andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2014 andrew_gelman_stats-2014-2301 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: A link from the comments here took me to the wonderfully named Barfblog and a report by Don Schaffner on some reporting. First, the background: A university in England issued a press release saying that “Food picked up just a few seconds after being dropped is less likely to contain bacteria than if it is left for longer periods of time . . . The findings suggest there may be some scientific basis to the ‘5 second rule’ – the urban myth about it being fine to eat food that has only had contact with the floor for five seconds or less. Although people have long followed the 5 second rule, until now it was unclear whether it actually helped.” According to the press release, the study was “undertaken by final year Biology students” and led by a professor of microbiology. The press release hit the big time, hitting NPR, Slate, Forbes, the Daily News, etc etc. Some typical headlines: “5-second rule backed up by science” — Atlanta Journal Constitution “Eating food off the floo
sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore
1 First, the background: A university in England issued a press release saying that “Food picked up just a few seconds after being dropped is less likely to contain bacteria than if it is left for longer periods of time . [sent-2, score-0.922]
2 The findings suggest there may be some scientific basis to the ‘5 second rule’ – the urban myth about it being fine to eat food that has only had contact with the floor for five seconds or less. [sent-5, score-0.869]
3 ” According to the press release, the study was “undertaken by final year Biology students” and led by a professor of microbiology. [sent-7, score-0.449]
4 The press release hit the big time, hitting NPR, Slate, Forbes, the Daily News, etc etc. [sent-8, score-0.5]
5 Second, the take-home point from Schaffner: If you don’t have any pathogens on your kitchen floor, it doesn’t matter how long food sits there. [sent-10, score-0.417]
6 If you do have pathogens on your kitchen floor, you get more of them on wet food than dry food. [sent-11, score-0.497]
7 By these two criteria, the recent news about the five second rule qualifies as a big news story. [sent-21, score-0.759]
8 The press release is apparently based on a PowerPoint presentation. [sent-26, score-0.5]
9 The study has not undergone any sort of peer review, as far as I know. [sent-27, score-0.308]
10 Science by press release is something that really bugs me. [sent-28, score-0.5]
11 And when reputable news outlets publish university press releases without even editing them, that does a disservice to everyone; the readers, the news outlet, and even the university researchers. [sent-31, score-0.968]
12 As my lab has shown repeatedly, through our own peer-reviewed research, when you study cross-contamination and present the results as percentage transfer, those data are not normally distributed. [sent-37, score-0.528]
13 Probably not”: A new study appears to validate what every 12-year-old knows: If you drop food on the floor, you have five seconds until it becomes contaminated. [sent-57, score-0.661]
14 Biology students at Aston University in Birmingham, England, tested the time-honored five-second rule and claim to have found some truth to it. [sent-58, score-0.34]
15 The study contradicts findings of earlier research at Clemson University, where scientists tested how fast Salmonella Typhimurium bacteria made their way from flooring surfaces to bologna and bread. [sent-64, score-0.582]
16 Since the data aren’t available to other researchers, he said, there’s no way to replicate the study or determine whether the results are legitimate. [sent-68, score-0.303]
17 This particular study does seem shaky, though: a student project that is not backed up by shared data or a preprint. [sent-76, score-0.32]
18 The press release seems a bit irresponsible: “Although people have long followed the 5 second rule, until now it was unclear whether it actually helped,” which implies that now all is clear. [sent-77, score-0.667]
19 But journalists should know better than to trust a press release! [sent-78, score-0.311]
20 Even so, though, it seems like all these news outlets are taking the press release a bit too uncritically. [sent-83, score-0.736]
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Introduction: Somebody points me to this horrifying exposé by Paul Raeburn on a new series by the Washington Post where they reprint press releases as if they are actual news. And the gimmick is, the reason why it’s appearing on this blog, is that these are university press releases on science stories . What could possibly go wrong there? After all, Steve Chaplin, a self-identified “science-writing PIO from an R1,” writes in a comment to Raeburn’s post: We write about peer-reviewed research accepted for publication or published by the world’s leading scientific journals after that research has been determined to be legitimate. Repeatability of new research is a publication requisite. I emphasized that last sentence myself because it was such a stunner. Do people really think that??? So I guess what he’s saying is, they don’t do press releases for articles from Psychological Science or the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . But I wonder how the profs in the psych d
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Introduction: Jeff sent me an email with the above title and a link to a press release, “Nut consumption reduces risk of death,” which begins: According to the largest study of its kind, people who ate a daily handful of nuts were 20 percent less likely to die from any cause over a 30-year period than those who didn’t consume nuts . . . Their report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, contains further good news: The regular nut-eaters were found to be more slender than those who didn’t eat nuts, a finding that should alleviate fears that eating a lot of nuts will lead to overweight. . . . For the new research, the scientists were able to tap databases from two well-known, ongoing observational studies that collect data on diet and other lifestyle factors and various health outcomes. The Nurses’ Health Study provided data on 76,464 women between 1980 and 2010, and the Health Professionals’ Follow-Up Study yielded data on 42,498 men from 1986 to 2010. . . . Sophisticated data a
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Introduction: The story’s on the sister blog and I quote liberally from Jeremy Freese, who wrote : The authors have issued a statement that argues against some criticisms of their study that others have offered. These are irrelevant to the above observations, as I [Freese] am taking everything about the measurement and model specification at their word–my starting point is the model that fully replicates the analyses that they themselves published. A qualification is that one of their comments is that they deny they are making any claims about the importance of other factors that kill people in hurricanes. But they are. If you claim that 27 out of the 42 deaths in Hurricane Eloise would have been prevented if it was named Hurricane Charley, that is indeed a claim that diminishes the potential importance of other causes of deaths in that hurricane. Freese also raises an important general issue in science communication: The authors’ university issued a press release with a dramatic prese
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