Communicating the obvious (to you)
From the Herald
People’s coffee-drinking habits are linked to their genes, scientists say.
A large-scale study, which analysed 20,000 regular coffee drinkers of European and African American ancestry, identified six new genetic variants associated with habitual coffee drinking.
What the story (and the press information) doesn’t say is how small the effects are: among regular coffee drinkers, each of these variants predicted a difference in average consumption of one or two cups per month. (research paper, paywalled)
The researchers would think it’s obvious that the effects are going to be tiny, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t point this out explicitly. The journalists and publicists wouldn’t know, but there’s no reason they would think to ask.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »