Terps Gonna Terp

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

I dunno about you, but I'm plenty happy not to be dealing with those jerks this year:

5904

Stunning, really... (http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/01/chocolate-milk-concussion-scandal.html?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link#)

[MCFinARL]

Agree this is stunning, doubt this sort of thing is limited to UMd.

As universities increasingly try to run themselves like businesses, the pressure to bring in more research funding increases; the pressure on individual researchers to come up with results pleasing to the funders increases commensurately. And that's leaving aside the general pressure on academic researchers to come up with something new, exciting, and potentially publishable.

It's a snake pit.

[rthomas]

Agree this is stunning, doubt this sort of thing is limited to UMd.

As universities increasingly try to run themselves like businesses, the pressure to bring in more research funding increases; the pressure on individual researchers to come up with results pleasing to the funders increases commensurately. And that's leaving aside the general pressure on academic researchers to come up with something new, exciting, and potentially publishable.

It's a snake pit.

Anil Potti would agree.

[CDu]

Agree this is stunning, doubt this sort of thing is limited to UMd.

As universities increasingly try to run themselves like businesses, the pressure to bring in more research funding increases; the pressure on individual researchers to come up with results pleasing to the funders increases commensurately. And that's leaving aside the general pressure on academic researchers to come up with something new, exciting, and potentially publishable.

It's a snake pit.

As someone who works for a large contract research organization, I can concur that pressure to find positive results from the funding source is very real. Thankfully my company puts ethical research standards first ahead of publishing. Ethics has probably cost me numerous publication opportunities over the years, but I can sleep well at night knowing that the work I do is legitimate. And the vast majority of work funded by owners of the study product is legitimate, too.

Unfortunately, in academia, there is the "publish or perish" system. As MCFinARL notes, when combined with pressure from the funding source for positive results, it can lead to shadiness by the researcher if their ethics are shaky.

[sagegrouse]

As someone who works for a large contract research organization, I can concur that pressure to find positive results from the funding source is very real. Thankfully my company puts ethical research standards first ahead of publishing. Ethics has probably cost me numerous publication opportunities over the years, but I can sleep well at night knowing that the work I do is legitimate. And the vast majority of work funded by owners of the study product is legitimate, too.

Unfortunately, in academia, there is the "publish or perish" system. As MCFinARL notes, when combined with pressure from the funding source for positive results, it can lead to shadiness by the researcher if their ethics are shaky.


Good points, and the Maryland report was even worse because there wasn't even a study to review -- much less a "peer-reviewed" study. Moreover, the researcher was out of the country. Hmmm....

[FerryFor50]

This is low, even for Maryland.

[budwom]

I'm reminded of the John Belushi (large protruding belly and all) sketch 40 years ago in which, taking on the persona of Bruce Jenner, he attributed
his decathlon gold medal effort to "little chocolate donuts."

[CDu]

Good points, and the Maryland report was even worse because there wasn't even a study to review -- much less a "peer-reviewed" study. Moreover, the researcher was out of the country. Hmmm...

Well, to be fair, there almost certainly was a study conducted. I highly doubt the researcher would completely fabricate a story and then choose to use a P-value threshold of P<0.10 for it. The only thing we know though is that the study hadn't been published or peer-reviewed and that the university's PR didn't get much detail on the study. The latter is not necessarily a surprise: PR isn't suited to review scientific research at any institution, so they would have only asked for the PPT at pretty much any company/university.

The other issue is that it appears to have just not been a very good study design and the results were unequivocally favorable anyway. Though it is fair to note that a P<0.10 is still fairly significant, just not as significant as the scientific community has arbitrarily set forth as the standard. So we have a questionable study design and good but not unequivocally good results from that questionable study design. And somehow this study made it to the PR department with nobody stopping it.

As someone who is not a university employee, I'm not sure where the screwup lies. Clearly a lot (most) of it is on the researcher for conducting a study of somewhat shaky design (should have at least included a placebo arm of some sort). I'm not sure what the rules are about press releases on unpublished work, but I wouldn't necessarily blame the PR department as they surely aren't suited to review and determine if a study is of suitable quality for the press. Perhaps there are internal bars (intra-departmental review procedures) that were not conducted properly before the study was sent to the PR department.

[Henderson]

Interesting, but this kind of stuff does slip through the cracks at research universities sometimes. It shouldn't but it does. Has nothing to do with basketball, of course, so I'm not sure why this thread exists here rather than "Off Topic."

[CDu]

Interesting, but this kind of stuff does slip through the cracks at research universities sometimes. It shouldn't but it does. Has nothing to do with basketball, of course, so I'm not sure why this thread exists here rather than "Off Topic."

I agree. I don't see anything clearly nefarious here. It wasn't a good study and probably shouldn't have made it to the PR department. But these sorts of things do happen. It is possible that something more nefarious is going on, but more likely it was just a mediocre study that didn't get reviewed by someone with know-how before going to the PR dept.

[Wander]

As someone who is not a university employee, I'm not sure where the screwup lies. Clearly a lot (most) of it is on the researcher for conducting a study of somewhat shaky design (should have at least included a placebo arm of some sort). I'm not sure what the rules are about press releases on unpublished work, but I wouldn't necessarily blame the PR department as they surely aren't suited to review and determine if a study is of suitable quality for the press. Perhaps there are internal bars (intra-departmental review procedures) that were not conducted properly before the study was sent to the PR department.

I find the fact that there was a PR release a little strange. I think in my field I've only seen university press releases on published work. At least for press releases that are about specific scientific studies - press releases on people or events are OK. But the article here looked like it was about the study, not the scientist. The PR department not being qualified is exactly why this practice should be in place, so I think I am OK with giving them a good amount of blame here.

[Tom B.]

Interesting, but this kind of stuff does slip through the cracks at research universities sometimes.

And sometimes, it happens right out in the open (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Kehoe).

Don't believe me? Just ask this scientician. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWi8uvIEqv0)

[CDu]

I find the fact that there was a PR release a little strange. I think in my field I've only seen university press releases on published work. At least for press releases that are about specific scientific studies - press releases on people or events are OK. But the article here looked like it was about the study, not the scientist. The PR department not being qualified is exactly why this practice should be in place, so I think I am OK with giving them a good amount of blame here.

Yeah, I would definitely prefer a system where only peer-reviewed and published scientific studies get submitted to the PR dept. If that is the standard, then certainly some blame goes to the PR dept for proceeding with the story. If there isn't such a rule in place, then it falls on the department to police their own researchers and "vet" the work before sending it up the food chain to folks who don't know anything about research. If that happened, then shame on the department for supporting with such shaky research.

[MCFinARL]

Yeah, I would definitely prefer a system where only peer-reviewed and published scientific studies get submitted to the PR dept. If that is the standard, then certainly some blame goes to the PR dept for proceeding with the story. If there isn't such a rule in place, then it falls on the department to police their own researchers and "vet" the work before sending it up the food chain to folks who don't know anything about research. If that happened, then shame on the department for supporting with such shaky research.

Getting back to this thread after a few days. I used to work at a university that was pushing hard to get positive press and additional research funding, and there was a large press/PR operation focused on positioning the university as actively involved in research [you would be right in concluding that this university was not "elite"]. So there was often coverage of unpublished studies in progress. BUT these always focused on the hypotheses and the methods, and they were very clear about the fact either that findings were preliminary/suggestive or that there were, as yet, no findings. Often they took the form of feature stories about the researchers rather than hard news.

So it is, definitely, possible to draw those lines in a responsible way. That that apparently didn't happen here suggests either that the PR department had sloppy guidelines or that the department conducting the research did--though of course it could have just been an isolated screw-up.

[Jeffrey]

Has nothing to do with basketball, of course, so I'm not sure why this thread exists here rather than "Off Topic."

That makes two of us!

[hudlow]

I'm guessing Terps think Yoohoos and Tru moo is real chocolate milk.

[westwall]

I dunno about you, but I'm plenty happy not to be dealing with those jerks this year:

5904

Stunning, really... (http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/01/chocolate-milk-concussion-scandal.html?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link#)

After reading the article linked, my first thought was : This is hilarious. My second thought was: Kedsy needs to analyze the data.