Nice catch. When I was reading the first table, I thought, “Old object—that looks okay; new object, let’s see, 17, 28, 14?! Danger, Will Robinson! The fact that ‘old’ and ‘new’ match at 60 minutes is rather difficult to interpret in light of the results at 45 minutes. What are the error bars? Either this whole thing’s underpowered or something unexpected is going on in the so-called ‘control’ condition.”
(I’m translating sub-vocal thought fragments into full sentences here.)
Do you think that this problem never occurred to the authors, or did they try to pull a fast one (and succeed, at least on the referees)?
I don’t have an opinion on whether it occurred to the authors, and don’t think there’s any reason to form an opinion on that. If I didn’t think it was an easy error to make, I wouldn’t have written this post.
and don’t think there’s any reason to form an opinion on that.
One reason is to increase one’s understanding of how science and academia work in practice. Gaining such knowledge can be expected to improve one’s ability to update in the correct manner when reading other papers. (And to make myself clear I’ll add belief that there is no reason to form an opinion on that is something that is objectively false even though it a useful belief to signal.)
Nice catch. When I was reading the first table, I thought, “Old object—that looks okay; new object, let’s see, 17, 28, 14?! Danger, Will Robinson! The fact that ‘old’ and ‘new’ match at 60 minutes is rather difficult to interpret in light of the results at 45 minutes. What are the error bars? Either this whole thing’s underpowered or something unexpected is going on in the so-called ‘control’ condition.”
(I’m translating sub-vocal thought fragments into full sentences here.)
Do you think that this problem never occurred to the authors, or did they try to pull a fast one (and succeed, at least on the referees)?
I don’t have an opinion on whether it occurred to the authors, and don’t think there’s any reason to form an opinion on that. If I didn’t think it was an easy error to make, I wouldn’t have written this post.
One reason is to increase one’s understanding of how science and academia work in practice. Gaining such knowledge can be expected to improve one’s ability to update in the correct manner when reading other papers. (And to make myself clear I’ll add belief that there is no reason to form an opinion on that is something that is objectively false even though it a useful belief to signal.)