

For Scientists, a Beer Test Shows Results as a Litmus Test - sanj
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/science/18beer.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

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brent
I'm not a statistician, but if I read the paper correctly ... there is barely
a negative correlation in his 2006 study (if you remove the one significant
anamoly). n=18 in his 2002 study and n=16 in 2006. He controlled for age and
years of active publishing which may be correlated to consumption. In fact, he
conveniently removed the 1st principal component in the 2002 study and not in
the 2006 and covered it by an offhand remark of "almost quantitatively
identical". If they were almost quantitatively identical why did he remove it
from one study and not the other. Oh! Well, earlier in the paper he mentions
that the results were only consistant between the two studies when he
controlled for age. The median consumption of the 6 bohemians in his 2002
study is 200 litres/per year(!!!) and the remaining 12 Moravians drink 37.5
litres/per year (which is quite the bimodal distribution). The 2006 study were
the same people as in 2002 "where available". So n=16 for the entire study.
They are all researchers in "avian evolutionary biology and behavioural
ecology" in the country with the highest per capita beer consumption rate in
the world. Hardly a meaningful dataset in my eyes. Then again, maybe I'm
biased in my analysis. Beer drinkers unite!

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crayz
_So, it documents a correlation without explaining it, so maybe there is no
correlation. You cann't take two facts and say there is a correlation, may be
it simply a coincidence._

Huh? Did you read past the headline? Listen:

 _The results were not, however, a matter of a few scientists having had too
many brews to be able to stumble back to the lab. Publication did not simply
drop off among the heaviest drinkers. Instead, scientific performance steadily
declined with increasing beer consumption across the board, from scientists
who primly sip at two or three beers over a year to the sort who average
knocking back more than two a day._

That's not "two facts" - it's a direct correlation between two variables. One
may not __cause __the other, but it certainly doesn't appear to be a complete
coincidence

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amohr
And that's why I got out of physics!

As far as the correlation goes - There's a clear correlation there, though it
doesn't seem like they're trying to propose a causality. Though they kind of
bill it as a causality at the beginning of the article, I don't think the
actual study is suggesting that drinking more or less beer will directly
affect how often you're published.

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edu
The most interesint paragaph is at the end:

"More important, as Dr. Grim pointed out, the study documents a correlation
between beer drinking and scientific performance without explaining any
correlation."

So, it documents a correlation without explaining it, so maybe there is no
correlation. You cann't take two facts and say there is a correlation, may be
it simply a coincidence. Maybe the difference is not the beer but the time
spent in bars. Maybe the scientists that get less papers publisheds are
depressed and go to drink beer to forget their bad performance.

How can people publish a fallacy like that and be so happy?

~~~
mwerty
>How can people publish a fallacy like that and be so happy?

Beer.

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sanj
This seems apropos in light of demo day:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=140628>

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thorax
I'm skeptical, but as a non-drinker, I can't say I'd be sad if avoiding drinks
has some upside.

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DanielBMarkham
Interesting that it was a quantity measurement, not a quality measurement
(which would be very hard to do, I imagine) Seems obvious that if you're out
drinking beer you're not writing :)

