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Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

Using national data sets, ANOVA, and, you know "science" (specifically the M part of STEM).

https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2023/08/17/jech-2023-2205...

    Methods: We use data on housing and DNA methylation from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, linked with prior survey responses from the British Household Panel Survey, covering adults in Great Britain. We explore the association between epigenetic ageing and housing circumstances, both contemporary and historical, using hierarchical regression.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_of_variance

Note that one of the three authors is a Professor of Biological and Social Epidemiology, University of Essex

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology

That's literally a science of teasing small factors out of noisy data in a turgid sea of messy correlations.

I suspect the authors are across your concerns and perhaps understand them as well, if not better, than you might.

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The alleged effect.

> Every year of private renting was associated with an extra 2.4 weeks of aging on average.

The alleged solution.

> Our finding that renting social housing was no different to outright ownership lends weight to calls for greater support for social housing.

As for

> I suspect the authors are across your concerns and perhaps understand them as well, if not better, than you might.

This study is in the same category as any other study undertaken in service of a political goal. The authors would not publish a study that disagrees with their politics anymore than cigarette companies prior to the days of public awareness would have published a study showing cigarettes as anything other than utterly harmless.

The days of expecting any semi-coherent audience to stop thinking and accept everything that follows as fact as soon as the words "scientific research" and "professor" appear are long, long gone.

Unfortunately, following the recent exposés of Dan Ariely, Francesca Gino, and so many others, I have to agree.

The "science" that makes news articles is particularly likely to be snake oil for funding and clicks. Not all of it, of course, but we are in no position to choose the honest ones.

_Science Fictions_ by Stuart Ritchie is a very readable and informative book on the state of bad scientific research.

> As for ...

I haven't supported or citicised the paper and its conclusions, I've merely pointed out the methodology in the face of a question regarding how these studies are conducted and demonstrated ignorance.

With your response you're not doing any better than the opinion at the top of this thread.

I'd prefer to read a critique based on addressing the specifics of the data and the analysis rather than opinions in service of a political goal.

Their correlation is an obvious and well established one. But they are wording it such that the fact that you have insecure rent payment is directly causing biological degradation. Which is absolutley bonkers. Perhaps the stress, or some other factor, sure. I mean, the main thing missing here is evidence of causation. How is the rent situation causing this exactly, forget evidence even a hypothesis of something, I don't know maybe a rent gene lol.

This smeels like a combination of lazy science and politically driven scince. They want to affect some sort of policy so they made the "science" say what they want it to say. Fraud by any other word.

If they actually investigate the cause of action behind their observation perhaps better health care might be the answer or even in a policy sense, better pay or having food and resources in poor areas that promote good health might be a solution. They specificically focused on rent!

And people wonder why there is such little trust in science these days.

I never questioned their credential, I questioned the publication's and their intent. Scientists are people too, they are capable of bias and bad-faith like anyone else.

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