Item — HN Reader

Hi, I'm the author. Just wanted to pop in and say:

(1) I originally had the thing stuffed full of citations and links, but since they wanted to print it in the paper magazine, we stripped all those out. If you want a reference for any particular claim, I'm happy to provide.

(2) First Things didn't pressure me to make any content or editorial modifications to the article. The sole exception was one or two more technical points that they asked me to cut for length and flow concerns (and because many readers don't have a quantitative background).

Any bias in there is purely mine.

2 comments

It might be helpful to compile a list of those citations online (your own website, perhaps?). This is the sort of essay that might get shared around a whole bunch....it would be a shame for its impact to be lessened because of the inevitable judgment people will have for the hosting publication.

It may be a perfect example of the "secular bias" the publication references, but I too groaned inwardly when I went to check out the "about" section after completing my read. Not because I changed my mind on the content of the article, but because I was imagining sharing it and having to deal with an argument about publication bias (in the media) for an essay about (among other things) publication bia (in the sciences)

That's a great point, I'll try to put something together.

I was interested in finding the paper from which you got this quote: "some non-reproducible preclinical papers had spawned an entire field".

Seems to be from: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483531a...