I don’t understand. Why is “they used the wrong statistical formula” worth 47 upvotes on the main article? Because people here are interested in supplementation? Because it’s a fun math problem?
Both. It’s instrumental in that vitamin supplementation is a concern many here have. It’s also useful as an example of how studies can have flaws, and how these flaws can be found with surprisingly little analysis. Dissections of bad studies helps us avoid similar flaws in our own conclusions. And there are indeed researchers on LessWrong, as well as motivated laymen that can follow the math, and even run their own mathematical regressions. This truly is valuable.
Both. It’s instrumental in that vitamin supplementation is a concern many here have. It’s also useful as an example of how studies can have flaws, and how these flaws can be found with surprisingly little analysis. Dissections of bad studies helps us avoid similar flaws in our own conclusions. And there are indeed researchers on LessWrong, as well as motivated laymen that can follow the math, and even run their own mathematical regressions. This truly is valuable.