
How a Controversial Study About Kids and Cookies Turned Out to Be Wrong, Again - danso
https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemlee/who-really-ate-the-apples-though
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danso
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15351006](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15351006)

Cornell professor Brian Wansink professor has been under fire the past year
for publishing studies with egregious statistical errors. So far he and
Cornell have weathered the storm by saying that the errors were a result of
human error and differences of opinion in statistical judgment.

But the revelation here -- that Wansink knowingly promoted a study as
involving elementary school children, when it involved preschoolers -- seems
to indicate that Wansink and his colleagues conspired to publish an outright
lie. Wansink isn't admitting to such malice, but he has agreed that the study
should be retracted, not just updated with a "corrected" analysis.

The age group difference is enough to completely invalidate the study, which
purports to show how grade school children would be more likely to chose
healthy food if the healthy food "had a sticker of Elmo", a tactic that seems
would have different effect on an 8-year-old versus a 3-year-old.

But there's an additional element of nefariousness in that this study became
the evidence for a $22 million federal program about school evidence. It would
not be federally-funded evidence if it had been known that the study did not
involve K-6 schools.

Certainly, prestigious studies have been published with egregious accidental
errors. And some studies have been published using fake/copied data, or
dishonest analysis, with the blame being assigned to rogue researchers. But
this kind of "mistake" would seemingly have to involve not just its TED-famous
leader, but his students and his collaborators.

