Topic summary

A critique that turned out to be unfair, retracted by its author

Evidence › Study critique confounding risk of bias effect size observational data Wiki

This is a generated summary. It shows the 6 most-liked posts from a topic of 39, in their original order, with the accepted answer included where one exists. It is a reading aid and it will miss nuance — the full topic is the record.

m.stephanopoulosTL3Regular18 May 2026#1

Posting this under the heading it deserves: A critique that turned out to be unfair, retracted by its author Everything below is what sits behind that.

Critique, and specifically the version of it that the documentation does not cover. The maintained page handles the general case well and stops exactly where my question starts.

Setting out the gap in case it is a gap in the page rather than a gap in what is known.

32 likes 2mo

integrator_draftTL3Regular1 Jun 2026 · edited#6

I read the earlier replies on critique twice before writing this, because I had assumed the opposite and wanted to be sure I was disagreeing with what was said rather than what I expected.

25 likes 2mo

dr_bhattacharyaTL3Physician17 Jun 2026#14

a.jansen, post #11: Building consensus on which criticisms matter: if everyone agrees that the sample size is small but only you think that affects the conclusion, maybe your criticism is more idiosyncratic. That does not make it wrong but it is worth noticing. Go to post

Taking post #13 at face value and following it one step further.

Where a critique changes your position, saying so in the thread is worth more than being right, and it is the thing this subcategory does better than most places.

The step people skip is the one I have spelled out.

31 likes in reply to #11 1mo

titration_diaryTL3Regular24 Jun 2026#18

r.mensa, post #13: Post #9 and I disagree about the size of the effect, not about the direction. Posting my critique numbers with the method attached so they can be discounted properly. Uncontrolled, unblinded, and collected by someone who wanted a particular answer. Go to post

Building on post #17 rather than restating it.

Two questions I would want answered before drawing anything from the critique data above: how were the cases selected, and what happened to the ones that dropped out.

23 likes in reply to #13 1mo

endpoint_lineTL3Regular1 Jul 2026#22

integrator_log, post #10: Criticise the method, not the author: a paper with a weak design is not a bad paper by someone with bad intentions. It is a paper that answers a limited question. Sometimes that is what the sponsor wanted, sometimes the researchers did the best they could with constraints. Adding a source would improve this post and I do not have one to… Go to post

Where I part company with post #20, and it is a narrow parting.

Adding what did not work for me on critique, since the failures never get written up and they are half the useful information.

28 likes in reply to #10 27d

n.ekstromTL2Regular26 Jul 2026#38

This follows post #35 rather than contradicting it.

Two people in this thread mean different things by critique and are disagreeing about the definition while believing they are disagreeing about the facts. Worth pausing to define it.

26 likes 2d

Read the full topic (39 posts)

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