Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Remember when a glass of wine a day was good for you?

popsci.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 159 posts

Re: Remember when a glass of wine a day was good for you?

#51

Post by TangoTrotFox »

_null_ wrote: post #8

I have been reading for years about the numbers of studies being done (especially in the public health field) that can be whittled down to correlation without any strongly proven causality. Is this an issue with science, or with how the media reports on science? Is it really as bad as it seems? I understand that it's difficult to control for various factors when doing large scale studies of health and behavior, but m…

I think it's little more than a sharp increase in bias. The physiological sciences are heavily driven by moneyed interests and the social sciences tend to be full of people who are extremely politically motivated, and homogeneous, in their 'research.' Bias is always bad, but at least when it's counter-balanced with bias in the opposite direction both sides can help bring each other closer towards the truth by remaining extremely critical of one another. But bias without any counter balance is particularly dangerous as it leads to a feedback resulting in even greater extremism and bias: social media in a nutshell, but it's not limited to just social media of course.

Compare science that's goal is to find a truth to science that's goal is to prove an assumed truth, and you'll see the standard of research sharply decline.

There are some systemic issues in play for sure. Publish or perish means researchers need to put out new publishable work, or find a new career. And that in turn also introduces a publication bias. Spend 5 months researching a hypothesis only to find that it's wrong? Well that's pretty much 5 months wasted because journals are not so fond of publishing negative results. Massage the numbers a bit to get that positive result though, and you're good to go. Pretty nasty incentive systems there. And now add into the fact far more people than ever before are pursuing postgraduate education. It's a mess.

Re: Remember when a glass of wine a day was good for you?

#52

Post by mindfulplay »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #41
mindfulplay wrote: post #37

Why is it that hard to do actual research? Like science? Observe what alcohol does to the body and identify risks. I know this is hard. Lazy survey door to door salespeople posing as scientists dominate this field unfortunately. This is not science. This is guesswork. And this causes serious problems to people who trust this crap. Throw away your shitty biased studies and start doing actual science. It took Newton a…

Because there isn’t sufficient funding to pay for non biased scientists who have the understanding of statistics and probability to perform the correct experiments and analysis. And there isn’t sufficient funding for the types of large scale control groups needed for studying health effects on a complex organism such as humans, especially when mechanisms of actions can’t directly be observed.

Economics should not play a role in science. I agree it is hard.

But this isnt a choice between hard science and shitty survey based science.

I am saying this is a choice between hard science and NOTHING. Do nothing. Don't do lazy work. That's my point.

Re: Remember when a glass of wine a day was good for you?

#53

Post by _null_ »

joshgel wrote: post #39
_null_ wrote: post #8

I have been reading for years about the numbers of studies being done (especially in the public health field) that can be whittled down to correlation without any strongly proven causality. Is this an issue with science, or with how the media reports on science? Is it really as bad as it seems? I understand that it's difficult to control for various factors when doing large scale studies of health and behavior, but m…

> I understand that it's difficult to control for various factors when doing large scale studies of health and behavior, but my perception as a layman is that there is some willful ignorance or absence of rigor. I perhaps understand the sentiment behind this, but if this is really what you think then probably you don't really 'understand' how difficult it is to do large scale studies of health and behavior. As a thou…

I guess what I mean is that the results of these types of studies are useful, but only in pointing where to look for a more direct mechanism. In other words, we found a correlation, now we can look more closely at the elements involved to find causality. Mostly it seems like the correlation is accepted and then untested theory is exposed as fact to explain it.

Re: Remember when a glass of wine a day was good for you?

#54

Post by PurpleBoxDragon »

thrmsforbfast wrote: post #30
PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>correlation without any strongly proven causality How would one really prove causality or does it even matter. When I think of science, I try to think of it like how I think of physics, where we create a model that best describes the evidence but which doesn't have any guarantee of being how things really work. Take Newtonian gravity. It is a pretty good model that describes a lot of basic interactions. Given a stat…

> So, is it really important to describe why a ball falls to the ground when I release it, or is it good enough to have a system that describes the interactions enough that I can apply it to problems?... does it really matter if I think the ball falls back to earth because mass attracts mass or because mass bends spacetime? I think you answer this question in your own post. The answer depends entirely on your goals.…

>what are you goals?

I'm personally a fan of the 'make a better model to have a better model and let someone else figure out the application' model, but that one is harder to get funding for.

Re: Remember when a glass of wine a day was good for you?

#55

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

nadont8 wrote: post #10

Cache link: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:73LY6v... (I am shown a consent dialog that does not work.)

For me it works only after enabling JS and disabling adblocking, but the contents is appalling:

> To continue enjoying the free content made available to you on this website, you must indicate that you understand and accept Bonnier Corp.’s use of cookies by selecting the "Allow all cookies" button below.

Re: Remember when a glass of wine a day was good for you?

#56

Post by carbocation »

sjbase wrote: post #44
carbocation wrote: post #7

1. The best evidence that there is no safe amount of alcohol consumption is the Mendelian randomization (MR) by Holmes et al from 2014 [1]. I believe that the more recent paper making such claims is no better than the usual observational studies. But the MR paper is convincing to me. The risks for mild drinking appear to be low enough that I don't abstain, and I am happy to tell my patients about my thought process.…

Edit: disregard, seeing the updated link you posted. ---- If I'm reading correctly, that 2015 MR paper establishes that LDL and triglycerides play a role in heart disease by filtering populations used in prior studies for genetic blood lipid factors. But it doesn't make any claims about alcohol. Is there already a well established link between alcohol and LDL / triglycerides? My impression is that the relationship be…

Yes, this is my fault. Sorry about that. Thanks to 'beefman for catching the wrong link, as well.

Re: Remember when a glass of wine a day was good for you?

#57

Post by TangoTrotFox »

joshgel wrote: post #39
_null_ wrote: post #8

I have been reading for years about the numbers of studies being done (especially in the public health field) that can be whittled down to correlation without any strongly proven causality. Is this an issue with science, or with how the media reports on science? Is it really as bad as it seems? I understand that it's difficult to control for various factors when doing large scale studies of health and behavior, but m…

> I understand that it's difficult to control for various factors when doing large scale studies of health and behavior, but my perception as a layman is that there is some willful ignorance or absence of rigor. I perhaps understand the sentiment behind this, but if this is really what you think then probably you don't really 'understand' how difficult it is to do large scale studies of health and behavior. As a thou…

The 'answer' may be here that it's simply best to acknowledge that we cannot realistically study some, and arguably many, things. I expect your response would be that at least trying to do the best with the resources we have is better than remaining blissfully ignorant. But the problem is that coming to wrong conclusions far more dangerous than simply acknowledging we do not yet have the resources to come to any conclusion. And science is built upon the shoulder of giants. But what happens when the shoulders you've built upon collapse? One mistake decades ago can end up destroying decades of further work that was built upon it.

Science is never 100% on practically anything. Even in physics there are keystone works that are mutually incompatible indicating errors in one or both. But there is a difference between models that are based on predictiveness, direct experimentation, and falsifiability - and models that are based on correlation. Newtonian mechanics is a good example. The equations that determine a body's position given a set of inputs and time could be shown to be 100% correct in every single scenario. Well at least until Mercury came along with it's 1/100degree per century orbital aberration. And that 1/100th aberration per century of a single body was enough to inform that something was wrong. With correlational studies, actual results don't really matter and entire views become practically impossible to falsify. And when they do provide predictions, rarely is it the case that the failure of that prediction to come true would falsify the study. That's just not science by any stretch of the imagination. It is the difference between astronomy and astrology.

Re: Remember when a glass of wine a day was good for you?

#58

Post by gweinberg »

everdev wrote: post #13
_null_ wrote: post #8

I have been reading for years about the numbers of studies being done (especially in the public health field) that can be whittled down to correlation without any strongly proven causality. Is this an issue with science, or with how the media reports on science? Is it really as bad as it seems? I understand that it's difficult to control for various factors when doing large scale studies of health and behavior, but m…

I think it's an issue with studies funded by someone that has an interest in a certain result, and also a media that is happy to publish a story that is nearly written for them.

Judea Pearl literally wrote the book on causality.

Re: Remember when a glass of wine a day was good for you?

#59

Post by PurpleBoxDragon »

bostonpete wrote: post #29
PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>correlation without any strongly proven causality How would one really prove causality or does it even matter. When I think of science, I try to think of it like how I think of physics, where we create a model that best describes the evidence but which doesn't have any guarantee of being how things really work. Take Newtonian gravity. It is a pretty good model that describes a lot of basic interactions. Given a stat…

There's a big difference between knowing that A causes B and knowing how A causes B. For most purposes relating to health it's sufficient for a layperson to know just that A does cause B, no matter how. But if A is just correlated with B and doesn't cause it, that makes a world of difference.

But you can never really know if A causes B or not. You can only create models, some that have A causing B and others than only have them correlated, and get rid of models as you find contradicting data.

What actually causes a ball to drop to the ground when I release it? We don't know. The best model (that I know of) is the bending of space time, but that isn't the real answer and may one day be overturned just as the older idea of mass attracts mass.

I guess the question is, are we sure enough of our model to be able to trust the airplane isn't going to drop to the ground like the ball does, and how do we achieve equivalent certainty in the biological sciences.

Re: Remember when a glass of wine a day was good for you?

#60

Post by KozmoNau7 »

another-cuppa wrote: post #47

Obviously I can't say anything about my own longevity, but over the past few years my alcohol consumption has decreased to virtually zero and I've never felt better. I was never a big drinker, but I would semi-regularly go out and drink a few pints of beer or have wine with dinner. I never intended to cut down on alcohol, but my lifestyle changed, I stopped going out so much, and the drinking went with it. I would st…

If that was the extent of your drinking, I doubt that was the major factor in your improved health. I would look to the things you consumed while drinking, such as rich full-fat restaurant food in big portions, salty carb-heavy fatty snacks and second-hand smoke.

Cutting out alcohol completely is certainly not a bad thing health-wise, but I think it was much more significant that you stopped going out so much.

Post reply on HN