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Comment by wgjordan | Hacker News Reader

>> They didn't actually try any of the products themselves (they admitted as much in the article).

> I’m going to dissent here on this thread because I’m not seeing any references.

OK, here's one such reference in "The Best Baby Formula" [1]:

> We didn’t do any testing for this guide, because babies have minds of their own, and it would be impossible to control for all of the variables that might make a baby prefer one formula over another.

Now there might be various reasons why actually testing the product is difficult or unnecessary to produce a helpful, well-researched review article, but there are definitely examples of this.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-baby-formula...

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That seems justified. (IMO I’d want a review of the ingredients, then it’s up to my kid to prefer flavours.) That choice isn’t related to the choices for products for adults, which is what we care about.

The only point was to confirm that Wirecutter doesn't always actually test all of the products they review, regardless of whether it's (arguably) justified in each individual case.

It was postured to whether is is justified or not because the commenter said if true then..

> It was very strange and very disappointing.

To which I replied that Wirecutter delivers on many occasions and is still a good review site that does do research on most staple consumer products.

Eh, it'd be easy enough to give samples to 10 different babies to at least see if they have any flavors they prefer. Obviously digestive issues are another matter but your kid drinking it without hassle is the first hurdle.

Doing research on live humans is more complicated than that

This actually speaks a lot in favor of Wirecutter. I wish more guides would be upfront about limitations like this and this is a very reasonable justification.

Testing is different from research.

Tell that to the person I replied to…

> a Wirecutter article and the research was essentially just what they themselves pieced together from online sources. They didn't actually try any of the products themselves.

They are saying research is trying the product aka testing…

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