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'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

thetimes.co.uk

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Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#121

Post by WalterBright »

pca006132 wrote: post #100
jefftk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all the programmers who write tests go into industry and none of them go into academia, then the state of software in academia will be... oh, I see, the status quo.

No, they do write tests, just 1. Include the ones that passed and discard those that failed. 2. Run the tests several times and report only the best result. 3. Keep some of the details secret (data, some weird parameters, or maybe the whole repository), tweak something, run again, get some nice figures and publish a new paper.

Caltech has Millikan's (oil drop experiment demonstrating quantization of charge) notebooks. He repeated the experiment until the data fit his theory.

Fortunately, he turned out to be right.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#122

Post by WalterBright »

mumblemumble wrote: post #20
pvaldes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what needs to change in the education process so studies are better designed Remove politics, free kidnapped and gagged science.

Politics and education are certainly factors, but I would argue that they are minor. The bigger issue is the natural incentive structures that academia has created. If you want to have a career, you get both attention and funding in return for headline-grabbing results. This creates two huge second-order effects: first, everyone's incentivized to look for big impressive new effects. Second, focusing on confirmatory w…

> Politics and education are certainly factors, but I would argue that they are minor

Are they? If your proposed project does not align with current politics, no funding for you.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#123

Post by librish »

crims0n wrote: post #16
narrator wrote: post #7

I think any study that says eating meat is unhealthy has to have a much higher standard of proof because there is so much money floating around from environmental and animal rights activists to fund any scientist who is willing to make that case.

I agree but for different reasons... namely, our ancestors have lived off red meat for hundreds of thousands of years. We can still eat red meat our entire lives with minimal, or at the very least, hard to link direct consequences to our health. It can literally sustain a human for their entire lifespan - so asserting it is unhealthy should be an extremely high bar.

I don't understand this argument. Why does what our ancestors did mean it's either healthy or unhealthy? We know these things are not healthy or unhealthy enough to meaningfully affect reproduction so there shouldn't be an evolutionary argument.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#124

Post by goethes_kind »

endisneigh wrote: post #57

more diet silliness. look, this is the ultimate diet: - Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Mostly unprocessed. Nutrition science has come up with so many contradictory conclusions in the past decades.

Do not forget variety as an important heuristic. The more variety the better.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#125

Post by pessimizer »

endisneigh wrote: post #57

more diet silliness. look, this is the ultimate diet: - Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Mostly unprocessed. Nutrition science has come up with so many contradictory conclusions in the past decades.

It's partially tautological. "Not too much" communicates no information, it might as well be "eat correctly."

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#126

Post by srveale »

ok123456 wrote: post #114
mrob wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, it is possible to eat more than one foodstuff. Grains and beans is the classic combo. Grains are lacking in lysine, and beans are lacking in methionine, but together they make a complete protein. You don't even need to eat them in the same meal.

Yes, it's possible to mix and match at get close to a complete profile. But, this requires more accountability than people are willing to do with their own diets. People have a hard enough time not eating themselves into hyper-obesity, and now they have to factor in amino profiles verses just eating some red meat from time to time. On the whole, I've met more unhealthy vegans and vegetarians than healthy ones.

> On the whole, I've met more unhealthy vegans and vegetarians than healthy ones.

How do you know the diet of everyone you meet? How are you assessing the health of your acquaintances?

> People have a hard enough time

Are things not worth doing because they are difficult? Exercising is pretty inconvenient - doesn't mean we should give up on it.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#127

Post by mbostleman »

samloveshummus wrote: post #25
narrator wrote: post #7

I think any study that says eating meat is unhealthy has to have a much higher standard of proof because there is so much money floating around from environmental and animal rights activists to fund any scientist who is willing to make that case.

Meat is a $2 trillion industry globally but you're primarily worried about the corrupting influence of activists' donations?

Where there is a large industry, there is a large anti-industry. To me, the point is that there is a large potential for bias in either direction so incentives to reproduce, validate, and otherwise test results need to be found and somehow added to the process. I would say that despite the size of this industry, this particular issue is the tip of the iceberg when you consider all the industries that have a significant impact on humans.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#128

Post by ok123456 »

srveale wrote: post #126
ok123456 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's possible to mix and match at get close to a complete profile. But, this requires more accountability than people are willing to do with their own diets. People have a hard enough time not eating themselves into hyper-obesity, and now they have to factor in amino profiles verses just eating some red meat from time to time. On the whole, I've met more unhealthy vegans and vegetarians than healthy ones.

> On the whole, I've met more unhealthy vegans and vegetarians than healthy ones. How do you know the diet of everyone you meet? How are you assessing the health of your acquaintances? > People have a hard enough time Are things not worth doing because they are difficult? Exercising is pretty inconvenient - doesn't mean we should give up on it.

No post body was provided.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#129

Post by drno123 »

Every PhD student should, in order to obtain PhD, not only do his original research but reproduce another published result. This will make PhD harder to get, so PhD’s will become more valuable (and more vetted), and we will have people verify published studies.

Re: 'Serious errors' in research linking deaths to red meat

#130

Post by latchkey »

hiptobecubic wrote: post #119
latchkey wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a lot different because if the study isn't published in one journal, it could always be published in another. In this situation, the study wouldn't be done at all until a journal agreed to publish it.

You could submit your proposal to other journals as well though

If I was a journal, and I was promising to publish a study once it is completed, I'd ask for exclusivity rights.

Which goes to show the whole issue with this idea.

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