Readers who have observed my behavior after 1976 days of participation on Hacker News know that this is by far my favorite link to share in a Hacker News comment, so I'm glad to see this on the front page as an article submission today.
My one comment about the article is that most of what gets submitted to HN as a breathless press release on a research "breakthrough" is often not even based on experimental research, but rather on correlational research, so the study goes wrong with problems that Peter Norvig's excellent article doesn't even discuss much. Many, many submissions to HN are based at bottom on press releases, and press releases are well known for spinning preliminary research findings beyond all recognition. This has been commented on in the PhD comic "The Science News Cycle,"[1] which only exaggerates the process a very little. More serious commentary in the edited group blog post "Related by coincidence only? University and medical journal press releases versus journal articles"[2] points to the same danger of taking press releases (and news aggregator website articles based solely on press releases) too seriously. Press releases are usually misleading.
But, yes, definitely read the submission here, as it will help you check each submission to Hacker News you read for how many of the important issues in interpreting research are NOT discussed in the submission.
My one comment about the article is that most of what gets submitted to HN as a breathless press release on a research "breakthrough" is often not even based on experimental research, but rather on correlational research, so the study goes wrong with problems that Peter Norvig's excellent article doesn't even discuss much. Many, many submissions to HN are based at bottom on press releases, and press releases are well known for spinning preliminary research findings beyond all recognition. This has been commented on in the PhD comic "The Science News Cycle,"[1] which only exaggerates the process a very little. More serious commentary in the edited group blog post "Related by coincidence only? University and medical journal press releases versus journal articles"[2] points to the same danger of taking press releases (and news aggregator website articles based solely on press releases) too seriously. Press releases are usually misleading.
But, yes, definitely read the submission here, as it will help you check each submission to Hacker News you read for how many of the important issues in interpreting research are NOT discussed in the submission.
[1] http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174
[2] http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/related-by-coi...