Why should we hold journalists to a higher standard than science journals? It was only a week and a half ago that JAMA did the same thing: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2533698
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Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study
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Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study
#32Why should we hold journalists to a higher standard than science journals? It was only a week and a half ago that JAMA did the same thing: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2533698
How is this the same thing? The JAMA article is a factually correct article clearly presenting a specific viewpoint. There are pieces like that in journals all the time, and there should be.
The original post here is talking about the misrepresentation of what is a viewpoint / opinion piece as a scientific study in the mainstream news media. They have nothing to do with each other.
Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> scientists and economists are just a type of professional writer While true, they're only supposed to write things that can be independently reproduced and verified. If they have to layer narratives on top of their work to get people to care, I don't see any harm in that as long as it doesn't stray outside of the lines of fact. A problem I've seen myself is that the original scientists aren't always the ones market…
But better not to confuse economists and scientists.
Don't economists empirically test mathematical models of the economy? How is this not science?
Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study
#34I'd like to know how my drinking behaviour affects my mortality. And how that effect is compared to the consumption of tobacco, marijuana, participating in road traffic, jogging and overwight. While it's clear that alcohol is not particular healthy, I feel the risk is negligible compared to other common behaviours. I like alcohol very much and I'd like to make a informed decision about it. But i dearly miss the curia…
About 3 drinks per day puts you from 1.5 to 3 times more likely to develop various cancers, according to: http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/al...
It's just sugary yeast water though. My guess is it's the obesity from drinking that increases the chance of the cancers not the drink itself. Which has then created a correlation between alcohol and the cancers cited.
Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Social science is quite bad. Reporters on, KQED for example, will cite a single study to bolster their opinion on something. It'll go along the lines of, "UC Davis ran a study which concluded giving money directly to the homeless with no strings attached had the best results". But they won't say how many people were involved, what other studies this was compared to, how it was conducted, were there studies with oppos…
My favorite is when there is a legitimate controversy in the field, and outsiders cherry pick which side to listen to. Person A references a study that just so happens to support his existing opinion. Person B searches and finds a study that contradicts it. Person A finds some criticism of that study and claims it's been "debunked". And so on, back and forth. You end up with 2 sides that believe their opinions have b…
Those are good points about the whole thing. People who have little contextual understanding and take one thing, as you mention, and use that to prove their point.
Another thing some people miss is the tradeoffs involved.
higher minimum wages as well as lower minimum wages have consequences --some contrary to what the proponents would like. For example, while I am for higher minimum wages, I understand that while this will help many people, it has the potential to have negative effects on people at the periphery. More things getting automated could result functionally illiterate people who have little besides manual labor to offer to be sidelined even more. Who does a poultry farmer hire, now that the rate is $15, a local worker or an illegal worker now that a local is attracted by the $15/hr?
Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
About 3 drinks per day puts you from 1.5 to 3 times more likely to develop various cancers, according to: http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/al...
It's just sugary yeast water though. My guess is it's the obesity from drinking that increases the chance of the cancers not the drink itself. Which has then created a correlation between alcohol and the cancers cited.
It's not just sugary yeast water, it's alcohol, a toxin. If alcohol were not the cause but fat/obesity, we wouldn't see cancer concentrated on the oropharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colon and rectum.
Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
About 3 drinks per day puts you from 1.5 to 3 times more likely to develop various cancers, according to: http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/al...
It's just sugary yeast water though. My guess is it's the obesity from drinking that increases the chance of the cancers not the drink itself. Which has then created a correlation between alcohol and the cancers cited.
Its not just sugary yeast water. The first step of alcohol metabolism is conversion to acetaldehyde, which is then processed further into acetic acid. Acetaldehyde is very much a carcinogen (and its also directly DNA damaging).
The science is super clear. We even have this control population called "east asians". The "asian flush" phenomenon is the result of hyperactive ADH1 (which converts ethanol to acetaldehyde) and relatively inactive forms of the enzymes required for the result of the conversion, resulting in acetaldehyde sticking around in higher quantities and for much longer than say a european population.
Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just sugary yeast water though. My guess is it's the obesity from drinking that increases the chance of the cancers not the drink itself. Which has then created a correlation between alcohol and the cancers cited.
Its not just sugary yeast water. The first step of alcohol metabolism is conversion to acetaldehyde, which is then processed further into acetic acid. Acetaldehyde is very much a carcinogen (and its also directly DNA damaging). The science is super clear. We even have this control population called "east asians". The "asian flush" phenomenon is the result of hyperactive ADH1 (which converts ethanol to acetaldehyde) a…
Do East Asians have a higher likelihood of types of cancer that could be linked to alcohol use? I've never seen that claim, but it would be interesting if it were true.
Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study
#39I'd like to know how my drinking behaviour affects my mortality. And how that effect is compared to the consumption of tobacco, marijuana, participating in road traffic, jogging and overwight. While it's clear that alcohol is not particular healthy, I feel the risk is negligible compared to other common behaviours. I like alcohol very much and I'd like to make a informed decision about it. But i dearly miss the curia…
About 3 drinks per day puts you from 1.5 to 3 times more likely to develop various cancers, according to: http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/al...
Yes, this is what I'm referring to. This information is completly meaningless to me. How does a 1.5 to 3 times higher cancer risk affect my mortality?
A 100 times elevated risk in extreme uncommon diseases is absoluty irrelevant, but a 10 percent increase to get something very common is quite important. Likewise is the age when these disease typically break out. If it's typically not before 85, I wouldn't mind. If it's often before 40, I would dearly.
I know that alcohol increases the risk for prostate cancer. But prostate cancer typically starts at very high age and is usually just a minor hassle. The typical infected person dies of something else and has a usual life expectancy.
How to these factors from 1.5 to 3 affect my mortality? Should I care? I want to say something like say "I'm drinking $n drinks a week, and in order to compensate that I stop doing other things with a similar risk".
Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its not just sugary yeast water. The first step of alcohol metabolism is conversion to acetaldehyde, which is then processed further into acetic acid. Acetaldehyde is very much a carcinogen (and its also directly DNA damaging). The science is super clear. We even have this control population called "east asians". The "asian flush" phenomenon is the result of hyperactive ADH1 (which converts ethanol to acetaldehyde) a…
Do East Asians have a higher likelihood of types of cancer that could be linked to alcohol use? I've never seen that claim, but it would be interesting if it were true.
You can give this a shot. http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...