Comments for Science Groupie

Comment on A Truly EPIC Blog Post by David Colquhoun

David Colquhoun — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:14:23 +0000

@Tania
Thanks for the link. I take your point that you weren’t writing primarily about the results, and it’s great to see someone taking an intelligent interest in how things work.

Comment on A Truly EPIC Blog Post by Tania

Tania — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:44:18 +0000

As I’m neither an epidemiologist nor a journalist I can’t comment on that, but thanks for your thoughts and your link. My main aim with the post was to explain how cohort studies worked, and EPIC was one that just happened to make news at the right time – the results, in that sense, were secondary to my purpose and that was a rookie mistake. I make it quite clear in my bio that I’m just learning about these things for the first time and will inevitably make cock ups, it’s always good to be corrected in them else I’ll never learn so thank you! I’ve linked my Twitter followers into your blog post on the results.

Comment on A Truly EPIC Blog Post by David Colquhoun

David Colquhoun — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:37:51 +0000

I wonder why you describe
Red meat (per 100 g) 1.02 (0.98 to 1.06) (Table 3 in Rohrmann)
as being “less conclusive” while apparently being willing to accept
Processed meat (per 50 g) 1.09 (1.06 to 1.12)
as being conclusive.
It’s almost as though epidemiologists, like journalists, are interested only in bad news.

[Declaration of interest. I concluded a while ago that the evidence for causality was poor in 2007 and has got poorer since than http://www.dcscience.net/?s=%22red+meat%22 ]

Comment on A Truly EPIC Blog Post by THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY)

THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:30:24 +0000

For me, the big doubt about any such enterprise, despite the impressive sample-size, is whether the competence of the method as a whole is matched by the understanding and application of the statistical methods of determining what is a significant finding : get that wrong or in the wrong hands, and one might just as well not bother with the rest of it, and it appears that it happens.

Comment on A Truly EPIC Blog Post by Dave

Dave — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 23:57:05 +0000

ha, finickity. I just learned a new awesome word. Great post. Its very brave of you, re-inventing yourself as an adult. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the experience. Go for it!

Comment on When Science isn’t Scientific by fastblogcreatorKendrick

fastblogcreatorKendrick — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:07:12 +0000

Isn’t the basis for all scientific work that you doubt everything? You don’t take anything for granted. You question everything.
It seems to me that a lot of those scientist who are so eager to get published aren’t real scientists at all.

Comment on A Brief History of Time (Management) by Francis Wade / 2Time Labs

Francis Wade / 2Time Labs — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 18:08:20 +0000

Great insights! The fact is, in the absence of any formal teaching, we are required (and magically expected) to develop our own ways of managing our time. And, many of us do fine at it… until something in our life changes and bam… we start to fail. Learning (or knowing) how to teach ourselves new temporal behaviour patterns is critical to professional success in the long term, even as new technology and recessionary pressures make it ever more likely that we’re need to do an upgrade in shorter cycles than ever before. Just a growing, but seldom realized fact of life. Amazing that we are left to sink or swim…

Comment on A Brief History of Time (Management) by developmentler

developmentler — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 17:58:24 +0000

Great post, shall definitely be sharing this one with my students! I find that as a tutor a majority of the feedback I give is study skills related, and I also devote a chunk of tutorials to this too. You need to have the right tools for the job if you want to do it properly!

Comment on Open Access for the Deeply Confused by elodieunderglass

elodieunderglass — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:43:03 +0000

Interesting & well-written – thanks Tania!

Comment on Open Access for the Deeply Confused by Marco Brandizi (@mbrandizi)

Marco Brandizi (@mbrandizi) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 20:31:36 +0000

Nice article! Further discussion points:
- In Gold Open Access, if the paper submitters have to pay for publishing, there is the risk that research is under controlled by the already existing establishment and that independent researchers and mavericks are penalised. This is a real problem sometimes and personally I like very much things like crowdsfunding or even no-profit journals set up by authors.
- In addition to open access, I think open review is great too, i.e., the idea that traditional anonymous peer-review made by a very small number of people (usually 3 or 4) can be enriched (not necessarily replaced) by crowds peer-reviewing, via voting systems similar to what we find in e-commerce sites. Votes could even be weighted by the authoritativeness of the voter (which could be established with criteria like no of publications, votes received).