"Scientific" Studies

And we wonder why science is taken unseriously by so many people today, such as climate change deniers. I am not one of those, but I tend to become sympathetic with them when I see “studies” such as the one published yesterday in WebMD saying that, “Energy Drink Might Harm Blood Vessels.”

First of all, if you read the article, the “study” did not suggest that the drink harms blood vessels, it says that they might cause them to become smaller in diameter for an unspecified period of time. The report does not say if they tested to see how long it took for them to return to normal size, but changing diameter is a normal function of blood vessels and under most conditions is in no way harmful. It can, in fact, be life saving.

Further, it says that, “The study included 44 healthy, non-smoking medical students in their 20s.” No, I didn’t leave off any zeros in the number of people involved in the study.

What was the effect of energy drinks on a sedentary male in his 50s? Well, the study did not address that question, the study was only interested in the drink’s effect on 44 college students, out of a population of 320 million people in this nation. Why is that “study” worth publication?

So when a client change denier reads this “scientific study” and then reads another “scientific study” saying that the oceans will rise thirty feet by the year 2040, I’m not sure that I blame him for disbelieving it.