Gosh I hope this doesn't come off as too negative, but what is the point finding these 'links'?
Science is about trying to explain the world, not looking for random facts.
We learn nothing of substance about coffee, health or anything else from this article. Yet it has the appearance of being scientific, for example, it mentions antioxidants.
It wouldn't be fair to label it pseudoscience however it does share some of the features.
People are starting to learn by now that correlation doesn't imply causation, but they still think it is suggestive of causation, or makes causation more probable, or something like that.
To try to dispel that: the fact that coffee drinking correlates positively with life expectancy is logically consistent with coffee acting to reduce lifespan. More importantly, knowing causes is not very helpful since pretty much everything causes pretty much everything else.
What is useful is solving problems and trying to explain the world. That's what people like Newton, Darwin and Einstein were doing.
FWIW my guess is that drinking coffee causes people to eat less food which might indeed result in greater health, though this doesn't seem like a fruitful line of enquiry.
Do you know on how many centuries of tabulating 'links' Newton, Darwin, and Einstein built their work? Apart from modesty, there is truth in Newton's claim about standing on the shoulders of giants.
Also, this is not a random fact. People have argued both ways whether coffe is healthy or not. If we want doctors to give advice based on facts, we have to, somehow, figure out who (if anybody) is right there. Barring a clear mechanism either way, looking for facts is a step towards scientific understanding.
"What is useful is solving problems and trying to explain the world. That's what people like Newton, Darwin and Einstein were doing."
Of course. And that's why they are in the history books.
But now the most part of "scientific studies" have two objectives:
- Meet grant / tenure criteria of published papers
- Prove the new drug by "Big Pharma" is better than the old one whose patents are expiring. The fact that several are disproved afterwards is irrelevant.
At least we still have the LHC guys, the Hubble guys, MSL, AMS. But don't be surprised if those are accused of not being "real scientists" as well.
Comments
Gosh I hope this doesn't come off as too negative, but what is the point finding these 'links'?
Science is about trying to explain the world, not looking for random facts.
We learn nothing of substance about coffee, health or anything else from this article. Yet it has the appearance of being scientific, for example, it mentions antioxidants.
It wouldn't be fair to label it pseudoscience however it does share some of the features.
People are starting to learn by now that correlation doesn't imply causation, but they still think it is suggestive of causation, or makes causation more probable, or something like that.
To try to dispel that: the fact that coffee drinking correlates positively with life expectancy is logically consistent with coffee acting to reduce lifespan. More importantly, knowing causes is not very helpful since pretty much everything causes pretty much everything else.
What is useful is solving problems and trying to explain the world. That's what people like Newton, Darwin and Einstein were doing.
FWIW my guess is that drinking coffee causes people to eat less food which might indeed result in greater health, though this doesn't seem like a fruitful line of enquiry.
Do you know on how many centuries of tabulating 'links' Newton, Darwin, and Einstein built their work? Apart from modesty, there is truth in Newton's claim about standing on the shoulders of giants.
Also, this is not a random fact. People have argued both ways whether coffe is healthy or not. If we want doctors to give advice based on facts, we have to, somehow, figure out who (if anybody) is right there. Barring a clear mechanism either way, looking for facts is a step towards scientific understanding.
"What is useful is solving problems and trying to explain the world. That's what people like Newton, Darwin and Einstein were doing."
Of course. And that's why they are in the history books.
But now the most part of "scientific studies" have two objectives:
- Meet grant / tenure criteria of published papers
- Prove the new drug by "Big Pharma" is better than the old one whose patents are expiring. The fact that several are disproved afterwards is irrelevant.
At least we still have the LHC guys, the Hubble guys, MSL, AMS. But don't be surprised if those are accused of not being "real scientists" as well.