cdevroe
cdevroe

The scientific method affords that entrenched ideas can and should be overturned. But I do find the flip/flops humorous. Like this one. It proves my point in yesterday’s Random 60.

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smokey
smokey

@cdevroe Except in this case, as the NPR story points out, it’s not so much the scientific method overturning an entrenched idea with new data as a bunch of people coming from a drug-trial-science background decided they didn’t believe (and therefore gave no weight to) the existing studies because those didn’t use their field’s methodology. It sounds like far from the open-and-shut case the mainstream media is making it out to be….

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cdevroe
cdevroe

@smokey isn't that always the case? ugh

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dgreene196
dgreene196

@smokey They did given them weight, just minimal. I read through the study this morning, and it's not great. Many of the references are meta-analyses the group put together that are being published in the same journal this month. So, essentially, you can't even interpret the data without reading other articles because there isn’t any actual data in the article. Sigh. As far as observational studies go, cohort studies ARE good studies. And they're useful if they are big to determine small differences and minimizing all the other potential factors that could lead to changes. It certainly feels as though the authors had their own bias against previous nutritional recommendations and sought to use different methodologies to be controversial. And I say that as someone who loves red meat (though I prefer it to be grass-fed, which may have some nutritional benefits to grain-fed). And bacon. I'd be slightly more impressed if this work was a precursor to their own efforts to assess this question with a controlled study. But it's not.

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In reply to
smokey
smokey

@cdevroe Science: bringing you no clear-cut answers, just more questions, since before the dawn of time ;-)

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smokey
smokey

@dgreene196 Yeah, my “no weight” was just an offhand shortcut for what I took as very minimal—but I suppose in matters of science, it’s important to be precise ;-)

Many of the references are meta-analyses the group put together that are being published in the same journal this month. So, essentially, you can't even interpret the data without reading other articles because there isn’t any actual data in the article.

But, yikes, that sounds like there really was no way the article should have been promoted as reversing the call on red meat, which seems to be the way that mainstream media understood it :-(

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