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Comment by ComradePhil | Hacker News Reader

None of these studies are done with proper control, because there are restrictions to human experimentation. Even if it was studied for entire lifespans of a billion people, there would still not be enough data to conclude that any particular factor is definitely causative.

So, it is incredibly dishonest to present this (or any nutrition "science" study for that matter) as science. It's no better than guessing or astrology.

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The paper in The Lancet is most definitely science. What is not science is leaping to any conclusions based on the findings documented in a single paper. Science is slow, unfortunately. Given sufficient time, science will, with a high degree of confidence positively correlated with the time we wait, enrich our understanding of the natural world.

If you believe a peer reviewed paper on the Lancet is no better than guessing, you may have misconceptions and misunderstandings about what science is and how it works.

OR if you believe studiying self-reported data from 130k people gives us definite causative link between a single nutrient and lifespan/mortality, you should do yourself and the world a favor and get out of profession where any intellect may be required.

What? Science isn’t science because humans can’t be properly controlled for a study? Are you implying a study over a billion people over their lifespan wouldn’t be worth pursuing because it can’t be controlled? That’s ridiculous if you are. The study doesn’t even say it’s causative, but associated.

> Science isn’t science because humans can’t be properly controlled for a study?

No, non-science isn't science just because someone wants it to be.

> Are you implying a study over a billion people over their lifespan wouldn’t be worth pursuing because it can’t be controlled?

It should be pursued, and correlations explored and studied but the findings should be presented as what they are.

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