Beer-Drinking Scientist Debunks Productivity Correlation

austinpoet writes in with a blog post debunking the theory we discussed a few days back that scientists' beer consumption is linearly correlated with the quality of their work. Chris Mack, Gentleman Scientist and beer drinker, has analyzed the paper and found it is severely flawed. From his analysis: "The discovered linear relationship between beer consumption and scientific output had a correlation coefficient (R-squared) of only about 0.5 — not very high by my standards, though I suspect many biologists would be happy to get one that high in their work... Thus, the entire study came down to only one conclusion: the five worst ornithologists in the Czech Republic drank a lot of beer."

Comments

Hmm... do we need either of these studies?

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

C'mon, I thought the (ancedotal) evidence proving(?) that beer is and isn't good for productivity is adequete! It should say that beer, in certain levels, is good for productivity, and in excess ... it is bad. Really, people write papers to prove this?

Some alcohol is good ... to a point

[Anonymous Coward]

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/161/3/228 "... moderate levels of alcohol intake may be associated with improved cognitive function and reduced risk of cognitive decline and dementia."

Social drinking leads to better job performance and career success. http://www.ithaca.edu/ithacan/articles/0610/05/opinion/2drinking_.htm

Excess alcohol consumption, on the other hand, is almost always a bad thing. There are some studies that show the benefit of moderate consumption but there is no studies that show that heavy consumption is anything but bad.

xkcd was there first

[Midnight Warrior]

The comic xkcd was there first and called this effect the Ballmer Peak. Most likely, this effect was also tried in Vista and Vista SP1 design meetings, but the balance was all wrong and didn't come out as (they) expected.

Re:xkcd was there first

[Anonymous Coward]

The comic xkcd was there first and called this effect the Ballmer Peak.

"Ballmer peak" is, FYI, a joke that's going over the heads of all you science-illiterate server monkeys.

R^2 = 0.5 Ain't Bad

[DynaSoar]

R-squared is the amount of variance accounted for by the variable in question. That means half their productivity is explained by beer drinking, and half on all other variables combined.

As a comparison, 0.3 is pretty much the top end R-squared in personality psychology. that field is built on correlations that account for no more than 10% of the observed variance.

To combine the two, it's far more likely that TFA didn't actually measure beer drinking, but rather how much beer those scientists who drank beer would admit to drinking. Those who'll drink it are probably more likely to relax, which will make them more productive, and those who will admit it are less likely to fall prey to negative opinions of others, a major source of which is reviewers' comments on papers submitted for publication. Such comments are often undeservedly harsh, and in many cases coming from someone who doesn't know as much as the author about the topic. That can turn away those who place great store in the opinions of others, especially perceived authorities.

Next, on to Russia and WOTKA!

Re:R^2 = 0.5 Ain't Bad

[cvd6262]

That means half their productivity is explained by beer drinking, and half on all other variables combined.

I agree with the first part, but not with the second. R^2 of .5 is quite good in social/behavioral sciences*, but it does not mean that "all other variables" only account for half the variance in performance because other variables could "share" the variance associated with beer drinking.

For example, sociability might be highly correlated with beer drinking and performance. There is likely to be a lot of "shared variance" between the two predictors, but it is possible that sociability alone would account for more variance in performance than beer drinking. An ANOVA (or equivalent) analysis would partition the variance between the variables and the variable-by-variable interactions.

* In the (US) financial markets, an important stat is how well a particular mutual fund correlates with the S&P 500. R^2 of less than .95 is considered unacceptable (if you're looking for one that tracks).

Re:Not only that

[hao3]

couldn't you just take a differential of the linear regression and optimise that?

Re:Performance enhancing drugs

[hitchhacker]

I've read before that a nobel price winner formulated his theory utilizing psychedelics. I believe you are referring to Kary Mullis. He wrote a book about it titled "Dancing Naked in the Mind Field":

Kary Mullis won the Nobel Prize for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction, a chemical procedure that allows scientists to "see" the structures of the molecules of genes. Mullis is no shy, socially inept bench chemist, though; on the contrary, he has led as big and full a life as possible, opening himself to experiences like hallucinogenic drugs, surfing, casually handling dangerous chemicals, and taking shots at the sacred cows of science.
Also, the famous mathematician Paul Erdos used amphetamines for this purpose:

His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems", and Erdos drank copious quantities. (This quotation is often attributed incorrectly to Erdos.) After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdos won the bet, but complained during his abstinence that mathematics had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine habit.
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Re:We all know what to do now:

[siwelwerd]

For europeans, american 'beer' is no beer.

If by "american beer" you mean Bud/Miller/Coors. However there are hundreds of American micros that produce excellent beer in far more styles than you'll find in Europe. American beer is far from being limited to the mass produced light lager produced by the aforementioned major breweries.