5 ms·

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

by 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.
    - Scientist007 12y ago
      If most published research findings are false, isn't it rational to reject all findings?
  - mikeyouse 12y ago
    > Given that most published medical research findings are false, their scepticism is well founded. Ugh. Another blanket statement that in no way reflects the actual paper in question. From your own source he recommends larger studies, cross-team work clear pre-trial hypotheses, and study-registration. Guess what? This n=5,300 study was performed by researchers at UCSF, Stanford, Berkeley, and Michigan, they published their intention to run the study prior to running it with a hypothesis that was partially proved wrong (they expected shortened telomeres with noncarbonated SSBs as well as with sugary soda). What exactly is your issue with this study? Or do you just reject science in general.
    - Scientist007 12y ago
      Guess what? Given that all observational studies are essentially exercises in variable adjustment and little else, it seems reasonable to exercise extreme scepticism. Some people you just can't reach, I guess. Believe what you will.
    - 12y ago
- gwern 12y ago
  > It's exhausting and completely unproductive. And completely accurate. You know what's more exhausting than seeing someone point out that correlation!=causation? Being whiplashed by a dozen different studies, or correlation after correlation failing when subjected to a randomized test. In this case, all you have to do is look at how they tried to defend against the universal healthy user bias (you know, the same thing that led to such epic fails as hormone therapy?), and see that all they did was adjust for weight and some self-reports. Bzzt. On top of that, note the anomalies: > Only the sugary, bubbly stuff showed this effect. Epel didn’t see any association between telomere length and diet soda intake. “The extremely high dose of sugar that we can put into our body within seconds by drinking sugared beverages is uniquely toxic to metabolism,” she says. She also didn’t see a significant link between non-carbonated sugary beverages, like fruit juice, which Epel says surprised her. You know what sugar-juice and diet soda have in common? People think they're healthier than regular soda.
  - mikeyouse 12y ago
    > In this case, all you have to do is look at how they tried to defend against the universal healthy user bias (you know, the same thing that led to such epic fails as hormone therapy?), and see that all they did was adjust for weight and some self-reports. Bzzt. They actually adjusted for age, smoking (never, former, current), pack-years of smoking, energy intake using the USDA's HEI, alcohol intake, physical activity (some/none), BMI, and waist circumference. They also didn't include anyone with prexisiting cardiovascular conditions or diabetes. Their results confirmed earlier studies very strongly -- race, 'never' smokers, younger age, and healthy weight all corresponded to longer telomeres (P < .001), and their results showed significance with sugary sodas. > You know what sugar-juice and diet soda have in common? People think they're healthier than regular soda. I'm not sure what you're trying to imply with this one though. Just read page 5 of the actual study. This is good science and generic insults are just noise when everything is actually addressed: 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...
    - arielby 12y ago
      These adjustments look so impressive... not.
- iribe 12y ago
  > 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. Welcome to the internet!
anigbrowl 12y ago
1. Neither am I. I used Google to find a copy on the author's academic website which took all of 20 seconds. You can find full-text versions of most scientific papers by searching on the journal article title and appending 'filetype:pdf'. 2. Yes, the answer to the question is complicated. As I mentioned, it occupies a full page of the study. I could have summarized this in a few words, but the authors had already done that in the abstract and the poster didn't consider that good enough.
- Arnor 12y ago
  You've made some really good points. I guess I read the parent post a bit differently. I was looking through for a summary of how the lifestyle difference between soda drinkers and fruit juice drinkers had been handled. When I saw that post, I thought woowee, here's the thread where the answer will come in. A brief synthesis of the page you mentioned would have really helped me determine the credibility of the article. I can, however, understand the frustration with the statement of "this is more likely [some other reason] than the experts' conclusion." More reasonable is "If you've read the full article, how did experts deal with [this other reason]?" If the answer is complicated and occupies a full page, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for the cliff notes.

by Arnor 12y ago

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.
  - Scientist007 12y ago
    If most published research findings are false, isn't it rational to reject all findings?
- mikeyouse 12y ago
  > Given that most published medical research findings are false, their scepticism is well founded. Ugh. Another blanket statement that in no way reflects the actual paper in question. From your own source he recommends larger studies, cross-team work clear pre-trial hypotheses, and study-registration. Guess what? This n=5,300 study was performed by researchers at UCSF, Stanford, Berkeley, and Michigan, they published their intention to run the study prior to running it with a hypothesis that was partially proved wrong (they expected shortened telomeres with noncarbonated SSBs as well as with sugary soda). What exactly is your issue with this study? Or do you just reject science in general.
  - Scientist007 12y ago
    Guess what? Given that all observational studies are essentially exercises in variable adjustment and little else, it seems reasonable to exercise extreme scepticism. Some people you just can't reach, I guess. Believe what you will.
  - 12y ago
gwern 12y ago
> It's exhausting and completely unproductive. And completely accurate. You know what's more exhausting than seeing someone point out that correlation!=causation? Being whiplashed by a dozen different studies, or correlation after correlation failing when subjected to a randomized test. In this case, all you have to do is look at how they tried to defend against the universal healthy user bias (you know, the same thing that led to such epic fails as hormone therapy?), and see that all they did was adjust for weight and some self-reports. Bzzt. On top of that, note the anomalies: > Only the sugary, bubbly stuff showed this effect. Epel didn’t see any association between telomere length and diet soda intake. “The extremely high dose of sugar that we can put into our body within seconds by drinking sugared beverages is uniquely toxic to metabolism,” she says. She also didn’t see a significant link between non-carbonated sugary beverages, like fruit juice, which Epel says surprised her. You know what sugar-juice and diet soda have in common? People think they're healthier than regular soda.
- mikeyouse 12y ago
  > In this case, all you have to do is look at how they tried to defend against the universal healthy user bias (you know, the same thing that led to such epic fails as hormone therapy?), and see that all they did was adjust for weight and some self-reports. Bzzt. They actually adjusted for age, smoking (never, former, current), pack-years of smoking, energy intake using the USDA's HEI, alcohol intake, physical activity (some/none), BMI, and waist circumference. They also didn't include anyone with prexisiting cardiovascular conditions or diabetes. Their results confirmed earlier studies very strongly -- race, 'never' smokers, younger age, and healthy weight all corresponded to longer telomeres (P < .001), and their results showed significance with sugary sodas. > You know what sugar-juice and diet soda have in common? People think they're healthier than regular soda. I'm not sure what you're trying to imply with this one though. Just read page 5 of the actual study. This is good science and generic insults are just noise when everything is actually addressed: 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...
  - arielby 12y ago
    These adjustments look so impressive... not.
iribe 12y ago
> 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. Welcome to the internet!

anigbrowl 12y ago

1. Neither am I. I used Google to find a copy on the author's academic website which took all of 20 seconds. You can find full-text versions of most scientific papers by searching on the journal article title and appending 'filetype:pdf'. 2. Yes, the answer to the question is complicated. As I mentioned, it occupies a full page of the study. I could have summarized this in a few words, but the authors had already done that in the abstract and the poster didn't consider that good enough.

Arnor 12y ago
You've made some really good points. I guess I read the parent post a bit differently. I was looking through for a summary of how the lifestyle difference between soda drinkers and fruit juice drinkers had been handled. When I saw that post, I thought woowee, here's the thread where the answer will come in. A brief synthesis of the page you mentioned would have really helped me determine the credibility of the article. I can, however, understand the frustration with the statement of "this is more likely [some other reason] than the experts' conclusion." More reasonable is "If you've read the full article, how did experts deal with [this other reason]?" If the answer is complicated and occupies a full page, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for the cliff notes.