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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."
I think it's safe to say that the paper they are "debunking" was meant as a joke.
More research is needed.
Would this ever lead to drug testing researchers that announce amazing new scientific breakthroughs? (sort of far fetched but an interesting idea nonetheless).
... apparently you've not been taking your drugs. They're a job requirement you know. I understand that the enhancer pills give you migraines, but we promised BigMegaCorp that breakthrough they've been wanting, and you do like your job, don't you?"
Sure it would. I can see it now:
"I just got the results of your drug test
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
it depends on the kind of drinker you are, do you drink moderately and only open that first alcoholic beverage later in the evening (after supper)? you know anybody that pops the top off any alcoholic beverage too early in the day and drinks excessively until they are slobbering & stumbling recklessly wont be a good anything (especially a scientist)...
i drink a mixed drink every evening after supper daily and only one, using a shotglass to measure the amount, i do enjoy a mild buzz but i hate being drunk and i dislike drunks since they can cause lots of problems (loss of careers/jobs, wrecked marriages, even cause fatal traffic accidents on the road)...
moderation is the key...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Quote: "In social science .5 is huuge!"
Reply: I respectfully disagree. r^2 = .5 is a good correlation, but it is not huge, even in the social sciences. Not to mention that in a study such as this one, there are some serious lurking variables which are most likely not accounted for. If you were to control beer drinking with another variable (say, time spent in the office or some other better variable), I would dare say the t-stat would be entirely insignificant.
Quote: "so if these findings actually show causation (which, admittedly,I they might not)"...
Reply: They definitely do not show causation. This is an observational study, not an experiment. No observational study can show causation, only correlation. To determine causation, experiments using factorial design and variable controlling techniques are a must.
Hm, I'd bet you're bored; that's probably why you're on Slashdot.
It beats the daily Microsoft Windows Vista article(s). Those don't get interesting no matter how many beers you drink before reading them.
Wait a minute, this "study" was done on 34 people? And the method for choosing them was "that guy's buddies"?
And we are actually spending time talking about it?
sic transit gloria mundi
Indeed - but with such a small sample size the researchers would not have been able to adjust for exposure, or age in this case. My guess is that beer consumption declines with age and science is generally cumulative (the longer you do science the more papers you produce and therefore the higher the probability of writing something of interest). In other words, age could easily explain this beer/science relationship - younger scientists drink more - as could a whole host of other variables.