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Scientists' Success Or Failure Correlated With Beer
Posted by
kdawson
on Wednesday March 19, @05:34AM
from the malt-does-more-than-milton-can dept.
from the malt-does-more-than-milton-can dept.
mernil sends in an article from the NYTimes that casts a glance at a study done in the Czech Republic (natch) on what divides the successful scientists from the duffers. "Ever since there have been scientists, there have been those who are wildly successful, publishing one well-received paper after another, and those who are not. And since nearly the same time, there have been scholars arguing over what makes the difference. What is it that turns one scientist into more of a Darwin and another into more of a dud? After years of argument over the roles of factors like genius, sex, and dumb luck, a new study shows that something entirely unexpected and considerably sudsier may be at play in determining the success or failure of scientists — beer."
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Firehose:The success or failure of scientists spells beer. by Anonymous Coward
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Beer-Drinking Scientist Debunks Productivity Correlation 130 comments
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."
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teh goggles... (Score:5, Funny)
Oddly enough, that finding carries over to Hookers, as well.
Re:teh goggles... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:teh goggles... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:teh goggles... (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll find plenty of company at the faculty lounge.
Just ask for Bruce:
"Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya'
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed. "
Re:teh goggles... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:teh goggles... (Score:5, Funny)
Oddly enough, that finding carries over to Hookers, as well
But not Governors
what is cause and effect? (Score:5, Insightful)
because the correlation just means 3 things:
1) they are unrelated
2) more drinking => bad scientist
3) bad scientist => more drinking
Re:what is cause and effect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what is cause and effect? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:what is cause and effect? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they picked two things that don't go well together and blamed the lack of one for the existence of the other. I've seen some evidence that shows good artists are all depressed whackjobs. Of course theoretical physicists have had some social issues too. There are correlations to other things, but we don't quite understand what they are. I think the human brain/body has a lot to do with the chemicals floating around inside it, and definitely when you remove the chemicals they stop working but exactly how they all interact is still a bit more mysterious than saying beer has a direct effect on good science.
Re:what is cause and effect? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also: How many scientists have not been pushed into obsession because lack of companionship? You know Newton never married and never had a girlfriend. He didn't have too many friends either I think. So could not some of his work have been created by a man that had nothing else to do? By someone who is desperately fighting the loneliness that comes creeping up anytime he closes the book?
I have written some of my best things (granted, I'm still just studying for a BS) on a saturday or a friday night. You simply have so much more uninterrupted time to get very heavily into something you are working on. The downside is, of course, loneliness.
Re:what is cause and effect? (Score:5, Insightful)
It boils down to this: successful scientific workhorses simply don't have the time to socialize.
I am sure that this can be extrapolated to other professions as well -- especially anything that demands a lot of concentration.
On the upside highly successful scientists doesn't regret being singletons, after all they are successful because they are passionate about what they are doing, so no sacrifice here I'd say.
Re:what is cause and effect? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the flip side though if you are always obsessing about your projects then you are probably missing some important piece of the puzzle that you would get if you just slept or if you let your mind switch gears. I know I was exhausted and making bone-headed moves at work. Then some friends came to visit for 5 days, we partied it up and at the end of it I went back to work and did some pretty darned amazing work. Stuff I thought I couldn't do just came easy to me.
Sometimes a little distance is a good thing, and beer helps you get that distance rather quickly. Of course many people cross the fine line between drinking too much, causing you to be unproductive.
I'd say balance is always a good thing, just like a little exercise helps you clear your mind allowing you to concentrate better than if you'd just sat there for 18 hours straight coding.
Re:what is cause and effect? (Score:5, Funny)
Repeat after me:
Coroloshn...
Corrorro...
Corrorashnisnotcausashn.
There. I sssayed it.
:)
Paper beers (Score:5, Interesting)
WWFD? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yay for statistics (Score:5, Interesting)
Statistics are like miniskirts; they show a lot but hide the most important facts.
Many problems with that study (Score:5, Interesting)
a) Correlation does not imply causation. Some regions are generally poorer, meaning their universities get less money, they attract less good scientists, etc. And these regions also have higher alcohol consumption. And so observation that alcohol consumption anti-correlates with scientific achievements doesn't necessarily imply that drinking makes you bad scientist.
b) I just moved from UK to USA and the amount of alcohol people drink in UK is completely unheard of in USA. Basically, we used to have three British pints 4 times a week. Properly drunk. In USA I can convince my colleagues to have one beer (over two hours!!) once a week. And yet, UK is THE most scientifically successful country per dollar spent.
c) My feeling is actually the opposite: alcohol acts as a social lubricant and many personal frictions can get dissolved that way. After two pints, the guy who you hate so much for having more papers than you, suddenly seems an ok chap. People are more likely to speak about their work, share opinions on papers, don't be secretive about future projects, etc. This effect must have bigger positive impact than negative effects of drinking.
Re:Many problems with that study (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More fun; Better results! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More fun; Better results! (Score:5, Funny)
Enjoying a little beer tonight, are we?
Re:Pfft. (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA, it's the opposite (Score:5, Informative)
So basically what it says is: altered states won't actually make you more creative. Or at least not alcohol and not in science.
So basically put down the bong, lay off the booze, and get some honest sober work done, if you're in science. Maybe being drunk and/or stoned off your arse works for arts, I wouldn't know, you may stick to that myth for now. But if you want to discover the next particle, apparently nothing beats having the neurons working normally, without other crap interfering with your synapses and clouding your judgment.
Can't say it's that surprising, really. I can even imagine how if you're, say a painter, you could get the colourful vision for your next painting while you're on acid. But science is less about crazy ideas and more about maths, evaluating those ideas based on critical cause->effect thinking, and the like. And it's getting more abstract by the year. And I can tell you first hand, that at least being drunk (no idea about other altered states) doesn't really help you with maths and logic. _Maybe_ being too drunk to draw a straight line helps when painting some modern art stuff, but not with science.
Re:Beer, is there anything it can't hurt? (Score:5, Funny)
I prefer not to answer that because it is well known that people like you are prone to violence due to your stunted intellect.
Re:Beer, is there anything it can't hurt? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've done a bit of home brewing, and the funny thing is that an American style beer is actually an extremely difficult style of beer to make. Replacing much of the malt with rice means that you end up with a very light flavor. The tiniest off flavor is immediately detectable. Get anything wrong with the fermentation, or the water, or the storage and it tastes really bad.
In contrast, I've made Russian Imperial Stouts that have a starting specific gravity so dense the hydrometer wouldn't go into the wort, it just sat on top. Practically speaking, the wort was syrup. While the recipe is complicated in that it has lots of stuff in it, it's actually quite easy to succeed with. You could probably brew it with swamp water, and the three types of malt plus roasted buckwheat would beat the swamp muck taste into a mere "peaty overtone".
When I started homebrewing, wife was afraid I was going to turn into an alcoholic, but in fact there are easier ways to get drunk than spending a day mixing sticky ingredients in carefully sterilized equipment then nursing a yeast culture for weeks before you get something minimally drinkable. I got interested in brewing for its chemistry-set aspects; I'd been mucking around with sour dough and yogurt, and moved onto brewing as a logical next step.
The thing is, I still don't drink very much, and I give away most of what I make. For myself, I'd bottle my beer in six ounce bottles if I could, since I'm more interested in the flavor and feel of the beer than its effects. But I do know a lot more about what is a good beer and what is a bad beer than before. And American "Pilsners" are not bad beers, they're just uninteresting beers (and they certainly aren't the same thing as "real" Czech style pilsners). Since, when I am thirsty, I prefer water to beer, and when I am drinking beer, I prefer complex to simple, I don't bother with beers like Bud. But they have their place; I've heard them called "lawnmower beers".