Submitted by Jealous-Pop-8997 t3_z4g1ab in science
beebeereebozo t1_ixx0v95 wrote
Reply to comment by Jealous-Pop-8997 in Glyphosate associated with lower birth weights by Jealous-Pop-8997
Original cohort of 822 whittled down to 155 newborns. n=155 is a small study, and lots of opportunity to cherry pick subjects when starting with 822. High-risk pregnancies = preexisting health issues, lower socio-economic status, substance abuse, alcohol, smoking during pregnancy, which often have significant effects on their own. They made an attempt to adjust for confounders, but you can only do that for the confounders you know about, and they were limited by what they found in medical records. For instance, most significant correlation was between GLY concentration and less than high school education for mother. What is going on there besides just the fact mother had less than high school education? With such a small n and effect size, a few outliers is all it takes.
When there is a lot of noise in the data, pretty easy to pick out a signal that serves your purposes.
As was pointed out in peer review, all references support conclusion, in other words, they mined the literature for work that supported a preexisting narrative; they weren't trying to prove themselves wrong, they were trying to prove their hypothesis was right, which is not the way science is supposed to work.
"This study aims to establish baseline urine GLY levels in a high-risk and racially diverse pregnancy cohort and to assess the relationship between prenatal GLY exposure and fetal development and birth outcomes." They start off by saying there is a relationship = red flag.
Authors lack credentials in relevant fields; none are epidemiologists, and at least two, Mesnage and Antoniou have signed on to previous work by Seralini, which is a red flag all by itself.
Another red flag pops up when you review past, related work from authors and it always points in the same direction. That is virtually impossible if one does honest research, especially when dealing with very small effect sizes, underpowered designs (small number of subjects), and many confounders. That is the case here as well. Either its publication bias or they are putting their thumb on the scale.
In the end, those doing activist research know that most people don't read past the title or the headlines their work generates, all they have to do is dress up their reports so they can navigate past peer review and make it into some journal, any journal, even if they have to pay for it. Flawed peer review process and predatory journals are a whole other can of worms.
fasthpst t1_ixx9w61 wrote
Are you aware that Seralini continues publishing?
beebeereebozo t1_ixxixeg wrote
Unfortunately, yes, same bad science, different day. There is always a journal willing to publish crap for a price. He is the epitome of an activist research scientist. Good example of research that always supports a predetermined narrative.
Anti-pesticide, anti-GMO, anti-glyphosate crowd is always saying "follow the money," but they never say that about charlatans like Seralini who is making a nice living milking the credulous and true believers. Much the same as anti-vaxxers like Mike Adams or Alex Jones hawking snake oil and supplements for COVID19. In Seralini's case, it began with ties to Sevene Pharma and homeopathic detox products. Scare people about toxins, and then sell them detox products. He is still at it.
eng050599 t1_ixxq4mj wrote
So does Seneff, and she has yet to actually test any of her hypotheses experimentally.
Not joking about that in the slightest.
Since her first paper in Entropy, all of her publications have involved data-mining other studies, using the bits she likes to develop hypothetical mechanisms on how glyphosate is responsible for every ill mankind suffers from...and that's it.
She stops at the very first stage of the scientific method, developing a testable hypothesis.
There's a reason why she's considered to be unhinged even by the Seralini crew.
[deleted] t1_ixxugnc wrote
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beebeereebozo t1_ixy3xs5 wrote
Not to let the opportunity for even more quackery go to waste, she attempts to connect COVID19 and glyphosate. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-pseudoscience-environment/dr-stephanie-seneff-strikes-out-again-glyphosate-and-covid-19
eng050599 t1_ixy5xdm wrote
I keep up to date on her idiocy simply because I've become the chair's go to person when a "concerned citizen" contacts my department regarding almost anything related to the dimwitted duo.
Now, I will admit that it was hilarious to see her get debunked by the likes of Antoniou and Mesnage in the case of her glyphosate substitutes for glycine hypothesis, she's simply gone off the rails too far in my opinion.
As I wrote to fasthpst, the simple fact that she hasn't bothered to experimentally validate any of her molecular spitballing should be a good sign that her research is useless, but it persists.
beebeereebozo t1_ixzqwht wrote
Must be exhausting at times, and frustrating to have to counter such ignorance. It would be one thing if it was just a matter of presenting the facts, but the anti-gly crowd knows all they have to do is plant a seed of doubt or fear, and it will grow on its own regardless of the facts.
eng050599 t1_iy0svdv wrote
The thing to realize ius that, for a depressing percent of the general public, they aren't actually looking for information when they contact someone like me, they're looking for validation of their beliefs.
When that doesn't happen, it can get spiraled up into a Machiavellian conspiracy and that all scientists who disagree with them are paid shills.
That's usually the point where I just shrug and move on.
This is also why I provide quite a bit of detail in my replies to threads like this.
In many cases, I know that nothing I write will change a zealots mind, but my answers aren't for them. They're for someone who comes across this down the road who has an actual interest in learning.
For them, the information is available for them to do so.
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