satisfied his/her own curiosity on this point. 'Did researchers control for [extremely obvious thing]?' is becoming like 'correlation is not causation' - a smart-sounding thing to say instead of going to the effort of engaging with the material. It only took me 2 minutes to track down the paper and find that the covariate factors are discussed in detail over a full page of the paper.
- qu4z-2 12y ago
  In fact, in this case it's more or less exactly like 'correlation is not causation'.
- Arnor 12y ago
  1. Some of us aren't subscribers to APHA or aren't interested in spending $22 on the article. 2. Why so confrontational? If you know the answer to the question, why not summarize it? Is the answer to the question so complicated that it would take more time and energy than the two paragraphs you composed in derision?
  - mikeyouse 12y ago
    I can address #2; > If you know the answer to the question, why not summarize it? Is the answer to the question so complicated that it would take more time and energy than the two paragraphs you composed in derision? Every science article posted on HN gets the exact same treatment where well-intentioned but scientifically ignorant posters fill the comment section with drive-by posts saying "Correlation != Causation" or "Did they correct for [obvious variable]". It's exhausting and completely unproductive. If they would take 30 seconds and actually read the source information, they would answer their questions and the comment threads wouldn't devolve into this annoying meta conversation. Take the post that prompted this whole thing; > Did they describe how they controlled for behavioral habits? It seems like, as a group, the type of people who would drink large amounts of sugary soda would be less likely to make healthy behavioral choices in other aspects of their life, compared to people who drink fruit juice or diet soda. This could also explain the disparity between soda and non-carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages > This study doesn't seem to show that soda ages you (as the article states), but instead that sugary soda consumption indicates a tendency towards other activities/habits that may prematurely age you. So a poster, that later admits he didn't read the article, not only discounts the research that a half dozen PhDs in public health performed, but then provides his own summary of their research that is completely at odds with their results and experience. How is this helpful? If one were trying to troll a comment section to waste everyone's time, that's literally the best tactic since anything more obvious would be flagged or ignored.
    - Scientist007 12y ago
      Given that most published medical research findings are false, their scepticism is well founded. Your confidence, to the contrary, may be borne of ignorance. http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020124 http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj...
      - anigbrowl 12y ago
        It's not skepticism, it's rejectionism. Skepticism would have been to look up the paper and then argue that it's deficient in some manner - sample size too small, errors in the methodology, whatever it may be. I'm well aware that many, many published studies are scientifically deficient or overstated in some way, and have no problem with such deficiencies being pointed out. Asking 'did the researchers consider X' without bothering to even look at the paper is just posturing. It's on the same level as saying 'this looks shopped - I can tell by some of the pixels and from having seen quite a few shop jobs in my time.' It may be an attempt to signal hard-headedness and intellectual rigor, but absent any specific target for the criticism, it's worthless.
- danielki 12y ago
  Don't be a dick. I was asking a legitimate question because I was curious about the research methodology and, while the study linked in the article had a price tag of $22, the person I replied to seemed to have access to it. Thanks for finding the full text, I will read it when I get home from work (which is why I didn't have time to search for the full text).
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    I'm pretty sure the time I spent searching for it was less than the time it took you to write this comment. I did one Google search and it was the top result.
  - mkagenius 12y ago
    Off-topic: Pain in searching with ease, possibly a start up idea.

anigbrowl 12y ago

The Time article is actually a very dry summary of the study's key finding, written in colloquial but not sensational language. It also has a link to the study in the very first sentence. I found the full text very easily: http://www.chc.ucsf.edu/ame_lab/pdfs/Leung%20et%20al%202014a.pdf http://www.chc.ucsf.edu/ame_lab/pdfs/Leung%20et%20al%202014a... The poster above could easily have satisfied his/her own curiosity on this point. 'Did researchers control for [extremely obvious thing]?' is becoming like 'correlation is not causation' - a smart-sounding thing to say instead of going to the effort of engaging with the material. It only took me 2 minutes to track down the paper and find that the covariate factors are discussed in detail over a full page of the paper.

qu4z-2 12y ago
In fact, in this case it's more or less exactly like 'correlation is not causation'.
Arnor 12y ago
1. Some of us aren't subscribers to APHA or aren't interested in spending $22 on the article. 2. Why so confrontational? If you know the answer to the question, why not summarize it? Is the answer to the question so complicated that it would take more time and energy than the two paragraphs you composed in derision?
- mikeyouse 12y ago
  I can address #2; > If you know the answer to the question, why not summarize it? Is the answer to the question so complicated that it would take more time and energy than the two paragraphs you composed in derision? Every science article posted on HN gets the exact same treatment where well-intentioned but scientifically ignorant posters fill the comment section with drive-by posts saying "Correlation != Causation" or "Did they correct for [obvious variable]". It's exhausting and completely unproductive. If they would take 30 seconds and actually read the source information, they would answer their questions and the comment threads wouldn't devolve into this annoying meta conversation. Take the post that prompted this whole thing; > Did they describe how they controlled for behavioral habits? It seems like, as a group, the type of people who would drink large amounts of sugary soda would be less likely to make healthy behavioral choices in other aspects of their life, compared to people who drink fruit juice or diet soda. This could also explain the disparity between soda and non-carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages > This study doesn't seem to show that soda ages you (as the article states), but instead that sugary soda consumption indicates a tendency towards other activities/habits that may prematurely age you. So a poster, that later admits he didn't read the article, not only discounts the research that a half dozen PhDs in public health performed, but then provides his own summary of their research that is completely at odds with their results and experience. How is this helpful? If one were trying to troll a comment section to waste everyone's time, that's literally the best tactic since anything more obvious would be flagged or ignored.
  - Scientist007 12y ago
    Given that most published medical research findings are false, their scepticism is well founded. Your confidence, to the contrary, may be borne of ignorance. http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020124 http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj...
    - anigbrowl 12y ago
      It's not skepticism, it's rejectionism. Skepticism would have been to look up the paper and then argue that it's deficient in some manner - sample size too small, errors in the methodology, whatever it may be. I'm well aware that many, many published studies are scientifically deficient or overstated in some way, and have no problem with such deficiencies being pointed out. Asking 'did the researchers consider X' without bothering to even look at the paper is just posturing. It's on the same level as saying 'this looks shopped - I can tell by some of the pixels and from having seen quite a few shop jobs in my time.' It may be an attempt to signal hard-headedness and intellectual rigor, but absent any specific target for the criticism, it's worthless.
danielki 12y ago
Don't be a dick. I was asking a legitimate question because I was curious about the research methodology and, while the study linked in the article had a price tag of $22, the person I replied to seemed to have access to it. Thanks for finding the full text, I will read it when I get home from work (which is why I didn't have time to search for the full text).
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  I'm pretty sure the time I spent searching for it was less than the time it took you to write this comment. I did one Google search and it was the top result.
- mkagenius 12y ago
  Off-topic: Pain in searching with ease, possibly a start up idea.