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Comment by mturmon | Hacker News Reader

Totally right. Polarizing/absolutist proclamations like the OP tend to start noisy, unhelpful discussions on HN. It's even worse when (as here) the OP concerns a general topic where most HN readers have anecdotal evidence, but only anecdotal evidence.

This kind of outrageous statement can be kind of fun in a small group, at dinner or a bar, but not here (IMO).

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Do you think the discussion in this thread is that bad? I don't—mainly because many people have been commenting from significant relevant experience. The replies to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7763777, for example, are really good.

No, it's not truly bad, just very anecdotal, and I think we can do better. (But I didn't flag the article.) Also -- the peripheral concerns around this particular writer, who has written on a variety of red-button topics, can make things go downhill fast.

OP here. I'd like to say that I did not know about the author's other controversial articles and many of which I find disturbing. I was on a journey to figure out whether PhD (esp. in other fields than your prior ones) makes sense, for myself and while doing so came across this article and HN seemed like a nice place to have a discussion.

My apologies to not have searched HN prior to submitting this, to see if it will be a re-post. However, even if comments were anecdotal, it still helped me understand the gravity of the situation.

Anecdotes are just fine on Hacker News. They belong in conversation. People communicate in stories.

Citing studies is fine too, but not required. This is a forum, not a journal.

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