Bad science makes me cranky

The last couple days I've seen a lot of headlines along these lines: "Reading On A Screen Before Bed Might Be Killing You" (an actual headline) and yelping about a study published in the Proceedings of the National Acadamy of Sciences. So I followed a link to the PNAS and skimmed through the paper. (Here, if you're interested: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/12/18/1418490112.full.pdf+html )

And now I want to go kick rocks.

They studied TWELVE people for TEN days--they ought to be kicked in the rump for that by itself. A sample size of 12 is a high school science project, not something that gets reported in national media.

The "eReader" they used was an iPad, with the light cranked all the way up. My husband has an iPad, so we turned up the light all the way. In a well-lit room, it was bright enough to hurt your eyes and give you a freaking suntan. The study had people reading in a dim room for 4 hours before sleeping. So for their control they had people reading a paper book in a dim room and a low level reading light and the other people sitting in a dim room staring at a nuclear pile. (The tables in the paper showed the light put out by the iPad was more than 30 times the light level seen by the paper book readers.)

So if you stare into a bright light for 4 hours before you go to bed, it might take you 10 minutes more to go to sleep, and you might not sleep as well.

But the CHILDREN look at their devices for more than 4 hours a day, so they need another grant to do another study, sir. Please. It's for the children.

I'm not a biologist, and there may be some issues from light exposure late at night. But this study and the accompanying media frenzy has sure put a knot in my tail.

I think I'll go have a glass of tea with a big ol' scoop of saccharine in it.

 

PNAS published that? That is worse than writing it IMHO. We all need grants...

Stefan

 

I've studied Lucretia's assertions and conclude that I need a grant to make it a case study.

 

Oh don't get me started! Especially in the medical field...

 

Thanks Lucrecia! I wondered if it was something wrong with me, because I think those "eRider" related articles are ridiculously stupid. (btw reading for 4(!) hours before the sleep? Really?!)

 

There's quite a bit of anti-intellectualism floating around and a lot of cringeworthy commentary from self-absorbed, overconfident, underqualified people...some of whom really should know better.

I've occasionally taught scientific method and trial design to med professionals, and it is amazing how much resistance there can be. In some ways it's particularly bad because I get to butt heads with TCM pseudoscience folks who hear about all the "studies" validating their beliefs.

I will henceforth keep quiet but just wanted to share some sympathy.

 

Sounds familiar. Estimates are that clearly less than half of all medical procedures are based on sound evidence, and a physician's intuition seems to trump research at any time. Not bashing them, I have worked most of my life connected to medical schools and taught research methods etc, it just can be a very tiring experience... And don't get me started on medical 'dissertations', I have seen quite a few that would not have passed as a term paper in other disciplines....

Stefan

 

I have an iPad and read my ebooks on it exclusively. Your assessment of the brightness is pretty accurate. I keep the screen at less than half bright all the time, even when reading.
I can't imagine reading at full brightness with the white background...for 4 hours? OUCH! and in a dim room? YIKES.

I do my own scientific studies. I try something and if I don't like it I don't do it. If I do like it, I keep doing it.
Never fails me.

 

I fully support scientific research. I even appreciate how difficult medical research could be--you can't have a true control group while remaining ethical and humane. In fairness to the authors of the paper, they even pointed out some of the glaring fallacies of the study--the brightness of the device ("but new ones are brighter!"), they didn't have a longer wavelength light source for comparison, etc. The whole thing read like a tiny study that was performed to enable the author to apply for grant money. I don't even have a problem with that--if an experiment is well planned and scientifically valid. What hacks me off about this one is that I wasn't able to read a newspaper or watch tv news without someone wailing about this particular study showing that your eReader might give you cancer. Looking at how the study was performed, it seemed there were far too many variables between the control (printed book) and electronic device to be able to make any conclusions. Maybe that was the point. Set up some extreme circumstances, then publish some data claiming something bad is happening. Stir the masses into a frenzy, then when you get funding you can go do some real science.

 

How does Weird Science make you feel?

 

Let's see...a couple bright guys with a limited budget go from concept to working prototype in 94 minutes. I'm all for it!

 

Bad science, kind of like childrens vaccines causing autism.....

 

Check out "The Food Babe" if you wanna get really pissed.

 

How dare you say that about my food babe. I mean she is hot, so she HAS to know all about food science and what Myself and my family should eat right?

 

There is a lot of research going into this stuff.

I have the same hairstyle but mine is gray.

 

"Food Babe", is it? I already don't like her. You can call someone else a babe, you can consider yourself a babe in the privacy of your own mind, but if you go around telling other people you're a babe, you're an egomaniacal jackass deserving hair remover added to your shampoo.

Just my opinion, of course.

 

Wait till you read her self rightous sell appointe guardian of all that is healthy. See how she tries to "expose" big business for poisoning America all in the name of readership. Oh and wait till you read th responses of her mindless legions....but she does have some decent recipes so I filter all the crap for the once a month good recipie lol.

 

A little Snake Oil, anyone?

I do like the Food Hunk, tho.