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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."
beer > coffee/caffeine
Gone!
Scientists Claim there is a direct correlation b/w pot smokers and an amazing talent to link string theory with life on mars
too scared to forget random user names
Who's to say the "debunker" isn't just having fun himself?
When bored, hackers write viruses, scientists - papers.
Disclaimer, I am non of the above.
I think what you refer to is known as the "Ballmer Peak" shown on this graph:
Here
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
This has to be a lost Monty Python sketch, right?
"Flag on the moon. How did it get there?"
More research is needed.
They've looked for a linear correlation, so if what you've said is true then the analysis they used wouldn't find it.
In order to find a correlation where the input IV (beer consumption) has an optimal value, you would have to do the regression on a transformation of the variable. Perhaps a quadratic would suffice, or else abs(X - k) for some unknown value of k.
I refuse to give up one entire food group!!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If you were one of the five worst scientists in a field in the Czech Republic, you'd probably turn to drink, right?
"Ballmer peak" is, FYI, a joke that's going over the heads of all you science-illiterate server monkeys.
They gave him the bird!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
If, on the other hand, he means the correlation coefficient r=.5, that means that R^2=.25. Still, a quarter of the variance in "work quality" is explained by beer drinking. That is still very high.
His point about outlying ornithologists and the points not being independent may still be valid; determining if they are is an empirical matter. Do these outlying scientists, in fact, socialize together? What other sources of nonindependence might there be, and do they affect THIS data set? Also should we really claim that 5 out of 34 (15% of the sample!) constitute OUTLIERS? Those aren't outliers, those are a subpopulation.
He didn't debunk the study; he rather raised some interesting questions.
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!
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
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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