On 12/6/03 3:08 PM, in article
2, "Tommy"
> wrote:
> Something that is interesting about the science and medical field
> especially in the academic departments is the publish or perish clause.
> Many things that are published is just to "save their job" and are
> really useless. Any study that been done with such few MRI tests is
> purly usless,there are not enough data points to make any claim. Enjoy
> your brews is my view.
I find this statement to be a bit ignorant and uninformed. Publish or Perish
does not necessarily mean that many published science articles are junk.
Legitimate scientific journals require usually three or more independent
reviewers to evaluate the validity and importance of the work before it is
published. The higher profile journals tend to be even more stringent in
these requirements. To say the science is useless, especially without
reading the paper yourself, is unfair. Most "useless" science is weeded out
in the review process and never sees the light of ink.
Please note that the AUTHORS of the paper did not claim there was a direct
causal relationship. They simply presented their data for the community. It
seems to me it is the news media that has splashed these headlines around.
And, it was not a "few MRI tests" that are the basis of this paper. They had
almost 2000 MRI's which is pretty significant statistically. The fact that
they only had one MRI per patient, and no information on progression over
time, led them to appropriately not make a causal claim. They only claim
that there is a positive association of alcohol intake and brain atrophy.
This does not imply cause, just that they found them together.
If you are interested, here is a link to the abstract for this manuscript:
http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/co...105929.88691.8
Ev1?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&autho r1=Ding&searchid=107076089
9112_2443&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&search_url=h ttp%3A%2F%2Fstroke.ahajour
nals.org%2Fcgi%2Fsearch&journalcode=strokeaha
I don't mean to pick on you or anything, but as an academic scientist, I
felt compelled to respond to your statements and try to provide some
balance.
--
Greg Cook
http://homepage.mac.com/gregcook/Wine
(remove spamblocker from my email)