I Ain't Saying It's A Grave Digger, But In Ain't Messing With No Broke Papers
My prediction about the utility of not reading the whole article comes true, again.
I had someone ask me to look at their data on Photobiomodulation. Oh my.1
“Did you read that newsletter?”
I'm not saying this is a scam, but much like our friend Kayne…
I was asked to review papers. Just two days ago, I wrote and article about how to waste less time reading research by using simple Rules like:
“if table one indicates it’s not a successful randomization, you can stop now.”
If table one doesn't fit, you must acquit…yourself from responsibility to read the rest of the paper.
What else do we got?
Ok. Phase I data. I’m not buying a product for my clinic yet.
What else do you have? Oh…this is promising…
But wait…this info isn’t what goes in table 2!
And…
I have yet to see a paper on photobiomodulation that is an actual science experiment for the treatment of a disease in which the randomization was successful. This is not to say there could not be such a paper.
But as of yet, I have no evidence that this does anything other than modify metabolic activity in healthy controls. Keep in mind, I didn't have to read much, I don't have to understand the science, I just had to look at the formatting and use the basic principles, that, by chance, I described earlier this week.
Science is very formulaic when it's done well, and when it goes off formula, it's probably because there's something fishy, or loose, or something that isn't worth our time yet.
This is the third article I've had to write about this modality, so I'm getting a little bit suspicious. If anybody wants me to run a med device FDA clearance or de novo clinical trial… I know I just 💩 posted your modality, and this is crazy, but here's my newsletter, so call me maybe?
Remember—I known nothing about this modality. I’m just looking at if the authors can follow the rules of formatting in scientific publishing.
Hi Owen, thanks for posting these two articles. They have been genuinely very useful for a physicist like me trying to make heads or tails of psychiatric research!
I have another potentially useful trick - language used often gives away hints of bias. The recent paper on the new room temp 'superconductor' LK-99, for instance, starts with: "For the first time in the world, we succeeded in synthesizing the room-temperature superconductor". I stopped reading there - it read more like a newspaper headline than scientific writing. It is very, very easy as a researcher to see what you want to see, rather than what is actually there. Their claims might be true (though on recent evidence, probably not) but as you put it in your previous article, better to wait for the replications...
Loving the newsletter and I am amazed how frequently you can pump out these articles!