and 25 people is a small enough group that you can do just a few surveys, then pick the group that gives the results you wanted, all without spending very much money.
> It is also inconceivable that a University group like this would do that—If they did they would all be in serious trouble.
What? It is trivially easy to find awful research from universities.
I've been involved (as a lay member of a research review panel) with university students who want to do clinical research. They come to the RRP with a proposal, and we walk through it and point out where they might have problems. It is amazing how many groups ignore things like small sample sizes or double blinding or control groups etc. Those are all basics that any student should have been aware of. And then there are the more subtle things like anonymising data or getting proper consent.
I agree that there are many pieces of bad research—this may well be one of them. Without seeing their full methodology its difficult to judge. There are many ways a piece of research can be flawed.
I disagree that a team of researchers from a University of this standing that is composed like this would run study multiple times and cherry pick the dataset with the result they desire and if they did they certainly would be risking serious professional (if not criminal) damage.
The researchers are:
Markku Timonen1 M.D. Ph.D, Juuso Nissilä1, MSc.,
Heidi Jurvelin1, MSc., Anu Liettu M.D.,
Jari Jokelainen1, M.Sc., Antti Aunio MSc. ,
Pirkko Räsänen3, M.D. Ph.D., Timo Takala M.D. Ph.D.
That's a lot of doctors and doctorates, its not a bunch of inexperienced students.
You're right. These are all people who should know how to conduct a sensible study. I haven't seen it, so I don't know if it's good or poor or complete rubbish.
It's also trivially easy to find doctors who are idiots and wingnuts who believe obvious nonsense.
