From the website: “Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science” by Andrew Gelman. h/t to Willie Soon

So the NYT yesterday has a story about this study I am directed to it and am immediately concerned about all the things that make this study somewhat dubious. Forking paths in the definition of the independent variable, sample selection in who wore the accelerometers, ignorance of the undoubtedly huge importance of interactions in the controls, etc, etc. blah blah blah.

But I am astonished at the bald statement at the start of the study: “The data, analytic methods, and study materials will not be made available to other researchers for purposes of reproducing the results or replicating the procedure.”

Why shouldn’t everyone, including the NYT, stop reading right there? How does a journal accept the article? The dataset itself is public and they didn’t create it! They’re just saying Fuck You.

I was, like, Really? So I followed the link. And, indeed, here it is: (screencap from the open access PDF)

The Journal of the American Heart Association published this? And the New York Times promoted it?

Complete, utter, failure on the part of the NYT the NIH, and AHA.

This is even worse than the famous line written by climate researcher Phil Jones:

“We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it. ”

This heart study should be published in The Journal of Irreproducible Results