The absurd part isn't the convention of being true to the source's headline — which is good, generally — but the dogged persistence in keeping bad and misleading headlines, with extremely rare exception.
In the article, there are 6 paragraphs on the recent negative study results, followed by 15 paragraphs suggesting possible benefits either out of scope of the two recent studies, or potential future avenues of research.
NPR's title is certainly accurate for the portion on the two studies, but ~3/4 of the text is not about the negative study results. So, while it's not the most misleading headline ever to grace the orange site, it's not exactly representative of the text either.
Since the comment yesterday, the HN headline has changed to "Long-Awaited Study Results on Vitamin D and Fish Oil Supplements," dropping "disappointing."
Look, its pretty clear the study did not meet any of the expectations set before it started. Disapointing is totally appropriate. No need to be overly optimistic about every failure out there by cherry picking a few avenues for further research.
Agreed. This is turning out to bettet represent commenters preference for controversy and superiority over other comments/submissions than any expose of social media sites or HN's preference for negativity.
