Comment by wvenable
9 hours ago
If the commenter read the study and found that they did not, in fact, account for that then it would be valid to point it out here.
Otherwise, it's just a waste of our time.
9 hours ago
If the commenter read the study and found that they did not, in fact, account for that then it would be valid to point it out here.
Otherwise, it's just a waste of our time.
By its fundamental design, an observational study cannot account for everything. That is the critique and it is a valid one.
That's true, and it's also one of those factoids that everybody already knows but certain people can't help themselves from bringing up every time it's even tenuously relevant.
Most observational studies do in fact account for the first thing a random HN poster can come up with 5 seconds after reading the title. So there is very little value in such a comment.