Slashdot Mirror
Fake Mouse On Twitter Mocks Overgeneralized Scientific Research (twitter.com)
DevNull127 writes: Research scientist James Heathers is a postdoctoral research associate working on bio-signals and meta-science research at Northeastern University, with a PhD from the University of Sydney. He's also pretending to be a mouse on Twitter. And every tweet consists of the exact same two words...
Heathers retweets articles about scientific studies — usually articles with glossy photos and enticing headlines like "Exercise during pregnancy protects children from obesity, study finds." His tweets add the two crucial missing words. "In mice."
In this case a doctoral student at Washington State University measured a specific protein's level in the offspring of mice that performed 60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise every morning during pregnancy — and in regular mice. On the basis of that he recommended "that women — whether or not they are obese or have diabetes — exercise regularly during pregnancy because it benefits their children's metabolic health."
The name of the Twitter feed: JustSaysInMice.
Other mouse-based studies turning up on the Twitter feed:
Heathers retweets articles about scientific studies — usually articles with glossy photos and enticing headlines like "Exercise during pregnancy protects children from obesity, study finds." His tweets add the two crucial missing words. "In mice."
In this case a doctoral student at Washington State University measured a specific protein's level in the offspring of mice that performed 60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise every morning during pregnancy — and in regular mice. On the basis of that he recommended "that women — whether or not they are obese or have diabetes — exercise regularly during pregnancy because it benefits their children's metabolic health."
The name of the Twitter feed: JustSaysInMice.
Other mouse-based studies turning up on the Twitter feed:
- How Fatty Diets Stop the Brain From Saying 'No' To Food
- Reused Cooking Oil Ups Risk of Metastases In Breast Cancer Patients
- Keto Diet Not Effective, Causes Blood Sugar Problems In Women
- Growth Hormone Acts To Foil Weight Loss: Study
When you read those headlines, just remember to add those two words...
"In mice."
no idea. it's garbage tier.
Reminds me of the fortune cookie game where you say "in bed" at the end.
Just another day in Paradise
Slashdot article causes spontaneous abortion, in mice.
Everything has to be spectacular and groundbreaking and changing everything. Here is news: Most research is incremental or not directly applicable and the rest is almost never groundbreaking. Deal with it. This is a slow process and over-hyping results is a huge disservice to all of humanity.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
... in mice.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
... in mice ... who were in the BBQ pit with the Bible.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
When I was in university decades ago, the headline then was, "study concludes laboratory research causes cancer in mice".
The root of the strory coming from paper after paper purporting consuming one thingbor anotber caused cancer. No, silly! It's the research, the lab lighting, the little cages and poking and proding that is giving mice cancer, not what they are consuming.
Nice to see the internet finally caught up and updated the joke for a new generation!
And remember, the belief in God is not backed by any evidence
I assume you mean evidence which, by today's standards, would be considered scientific. I've seen plenty of 21st-century evidence of God's existence that I consider reliable, but because it is not scientific, it is unreasonable for me to expect those who demand only scientific evidence to accept it, so I don't bother trying.
the historical record shows that its a creation of man. Superstitious nonsense.
I know enough about history to know that historical records, particularly those more than a few hundred years ago, are spotty. I also know that they can be un-reliable: Those who win military or philosophical or cultural wars are the ones that write the history books. If you had said "the historical record strongly sugguests..." instead of "shows..." or "historical evidence which is generally considered to be reliable enough on this matter shows..." and you said "the God desribed in [insert particular holy book here]" instead of just "God," then I would at least be willing to listen to evidence to support your claim (evidence you did not provide, by the way). When you say it "[definitively] shows..." then that's basically a faith statement, which is kind of ironic given your claim that God is made-up by man.
And what kills me is that 40% of scientists believe in God. Completely irrational. So much for the theory that science education makes one more rational or logical.
I think the number is a lot higher than that, expecially among the "hard" sciences. I'm just speculating here, but perhaps like me they have seen reliable non-scientific evidence which has led to their personal belief (aka "world view") but, like me, they know the evidence is not scientific.
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By the way, there are scientists who are trying to use scientific principles to prove this-or-that religion. Some are total shams. Some are well-meaning scientists who are blinded by their faith and don't see that they are not really applying scientific methodology. Others are actually using scientific methodologies. As far as I know, the latter group is having some success in proving certain historical events written about in this-or-that holy book are either likely or at least plausible, but AFAIK none has ever come close to scientificly proving the existence of God.
Likewise, I have never seen - and do not ever expect to see - any scientific proof that there is not an intelligent, omnicient, onmipresent, omnipotent entity that created the universe and still exists today.
In short, to make a scientific claim that such an entity ("God" - not just the specific God of any specific holy book) does not exist is not a scientific claim at all - it is a statement of faith masquerading as science.
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Personally, I do believe in the God of Genesis. I also beleive that this same God interacts with people today. But I do not expect anyone reading this to believe in this God based on anything I say here on Slashdot. The best I can hope for is that, if they know me personally, they will come to know that I am sincere in my beliefs, and that these beliefs affect who I am and the decisions I make, for the better for myself and for those around me.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Climate scientists don't typically use mouse models if that's what you were asking.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Have gnu, will travel.
You can't prove that Jesus isn't the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, either.
In principle, you could. Unfortunately the evidence of the FSM's sterilization at the hands of the Great Pasta Fork prior to reaching puberty has been lost to time.
Oh, I fixed your quotation marks for you.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It also desensitizes people to truly important things. I feel that there would be a lot less backlash to things like climate change if they weren't force fed bullshit nonstop. Thanks in large part to useless science reporting, people believe that science is indecisive and incompetent. I still remembering wtf'ing about the back and forth "eggs are good" "eggs are bad" a couple decades ago.
IMO a reporter needs to have taken courses in stats and spend time doing actual research before being allowed to report it.
From what I understand, 99% of the mice experiments findings and results also apply to humans because our DNA is so similar. Is this wrong? How often does something affect mice differently than humans? [emphasis added]
Quite often actually.
As just one example, mice are rarely affected by what an AC contributes enough on /. to bother replying.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Yes, this is an abortion of an article, to mice.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
AC's feelings don't care about your facts.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
Silicon Valley Is Replacing Libertarianism With Socialism, In Mice.
Indeed. When everything is hyped, even scientists have a hard time separating hype from fact. It becomes excessively tiresome.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The last common ancestor between humans and mice lived 75 million years ago. As a comparison, the last common ancestor between cows and orcas lived 50 million years ago, but nobody would think it would be a good idea to use cow studies to determine what's best for an orca.
It's ok, I've already started a twitter for climate scientists. After every paper, I append, "on earth." "Glaciers melting" on earth. "Oceans rising" on earth. I'm just sick of these ETs getting too hyperbolic misinterpreting the material on their own planet, the heliocentric fools.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You don't need to be a researcher in order to read the effing paper beyond headline before you write a news article about it. And you don't have to be a researcher in order to not make shit up that the original paper doesn't actually include.
As per TFS:
"Keto Diet Not Effective, Causes Blood Sugar Problems In Women" results in "Keto Diet Not Effective, Causes Blood Sugar Problems In Women In Mice".
How do women fit in mice?
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
When you read those headlines, just remember to add those two words...
"In mice."
So, is this like the new fortune cookie rule? If anyone is still unfamiliar with the fortune cookie rule, you're supposed to add ", in bed" to the end of your fortune.
Now for any research article we're supposed to add ", in Mice" to the end.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
This isn't a joke (the original article), it shows that most 'science' is a waste of time, and much of it is fraudulent.
No it doesn't. Data is data, and information is information. It's all useful, it just means that you shouldn't place TOO much stock in any theory or observation that hasn't been independantly verified yet. It doesn't mean that the science is useless.
If "product A" is shown to cause cancer, and then later retests disagree... that doesn't mean the original test was "wrong", it means, we need to look more into the methods used. Perhaps something else caused the cancer and by studying what went wrong we can help determine something else useful. Or perhaps it was "statistical noise"- it happens. A "product A" causes cancer is a good start to reinvestigate something, even if it turns out to be false, it's a better lead than "random product" for investigation.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Nope. Academia is set up to produce *lots* of competent scientists, mostly because grad students and postdocs are cheap, highly skilled labor. About 1% of those get a faculty job somewhere. Some others marry someone with a good enough job that they can entertain their academic habit as a research associate or equivalent. Most of the rest head off to industry, often doing things that are tangentially, or not at all related to their training. But quite a few try to become science popularizers, writing blogs, making YouTube videos, etc. Hire some of them as your science journalists.
It's not a waste of time, nor fraudulent. There is a bit of that of course, but you have to realize that a single study is not meant to be "right." Lots of scientists don't get that either. An individual study is meant to test something within certain limits. For the vast majority of studies, those limits are set wide (making them narrow costs a lot of money) and are designed to indicate whether a particular direction is promising or not. If so, you're supposed to follow up with a bigger, better study. If it continues to be promising, you eventually get to the point where you can fairly confidently say it's real.
In medicine, the process is somewhat formalized. You start with "preclinical" studies which are the single-grad student using ten mice variety. If it looks good you might try to replicate it yourself (if you're smart). Then you do a phase I trial in humans: usually a very small number, mostly for safety, but you're also looking to see an indication that the drug might work in people. Then phase II, which is bigger, but still not conclusive. Phase III is the big "does this actually work" trial, and for approval the FDA often requires more than one. Then, when the drug is approved, a phase IV study looks at how the drug works in actual use.
The majority of "could not be replicated" studies in pharma are drug companies bitching that they couldn't replicate the preclinical stuff, which is entirely unsurprising.
The *problem* is that so many people, including scientists, take a scientific paper, which is meant as "hey guys, we tried this thing and got this interesting result, maybe you could look too?" and treat it as Truth with a capital T.
When everything is hyped, even scientists have a hard time separating hype from fact. It becomes excessively tiresome, in mice
FTFY
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