Beer-Drinking Scientist Debunks Productivity Correlation 130
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."
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)
Re: (Score:2)
We here at slashdot tend to forgive logical fallacies from time to time, but we, *in general* tend to loath tautologies. Just FYI.
The More You Know...
Re:Simply put (Score:4, Funny)
I've found a new co-relation: (Score:2, Funny)
Social activity leads to "rubbing shoulders" with those with the ability to affect your career. Argo:
Social activity with beer would likely lead to scientist's getting tenure; most people will agree that tenure doesn't help produce "quality" papers (defined as those likely to be sited a lot and in prestigious journals). Just like most nobel prize winners tend to do little productive work in their field after that accomplishment. I'm from a physics background, our
Hmm... do we need either of these studies? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hmm... do we need either of these studies? (Score:5, Funny)
Disclaimer, I am non of the above.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
More research required (Score:2)
You can be sure this is true by the comments posted to the blog, many of which run, "Hey, instead of trashing the Czech paper, you should conduct your own study and publish counter-results."
For the record, IAAS. (and I drink beer)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Hmm... do we need either of these studies? (Score:5, Funny)
Here [xkcd.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Hmm... do we need either of these studies? (Score:5, Funny)
I refuse to give up one entire food group!!!
Re: (Score:2)
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: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The idea in regression is to transform the IVs such that there is a linear relationship between them and the DVs. The transformations people make of IVs to make the relationship simple are a bit of a black art. Most people just get by with log since it solves any polynomial. It's easy enough to just keeping adding higher order polynomials until regression predicts a coefficient of 0 to t
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Not only that (Score:5, Funny)
If you consume beer through an IV I think you're a different type of drinker.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A bored scientist is no better than any other bored professional. You don't want to see what happens next...
Re: (Score:1)
A good question, it seems like wagon train cooks knew for years that
ringing the dinner 'bell' would bring the cowboys in from the trail,
and they would be salivating. It was not worth mentioning in a paper.
But Pavlov documents this behavior in dogs, and people think he was
great or something.
Such stuff is dubious at best.
earth to Cap'n Obvious... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:earth to Cap'n Obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
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?'
Maybe (Score:2, Funny)
Performance enhancing drugs (Score:3, Interesting)
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: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No.
Science is not a "competition", thus using "performance enhancing products" cannot invalidate the result. The result in science is approximation of truth and understanding. If it helps being high to formulate a certain theory, formulate it and eventually create the foundations for others to build further on, it isn't s
Re:Performance enhancing drugs (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the famous mathematician Paul Erdos [wikipedia.org] used amphetamines for this purpose:
-metric
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
To what end, exactly? If it's positive, everyone just agrees to forget the results of their research?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Heretical alchemy (Score:2)
"how do you accept these discoveries without supporting...[XYZ]?"
Does acceptance of Newton's Principa Mathematica automatically infer I support teaching math via 'visions' from a bowl of mecury?
Should I have read and supported the roughly one million words Newton wrote on the number 666 before I look at pictures from the Hubble telescope.
Must I support p
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Try bankers instead. I live close to Switzerland and it has quite the name of being a drugs paradise. I would also like to know what the people where taking that thought trading "subprimes" was a good idea, that certainly wasn't beer but must h
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
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Budvar vs. Old Milwaukee
Type Error: can't compare incompatible types.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Czech have much stronger (and better) beers:
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/breweries/brewers-directory-0-56.htm [ratebeer.com]
For europeans, american 'beer' is no beer.
Re:We all know what to do now: (Score:4, Informative)
If by "american beer" you mean Bud/Miller/Coors. However there are hundreds of American micros that produce excellent beer in far more styles than you'll find in Europe. American beer is far from being limited to the mass produced light lager produced by the aforementioned major breweries.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Few... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Of course, I should point out that "slash" in Australia is slang for 'P', so what does slashdot mean in that context?
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, just a biologist's perspective.
Re: (Score:1)
Some alcohol is good ... to a point (Score:1, Informative)
Social drinking leads to better job performance and career success. http://www.ithaca.edu/ithacan/articles/0610/05/opinion/2drinking_.htm [ithaca.edu]
Excess alcohol consumption, on the other hand, is almost always a bad thing. There are some studies that show the benefit of moderate consumption but there is no studies
xkcd was there first (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, and thanks for the clue about the second joke. Sometimes I wish there was a little guide that went along with the comics whenever there is something like that. Explaining a joke never makes it funny but since the second joke was already missed, it can make learning fun!
Wouldn't surprise me (Score:3)
Are they *better* scientists? I don't think so.
Are they *more productive* scientists? Not in every case, but on average, yeah, I'd say they are. There are situations where spending all your time on work and neglecting other aspects of your life is a self-defeating proposition, especially in creative work (which generally includes science, although what scientists actually *do* varies a lot from one scientist to another.)
But burn-out aside, if you're willing to sacrifice other aspects of your life, you can get more science done. Pretending that this is not, generally speaking, true, because you want to pretend that it doesn't cost you anything to have a life, is not productive.
That said, the article-author is right about the statistics. Bad Czechs!
That Explains... (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps there is a cause and effect (Score:5, Funny)
Talk about wrong profession! (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
not just beer (Score:3, Insightful)
i drink a mixed drink every evening after supper daily and only one, using a shotglass to measure the amount, i do enjoy a mild buzz but i hate being drunk and i dislike drunks since they can cause lots of problems (loss of careers/jobs, wrecked marriages, even cause fatal traffic accidents on the road)...
moderation is the key...
Re: (Score:2)
My boss buys us racks of beer and anytime after 3 in the afternoon if you enter our office you will see us with beers out, brainstorming, etc. You will also be offered a beer.
We get some of our best work done this way.
So, how did the 5 ornithologists respond to him? (Score:5, Funny)
Is this really that surprising? (Score:2)
Pipe smoking increases scientific productivity? (Score:1)
"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.
Re: (Score:2)
There are times when real science transcends mere mathematics. So kindly quit making sense, shut up, and drink this (if I were nearby, a beer would be in your immediate future).
Cheers!
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Also should we really claim that 5 out of 34 (15% of the sample!) constitute OUTLIERS? Those aren't outliers, those are a subpopulation.
Removing those 5 points drops the correlation down to -0.35. The pearson correlation assumes that both data points are normally distributed-- the citation data are, the drinking data are not. Both the 5 heavy drinkers and the 4 light drinkers move the data away from a normal distribution, which makes any interpretation of pearson correlation rather sketchy. With that said, even the ranked order tests perform moderately well (-0.42 for kendals, -0.57 for spearman).
Here are the stripped data from the imag
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And we are actually spending time talking about it?
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't pay him any attention anyway, he's a self confessed beer drinker and so by definition doesn't know what he's talking about.
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: (Score:1)
Re:R^2 = 0.5 Ain't Bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I agree with the first part, but not with the second. R^2 of
For example, sociability might be highly correlated with beer drinking and performance. There is likely to be a lot
Mod Responses Up (Score:2)
Symes sez:
> but with such a small sample size the researchers would not have been able to adjust for
> exposure, or age in this case....
> age could easily explain this beer/science relationship - younger scientists drink more - as could a whole host of other variables.
A small N should have the same effect on all the variables. Without seein
Whew! (Score:2)
I can't believe no one said it? (Score:2, Funny)
Doesn't it make sense (Score:1)
His drinking while debunking debunks his analysis! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
As for people complaining about it... does it really upset you guy
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)