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Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

nature.com

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Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#221

Post by kbutler »

fhood wrote: post #196
calinet6 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really interesting. Clearly they're trying to control for sensitive variables that make little sense even to them, and yet they're still using rodents as subjects and publishing studies likely without mention of these oddities. Not saying everyone is doing it wrong, but wow.

You have to allow for some level of pragmatism. They found a method that seems to provide better data without actively biasing their results. Rodents make convenient test subjects, and no scientist wants (or more likely it doesn't even occur to them) to include an unproven methodology in their published work.

Are they publishing "make sure only [female name] handles the mice"?

Or do they just publish, "X caused effect Y"?

Frankly, identifying why it requires a female, or female non-cat owner sounds like it may be more interesting than whatever other result they are working on...

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#222

Post by oihssovhusvoh »

kbutler wrote: post #169
oihssovhusvoh wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the cartoon depicts an incompetent woman scientist being talked-down to by an arrogant dick! It has the form: woman: " science says X" man : " actually the truth is Y" The jerk also talks-down to us the audience. It's terrible science-education and it's not "humor"

Would it be any better if the genders of the actors were reversed? "mansplain" is a gender-biased criticism of behavior. It implies that the gender of the participants is the problem, rather than the attitudes or behavior. But apparently the mice in the study react to the gender, so maybe it's germane...

everyone know's it's men who do it so don't pretend it's a reversible situation

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#223

Post by felipemnoa »

jodoherty wrote: post #183
felipemnoa wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Accuracy or precision Do they have different meaning to you? They are the same thing unless there is some scientific meaning that makes them different of which I'm not aware. i.e. Theory in Science means a different thing than what it means to a layman person.

Precision is how fine a measurement is (i.e. being able to measure temperature to thousandths of degrees versus tenths), whereas accuracy is a measure of how closely your results much the objective truth. So you may have a very precise thermometer that measures to thousandths of degrees but it may not be accurate because it's calibrated such that it always reads exactly two degrees higher than it should. Meanwhile a…

I get it, these are specific definitions within a given field. I looked at the definition of both precision [1] and accurate [2] and each would use the other as a synonym, which made it a bit confusing as to what he was talking about.

[1] pre·ci·sion: noun the quality, condition, or fact of being exact and accurate.

[2]ac·cu·rate (of information, measurements, statistics, etc.) correct in all details; exact. "accurate information about the illness is essential" synonyms: correct, precise, exact, right, error-free, perfect; More

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#225

Post by timthelion »

ensignavenger wrote: post #204
timthelion wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that peer review is a very good metric in this case. Those peers could lose their jobs if rodent research is proven to be unscientific. Requiring research on the scientific merits of rodent research to be peer reviewed is like asking the plumber's union to write the building code. In many American municipalities, the code really is written by the plumbers, and the plumbers write in that water pipes must…

"copper cannot be installed by a non-professional" Who says? I get your over all point, but I disagree that only "professionals" can install copper pipes. It really isn't that difficult.

Well, it is certainly a lot harder to do than plastic, and of course, pex is like k-nex compared to welded copper.

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#226

Post by nkurz »

Taniwha wrote: post #3

Before anyone who didn't actually read the link goes off at it - this is a peer reviewed, repeated study - mice react to drugs differently depending on the sex of the researcher, don't in a fume hood, do always in a fume hood with a human male's t-shirt. It potentially plays havoc with ALL past experiments with rodents ...

While I think that you meant your comment to be taken at face value (ie, "disbelief is not an option") you should realize that from a different starting point it also fits well as a scathing attack on the state of modern science.

Before anyone who didn't actually read the link goes off at it - this is a peer reviewed, repeated study - mice react to drugs differently depending on the sex of the researcher

Absolutely. The statistics are text-book standard, and the research is peer-reviewed and published in a major journal, so as Kahneman said about the now discredited priming studies, "You have no choice but to accept that the major conclusions of these studies are true."[1]

It potentially plays havoc with ALL past experiments with rodents

And possibly not just rodent experiments! We may even want to re-evaluate the weight we put on statistical claims across a broad range of fields. I think Gelman covers it well in his article "I disagree with Alan Turing and Daniel Kahneman regarding the strength of statistical evidence": http://andrewgelman.com/2014/09/03/disagree-alan-turing-dani...

[1] To Kahneman's credit, in perhaps the most genuine mea culpa I've ever read, he later confessed that he had "placed too much faith in underpowered studies": https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2017/02/02/reconstruc...

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#227

Post by kbutler »

oihssovhusvoh wrote: post #222
kbutler wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be any better if the genders of the actors were reversed? "mansplain" is a gender-biased criticism of behavior. It implies that the gender of the participants is the problem, rather than the attitudes or behavior. But apparently the mice in the study react to the gender, so maybe it's germane...

everyone know's it's men who do it so don't pretend it's a reversible situation

Sorry, I mistook you for someone attempting to add value to the conversation.

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#228

Post by ygaf »

msla wrote: post #214
sctb wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of you: please stop this now.

Would you please un-kill this comment? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15753759

(sctb's request acknowledged, replying to a separate poster)

Why vouch for a post demonstrating such creepiness? And making a strange ad-hom. Nothing worth resurrecting as a HN post. I'm not even one who had flagged it.

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#229

Post by ygaf »

DonHopkins wrote: post #165
ygaf wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>pretending you don't know the word "trap" I'm not pretending to not know the word; it made sense on sight to me as "someone who fools you". Easiest term around. And that is clearly a concept of its own not a synonym for transsexuals , hence my confusion when a poster gets flagged for an affront to them. You have actually been helpful now though, despite thinking you're slamdunking me. Passing is a bad word now too?…

Next you're going explain to me that you're not a "homophobe" because you're not literally "afraid" of homosexuals, you just hate them without fearing them. That's not the way language works, and I've heard all of your arguments before. You have nothing to contribute to the conversation.

(non-combative post)

Traps were originally a feature of 4chan; something you had to look out for. I'm sure the word existed in real life too, but 4chan is how most people find it. If anything, traps existed before trans-words entered people's vocab.

There was hostility but no intended snark when I say "I'm getting the idea; transsexuals are their own sex", I was trying to rationalize why even 'passing' was unacceptable, but at a stretch I can see that passing is part of the same theme of fooling and deceiving. So trans men do strive to be women.

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#230

Post by Simon_says »

agumonkey wrote: post #156
Simon_says wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought some live lobsters to kill (humanely, with a knife to the brain) and steam. I only had him in my custody for a couple hours, but I got attached. I had a bad experience thinking about taking a life, and it kinda fucked me up. I don't think I'll be doing it again. If I had to kill everything I ate, I'd be vegetarian. But I have no problem buying it at the store.

I think it's hard to kill when you have comfort. If I was alone in a forest I wouldn't think long (your brain wouldn't mind a bit). The saddest part of the desensitization to killing is the waste. You wouldn't waste much if you had to kill it too. You'd know the value.

I agree. If I were in a wilderness survival situation, and I were actually /able/ to hunt an animal, I'm certain I'd do it.
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