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Scientists Criticize Study on Genetics of Old Age (nytimes.com)
2 points by tokenadult on July 10, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments



"And science journalists, competing for space with political and sports news, welcome astounding claims without always kicking the tires as hard as necessary. These factors sometimes combine to give substantial publicity to scientific claims that may not fully deserve such attention."

That's an important point, and of course is why I am so fond of linking to Peter Norvig's webpage on evaluating scientific research

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

when we see links to news stories about science discoveries here on HN.


groan

We're going to see more and more of this. Many scientists are getting further and further away from the nitty gritty technicalities of their fields, and it's starting to bite them.

Can't help feeling sorry for them though. It sucks to be bitten by a calibration error. And the referees should have picked that one up.





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