"Data mining" strikes again. Find a meaningless correlation, one having nothing to do with anything, then publish it, along with a bogus explanation that pretends the random, chance correlation represents a cause-effect relationship.
The article pays lip service to the very high probability that the correlation means precisely nothing, but this has no effect on the impression the article creates by its very existence.
In the Forbes account of this same study (http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryhusten/2012/10/10/chocolate...), the first line of the article -- "You don’t have to be a genius to like chocolate, but geniuses are more likely to eat lots of chocolate" -- is not at all supported by the study itself, which measures the chocolate-eating behavior of nations, not individuals.
This is another example of irresponsible, sensationalist science journalism. The irony is that the study's presumably scientifically trained author (Franz Messerli of Columbia University), seems dead serious.
> i sort of like anecdotes of actual Nobel Prize laureates.
Yes, me too, especially the scientist who expressed a rationale for dark chocolate, then hastily retracted the viewpoint after realizing he might be taken seriously.
The article pays lip service to the very high probability that the correlation means precisely nothing, but this has no effect on the impression the article creates by its very existence.
In the Forbes account of this same study (http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryhusten/2012/10/10/chocolate...), the first line of the article -- "You don’t have to be a genius to like chocolate, but geniuses are more likely to eat lots of chocolate" -- is not at all supported by the study itself, which measures the chocolate-eating behavior of nations, not individuals.
This is another example of irresponsible, sensationalist science journalism. The irony is that the study's presumably scientifically trained author (Franz Messerli of Columbia University), seems dead serious.