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Beer-Drinking Scientist Debunks Productivity Correlation
Posted by
kdawson
on Sunday March 23, @10:02PM
from the sipping-a-magnificent-pacific-northwest-microbrew-porter dept.
from the sipping-a-magnificent-pacific-northwest-microbrew-porter dept.
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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Scientists' Success Or Failure Correlated With Beer 348 comments
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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Simply put (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Simply put (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Simply put (Score:4, Funny)
what is this mythical substance of which you speak?
Re:Simply put (Score:5, Funny)
In Other news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In Other news (Score:5, Funny)
That was based on a misquote. The original conversation was 'Dude...do you think they have string cheese on Mars...like that would be so coool. Pass the Doritos?'
Sketch... (Score:5, Funny)
This has to be a lost Monty Python sketch, right?
Re:Sketch... (Score:5, Funny)
We all know what to do now: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We all know what to do now: (Score:4, Funny)
Some suggestions:
Pilsener Urquell vs. Milwaukee's Best
Budvar vs. Old Milwaukee
Few... (Score:4, Funny)
That Explains... (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps there is a cause and effect (Score:5, Funny)
So, how did the 5 ornithologists respond to him? (Score:5, Funny)
"Gentleman Scientist" is confused.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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^2 = 0.5 Ain't Bad (Score:5, Informative)
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!
Re:earth to Cap'n Obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... do we need either of these studies? (Score:5, Funny)
Disclaimer, I am non of the above.
Re:Hmm... do we need either of these studies? (Score:5, Funny)
Here [xkcd.com]
Not only that (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Not only that (Score:5, Funny)
If you consume beer through an IV I think you're a different type of drinker.
Re:Hmm... do we need either of these studies? (Score:5, Funny)
I refuse to give up one entire food group!!!
Re:Performance enhancing drugs (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure it would. I can see it now:
"I just got the results of your drug test
Re:Performance enhancing drugs (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the famous mathematician Paul Erdos [wikipedia.org] used amphetamines for this purpose:
-metric
Re:xkcd was there first (Score:5, Informative)
"Ballmer peak" is, FYI, a joke [wikipedia.org] that's going over the heads of all you science-illiterate server monkeys.