
Why We Sleep: A Tale of Institutional Failure - selimthegrim
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/03/24/why-we-sleep-a-tale-of-institutional-failure/
======
whiddershins
It took me a long time to recognize and be able to articulate the seriously
detrimental effect of reading pop sci on my thinking.

“Knowing” incomplete, false, distorted, or misleading facts is often much
worse than having no information, or having never even considered a topic.

If I read fiction, it may imply some fundamental lens on the world, but I
think my brain is better able to recognize it as an opinion, or subjective.

But if I internalize the “truth” of dietary principles or basic psychology, I
will make real choices and have my perceptions shaped to believe I am seeing
the results of these choices ... and it is often completely wrong.

This can be subtly or devastatingly negative for my success and quality of
life.

I think this problem is under considered. In recent years I have started
realizing that most of what I read literally makes me dumber.

It’s a thought that has more implications than I think most people want to
consider. Especially people whose identity is connected to being someone who
“knows” things.

~~~
Ghjklov
Anyone else tired of learning and internalizing cool new concepts and then
those ideas you had come to adopt and believe in gets debunked/disproven soon
after? Might be better just to not believe anything so you don’t get betrayed
anymore lol

~~~
notechback
Thesis - antithesis - synthesis.

Question would be whether you are better off at the end. Did your journey
through these concepts help you improve your own understanding and action?

~~~
Ghjklov
For me, it feels like I've fallen face flat into a puddle of doubt. Yes,
believing in some particular idea and putting it to practice felt great at the
time, but _now_ the science has said it's bullshit and I'm wrong for believing
in it. If I choose to keep believing in it because it makes me feel good,
they're going to call me stupid and a science denier!

Half joking. I'd rather be stupid, get my sleep, and feel great. ;)

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knzhou
I'm tired of the endless posts over Why We Sleep. The book attempts to cover
hundreds of studies in an accessible way, and it largely succeeds. It's
certainly fluffy at times (as are all popular books, by necessity), but if you
didn't like its message, nitpicking at minor points doesn't refute the central
thesis, and pretending it does is below the standards of even internet flame
wars.

Like, this kind of exchange is exactly why academics try to avoid randos from
the internet. They tend to seize on one point, declare victory, and refuse to
change their minds. And when the academic doesn't grovel in compliance, they
declare academia to be a failure. As far as I'm concerned, UC Berkeley
responded perfectly.

~~~
martingoodson
Falsifying data is not being 'fluffy', it's academic misconduct. You might not
personally care about this but academic norms exist for a reason. Universities
are trusted institutions precisely because they follow these norms.

~~~
hackandtrip
But" Why We Sleep" is not intended for an academic context, right?

I mean, obviously it wouldn't pass a "peer-review" analysis, but that is
exactly what happens every time in science pop readings. Either we eliminate
every science reading that is not strictly papers, or we accept some
misinformation here and there.

~~~
naasking
The author apparently specifically states that the book is a scientific work.
The article and comments go into this point further.

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imgabe
The general message and key takeaway I got from the book was that sleep
affects your health in various ways and getting a sufficient amount of higher
quality sleep is better than not doing so.

Do any of these errors reverse that information? Is sleep actually harmful?
Should we in fact be loading up on caffeine and alcohol and sleeping 3 hours a
night? If not, then what's the point?

~~~
ramraj07
Did you need a full book to tell you that though? The fundamental problem with
pop sci books is that very often the most important facts (and probably the
only generally communicable facts) about the topic should not need more than a
few dense pages in a long-form article. But you can't sell an article for
twenty bucks so the professors who would love a million or two (do they make
that much?) Just expand it into drivel and cut corners to "simplify" the prose
and take creative license.

Even the greatest popsci book of all time, a brief history of time, is
famously a tome almost no one ever reads fully[1]. Every popsci book I've
taken up I can never finish because half of it would be repetitive BS and I'll
come out of it not taking anymore takeaway points than what was in the article
in Forbes promoting the book. The motivations for publishing popular science
books by professors are probably to blame here, on top of the fundamental
research ethics problems that plague academia nowadays.

1\. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-
mix/wp/2018/03/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-
mix/wp/2018/03/14/what-made-hawkings-a-brief-history-of-time-so-immensely-
popular/)

~~~
kd5bjo
> Did you need a full book to tell you that though?

Yes, actually. The point of writing an entire book is to present enough
evidence for the reader to come to the author’s conclusion on their own.

The important part of reading a book, the part that has a chance of altering
your behavior in the future, is spending time considering the subject matter
from various different angles. That’s what gives you the ability to recognize
similarities between situations described in the book and situations that
appear in your life. This ability to see the things that happen to you in a
new light is the real value these books provide.

~~~
sho
> The point of writing an entire book is to present enough evidence for the
> reader to come to the author’s conclusion on their own.

What a great quote. I'll be stealing that thanks.

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strstr
Wait, why is this trimming controversial? The original paper is a little
mediocre (would be down for generic criticism of relying on it), but this
trimming seems to match the main drive of it.

Just read the paper, and the association is pretty clear there: fewer hours of
sleep means more injuries. P = ~0.006 rr=.8 per hour of additional sleep.
That’s not a huge effect size, but I find that pretty believable from my lived
experience. Lol, yes, p values, but does anyone think less sleep makes them
more coordinated? I don’t allow myself to drive long distances on less than 6h
sleep based on my prior experience having tried.

For a lay audience explaining the data for the left most point would be hard.
Why is 5h of sleep less injurious than 6h? Could be random chance (only 160
students in the study). Could be that those players are worse (coach pulls
sleepy kid off the field).

I doubt the most uncharitable interpretation of Walker’s trimming is correct
(people who sleep 5h/night are better at sports and less likely to be
injured).

This particular criticism rings hollow to me.

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6gvONxR4sf7o
As a data scientist, I feel like I have to deal with this shit at work all the
time. The data matters and "we're data driven" unless the data disagrees with
whomever you're talking to. If someone slices data in a shitty way, then
you're being too pedantic when you point it out that they're implicitly making
bad assumptions.

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catalogia
Alexey Guzey's post is probably worth reading first:
[https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/](https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/)

------
Gatsky
I wrote the comment below over a year ago, about how these popsci books are
very unreliable sources of knowledge because of the perverse incentive
structure (eg would this book have been written if the conclusion was 'we
don't know how important sleep is, but it seems generally pretty important
although this is difficult to prove and largely obvious'). It was downvoted
pretty heavily.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18244061](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18244061)

I mean, none of this is surprising.

~~~
Qwertious
I think your comment was down voted because it was a poor comment that didn't
properly communicate your reasoning.

Specifically, note that your description of the comment is longer and contains
more detail/clarification than the actual comment it describes!

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ChaseT
My favorite quote from the article; "start off your book with a statement such
as, 'None of the data in this book matters.' "

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rv-de
I'm intrigued by the subject due to life long sleep issues. Mostly caused by
bad habits. I enjoyed about 50% of the book and overall I appreciated that it
got me some food for thought and back to working on my sleep quality. But
other than that I had to say the book is really thin on material relative to
its size. And the way the guy delved into subtopics like drugs and lucid
dreaming left me quite skeptical about how deep he is into the field at all.
That book could have been written by a student of medicine. There was nothing
conveying any deeper understanding, interest or insight into sleep - no
intuition.

------
Jedd
The protagonist's take on UBI is an interesting read in the context of under-
evidenced speculation:

[https://guzey.com/economics/against-universal-basic-
income/](https://guzey.com/economics/against-universal-basic-income/)

~~~
benibela
That does not address one of the main points of UBI: eliminating the welfare
cliff

Like someone is on welfare and the welfare includes free health care
insurance. Then they get a job, they do not get welfare anymore, but then they
need to pay for insurance, so with the job they have less money than before.

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Paul-ish
If this is the strongest criticism someone who I know is knowledgeable and
intelligent can muster, it gives me more confidence in the conclusions of the
book.

