It's really clickbait territory sometimes (IMO)
It's really clickbait territory sometimes (IMO)
It really should be a shared responsibility to report and understand the meaning of statistically significant correlation. Unfortunately, few journalists seem to have much interest in understanding it. And given that their readership likely has about average (i.e poor) numeracy and iffy understanding of probability, it’s a bad combination. The widespread misunderstanding about the iterative way that science converges on truth also contributes to this problem.
That said, I would rather know about interesting findings such as this if for no other reason than to start digging for the original paper.
We used to think stress caused ulcers, based on a correlation. We now know the actual cause is a bacterium.
Having things that are wrong, but we don't know any better, or having things that are right, but we don't have the skills to prove it?
We often laugh how people in times before thought "crazy" things about health maintenance, but we're no better.