Does anyone on MFP actually understand studies?

2»

Replies

  • Long_and_Lean
    Long_and_Lean Posts: 175 Member
    Postdoc...if the general public knew how much work these people do for very little pay and so little credit, they'd be outraged.

    :flowerforyou:

    You have no idea how you just made my day. 60 hour work weeks are the BARE MINIMUM, and it is EXPECTED -- as in, if you work 60 hours that's considered the same as the average person working 40. You are expected to work weekends. God forbid you try to have a life (my belly dancing has been the subject of contention numerous times as a "distraction"). You're everybody's *****, get zero respect and do all the work. All that for under 40k/year. I'm a friggin doctor for f*cks sake. Why am I doing this again? Oh yeah, science is f*cking awesome, at least if you forget about the whole politics and funding part :indifferent:
  • taylor5877
    taylor5877 Posts: 1,792 Member
    Oh yeah, science is f*cking awesome, at least if you forget about the whole politics and funding part

    which I'm sure is hard for you to do because besides doing/directing(depending on the manpower in your lab) all the studies, you also are probably writing most of their grants for them...
  • MrDude_1
    MrDude_1 Posts: 2,510 Member
    first off.. YES.
    Im a programmer, and I have to work with numbers a lot.. so yes the "science" on here sometimes annoys the *kitten* out of me.. for example:
    It's funny how everyone whos "By the numbers" can never make the numbers properly work for them.

    They post Pubmed this and Pubmed that but in their use of the info cannot make the research actually work.

    Take for instance this "Cut 1000cals from each day and youll lose 2lbs a week."
    So far I have never seen this pan out but damn if I dont get 15-20 Pubmeds thrown at me about VLCDs and how they work!

    by definition, if you're not losing 2lbs a week, you're not actually cutting 1000calories..
    but we'll just leave it to you to decide what variables are correct ( in this case, your opinion of your calories spent and your opinion of your calories consumed) and what variables are not....
  • taso42
    taso42 Posts: 8,980 Member
    yeah but my wife's doctor's fedex guy lost 60 lbs by cutting carbs
  • DrMAvDPhD
    DrMAvDPhD Posts: 2,097 Member
    Yeah, as a person with a doctorate in toxicology, I'd say I have a pretty good grasp on what a study says and how to interpret it.

    That's not to say I've read everything about anything in my field.

    And as the first reply says it is vital who funds it, as you design a lot of experiments to make them say what you want.

    Lol as someone earning a doctorate in synthetic chemistry, I find it a lot harder to design my experiments to say what I want. You can fabricate data to do that, but generally we frown upon such behavior in my field.

    As for the topic of this post, the process which information passes from scientist to general public leads inevitably to this type of behavior. Scientist publishes XYZ with ABC restrictions and DEF alternatives to be explored. Science news says XYZ with ABC restictions, popular news publishes "SCIENTISTS CLAIM ABC!!" and the general public thinks "OMG I bet ABC can cause TUV!"
  • pattyproulx
    pattyproulx Posts: 603 Member
    As my brother who does bio research says "a study is as dependable as the person reporting the data, because by omitting elements they deem unfit, a study can look as good or bad as they desire."

    Literal bro-science right here!
  • michelejoann
    michelejoann Posts: 295 Member
    As someone currently involved in a research study (for weight loss!), I can say that they are not complete BS. I can also say that they are multi-phased (meaning they are always researching different methods and approaches to weight-loss) and that research is never complete. For example, they have had group interventions, which have been fantastic for me, and now are switching to one-on-one interventions with occasional group meetings, in addition to text messaging reminders and the logging of food (which led me to this wonderful place!) They're also using BodyMedia armbands with certain people in the study.

    Personally, I am happy with the one I'm in. There's been some good tips, and I've learned a lot from it. And heck, I lost over 30 pounds!

    The media (of which I am also a member of) does skew what is gleaned from these studies, though...and Dr. Oz is full of crap. : )
  • supahstar71
    supahstar71 Posts: 926 Member
    Postdoc...if the general public knew how much work these people do for very little pay and so little credit, they'd be outraged.

    :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

    Ph.D. in psych here. So glad I'm not doing research anymore. I agree with you, OP
  • NanoBear
    NanoBear Posts: 67
    one of my favourites:
    image002top.jpg
    image002bottom.jpg
    I'm getting close to the end of my chemistry and physics degrees now, and I'm still working in the local supermarket. I've come to the conclusion that the average person doesn't know what correlation and causality mean, No point asking if they know the difference between them.

    Plenty of these studies that appear around the place are perfectly valid. The problem is (as per the original post) that the average person doesn't know how to read/interpret them correctly.
  • Long_and_Lean
    Long_and_Lean Posts: 175 Member
    Oh yeah, science is f*cking awesome, at least if you forget about the whole politics and funding part

    which I'm sure is hard for you to do because besides doing/directing(depending on the manpower in your lab) all the studies, you also are probably writing most of their grants for them...

    You got it, and add to that the joy of working with entitled technicians 20 years my senior who have some seriously large chips on their shoulder, and you get the joy of working in academic research. Seriously, there is no regulation or oversight of the actual work environment to ensure people don't go postal from suffering various forms of abuse. I really don't mean to be such a Debbie downer, but I genuinely love science, and most of my job has unfortunately very little to do with it. True science that is. Pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge. That's what I love. Unfortunately you can't make a living off that anymore, so I might as well take an industry job where I make decent money and work with relatively sane people (academia attracts a special breed of dysfunctional bully), rather than continue to be underpaid here.
  • pattyproulx
    pattyproulx Posts: 603 Member
    I'm a numbers guy and I love stats so to me this stuff is interesting.

    The difficult thing is that it seems scientists and researchers don't seem to understand this themselves (or at least avoid using their understanding of it so that they can come to certain pre-defined conclusions).

    It's absolutely everywhere. Not to open a can of worms, but as an example, look at all the pro-whole-grain studies.
    The way they generally deem whole-grains to be healthy is by looking at whole-grain eaters vs. non-whole-grain-eaters and assessing their health - completely disregarding all the other lifestyle factors involved.

    Also, what is released to the masses is usually a pretty small excerpt of the actual study and even the conclusions found are increasingly inconsistent with the information in those studies. The media also tends to further skew the results of studies to make them more interesting. Anyways, the whole thing is a mess.

    The fact remains that in the real world being able to conduct thorough studies is very time consuming and very expensive so most of these studies need to be funded by corporations who have a stake in the outcome (and unfortunately, that almost always biases the results).
  • BinaryPulsar
    BinaryPulsar Posts: 8,927 Member
    Yeah, as a person with a doctorate in toxicology, I'd say I have a pretty good grasp on what a study says and how to interpret it.

    That's not to say I've read everything about anything in my field.

    And as the first reply says it is vital who funds it, as you design a lot of experiments to make them say what you want.

    Lol as someone earning a doctorate in synthetic chemistry, I find it a lot harder to design my experiments to say what I want. You can fabricate data to do that, but generally we frown upon such behavior in my field.

    As for the topic of this post, the process which information passes from scientist to general public leads inevitably to this type of behavior. Scientist publishes XYZ with ABC restrictions and DEF alternatives to be explored. Science news says XYZ with ABC restictions, popular news publishes "SCIENTISTS CLAIM ABC!!" and the general public thinks "OMG I bet ABC can cause TUV!"

    My husband is a physicist, so obviously a very different area of science. I agree with this. There is no fabrication. They are trying to make things work and happen, so there would be no reason to not be honest...that would hurt their own experiments, lose the respect of other scientists, and get them to lose their funding that they spent years working towards. And of course it is part of his job to be regularly published in peer reviewed journals. But, whenever the news reports on them it often involves them saying things that are incorrect (NPR is better about that). The newscaster and/or journalist does not understand the physics or know what they are reporting on. Then the public responds acting like they know everything about it and they don't at all (all kinds of wacky misinformation). We just have to accept it and don't worry about.
  • taylor5877
    taylor5877 Posts: 1,792 Member
    Really the only dishonest thing we ever did in our lab was not publish the stuff that didn't work.

    That's not really our fault though. I'm not saying we went out to make up results, but we'd often take things that we knew would work and do a lengthy/thorough experiment to be able to either give a funding coorporation the data they needed/wanted or to get something published.

    It doesn't mean we did things unethical to make something we knew untrue true.

    I should have clarified.

    Like for instance I studied arsenic adsorption on iron oxides. A company gave us a product they made for this purpose and told us to test it. After first identifing what it was (we didn't trust them at their word obviously) we knew it was the same product as one we'd synthesized in our lab to sorb As.

    Pretty easy to design some experiments comparing the two ("pure" synthesized product and industrial product) to make the industrial product look "good".
  • DrMAvDPhD
    DrMAvDPhD Posts: 2,097 Member

    I'm getting close to the end of my chemistry and physics degrees now, and I'm still working in the local supermarket. I've come to the conclusion that the average person doesn't know what correlation and causality mean, No point asking if they know the difference between them.

    Plenty of these studies that appear around the place are perfectly valid. The problem is (as per the original post) that the average person doesn't know how to read/interpret them correctly.

    my favorite:
    phd051809s.gif
  • DrMAvDPhD
    DrMAvDPhD Posts: 2,097 Member
    Really the only dishonest thing we ever did in our lab was not publish the stuff that didn't work.

    That's not really our fault though. I'm not saying we went out to make up results, but we'd often take things that we knew would work and do a lengthy/thorough experiment to be able to either give a funding coorporation the data they needed/wanted or to get something published.

    It doesn't mean we did things unethical to make something we knew untrue true.

    I should have clarified.

    I didn't mean to imply that you were unethical. Just that it is more difficult for some branches of science to do such things than others. I honestly think there should be a journal of "Really cool ideas that didn't pan out" so that I could publish more often!

    As for publishing things for funding agencies, I have only used funds from NSF and NIH and while they expect results, I have never personally felt pressured to get particular results. Perhaps my advisor shields me from that.
  • kiminikimkim
    kiminikimkim Posts: 746 Member
    The most interesting study I found was on Vitamins.

    Those who took vitamins lived shorter lives than those who don't. Had the study been more positive, I am sure all the vitamin suppliers would have used this in their advertising.
  • Icelandic_Saga
    Icelandic_Saga Posts: 2,926 Member
    The most interesting study I found was on Vitamins.

    Those who took vitamins lived shorter lives than those who don't. Had the study been more positive, I am sure all the vitamin suppliers would have used this in their advertising.

    I'll be darned....Glad I don't take Vitamins! lolol
  • Long_and_Lean
    Long_and_Lean Posts: 175 Member
    Fun fact: I am at this very moment enduring a mandatory lecture on biomedical research integrity.
  • taylor5877
    taylor5877 Posts: 1,792 Member
    I so would have enjoyed my seminars more if smart phones would have been more widespread...

    Of course, you could just be surfing from a laptop and making it look like you're working.

    I played a few games of chess during seminars that way....when I was lucky enough to get a seat in the back.
  • pattyproulx
    pattyproulx Posts: 603 Member
    The most interesting study I found was on Vitamins.

    Those who took vitamins lived shorter lives than those who don't. Had the study been more positive, I am sure all the vitamin suppliers would have used this in their advertising.

    I'll be darned....Glad I don't take Vitamins! lolol

    Gah, don't mean to use you as an example, but this is exactly what I meant in my previous post. You can`t come to any conclusions from those types of studies.
    You can`t just look at a random set of people, isolate one variable, group people up and come to conclusions but this is the type of stuff that happend all the time! Then the media gets a hold and makes a big story out of it.

    For this example, it can probably be explained pretty easily. Doctors will often tell their sick patients that they really should start taking more vitamins so that ups the sick population taking vitamins. Then you will have people who eat crap and don`t eat many fruits or veggies and take vitamins in the hope/belief that they're being healthy. People who eat a ton of veggies and fruit probably don't take many vitamins because they get the nutrients they need in the food they eat. So you have sick people and people who eat crap that die earlier than people who get their vitamins from fruits and veggies.

    These are all possible explanations for the result. You can't come to any conclusions about vitamins based on this. This isn't to say vitamins are good. They could be bad for you for some unkown reason, but either way you can't tell anything based on this study. These are the types of studies we need fewer of (though it can 'hint' at a subject for a future study).
This discussion has been closed.