Comments on: On the alleged correlation between beer consumption and academic productivity. http://synthesis.williamgunn.org/2008/03/18/on-the-alleged-correlation-between-beer-consumption-and-academic-productivity/ A synthesis of ideas about open science and social technology. Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:57:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Sylvie http://synthesis.williamgunn.org/2008/03/18/on-the-alleged-correlation-between-beer-consumption-and-academic-productivity/comment-page-1/#comment-3655 Sylvie Fri, 28 Mar 2008 13:55:47 +0000 http://synthesis.williamgunn.org/?p=177#comment-3655 Here's my hypothesis: grad students and post-docs are bigger beer drinkers than senior researchers (more Friday-evening bashes, less family responsibilities), grad students and post-docs have fewer papers than senior researchers (just because of the amount of time they've been working), therefore people who drink a lot of beer publish less than people who drink a moderate amount of beer. Case solved :) Here’s my hypothesis: grad students and post-docs are bigger beer drinkers than senior researchers (more Friday-evening bashes, less family responsibilities), grad students and post-docs have fewer papers than senior researchers (just because of the amount of time they’ve been working), therefore people who drink a lot of beer publish less than people who drink a moderate amount of beer. Case solved :)

]]> By: Mr. Gunn http://synthesis.williamgunn.org/2008/03/18/on-the-alleged-correlation-between-beer-consumption-and-academic-productivity/comment-page-1/#comment-3148 Mr. Gunn Wed, 19 Mar 2008 21:00:29 +0000 http://synthesis.williamgunn.org/?p=177#comment-3148 Yeah, they did something to the numbers. Maybe there are few enough Czech ornithologists that people could figure out who's who from that sparse data, but honestly I just got a laugh out of it. The correlation is far too weak to be meaningful, anyways. Yeah, they did something to the numbers. Maybe there are few enough Czech ornithologists that people could figure out who’s who from that sparse data, but honestly I just got a laugh out of it.

The correlation is far too weak to be meaningful, anyways.

]]> By: Dave Lunt http://synthesis.williamgunn.org/2008/03/18/on-the-alleged-correlation-between-beer-consumption-and-academic-productivity/comment-page-1/#comment-3147 Dave Lunt Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:16:39 +0000 http://synthesis.williamgunn.org/?p=177#comment-3147 I agree with a lot of your post but I think that there is something about the axes on this figure that is unclear (at least to me). In the text Grim says that the consumption of the Bohemians had a median value of 200 litres/capita/year and the Moravians 37.5 litres/capita/year. This doesn't seem to match with the scale on the x-axis. As you say the data from the graph indicate a much lower consumption. Many of the points on the y-axis (publications/capita/year) have negative values which seems to imply that these are not actual values- unless they are also counting retractions! The figure legend says the data has been Box-Cox transformed. I don't really know this transformation but I guess the answer lies here somewhere. I agree with a lot of your post but I think that there is something about the axes on this figure that is unclear (at least to me). In the text Grim says that the consumption of the Bohemians had a median value of 200 litres/capita/year and the Moravians 37.5 litres/capita/year. This doesn’t seem to match with the scale on the x-axis. As you say the data from the graph indicate a much lower consumption. Many of the points on the y-axis (publications/capita/year) have negative values which seems to imply that these are not actual values- unless they are also counting retractions! The figure legend says the data has been Box-Cox transformed. I don’t really know this transformation but I guess the answer lies here somewhere.

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