Scientists' Success Or Failure Correlated With Beer

mernil sends in an article from the NYTimes that casts a glance at a study done in the Czech Republic (natch) on what divides the successful scientists from the duffers. "Ever since there have been scientists, there have been those who are wildly successful, publishing one well-received paper after another, and those who are not. And since nearly the same time, there have been scholars arguing over what makes the difference. What is it that turns one scientist into more of a Darwin and another into more of a dud? After years of argument over the roles of factors like genius, sex, and dumb luck, a new study shows that something entirely unexpected and considerably sudsier may be at play in determining the success or failure of scientists — beer."

what is cause and effect?

[tommeke100]

Could it be that they drink more because they are unsuccessfull instead of the inverse?

because the correlation just means 3 things:

1) they are unrelated
2) more drinking => bad scientist
3) bad scientist => more drinking

Re:what is cause and effect?

[fastest fascist]

Or maybe it's just that the kind of person who likes to have fun and drink with buddies every now and then is less likely to be an obsessive workaholic, and therefore at least slightly less likely to get a lot of brilliant work done. That's probably too simplistic an assumption, but if this negative correllation between beer consumption and scientific output does exist, I'd wager it boils down to some factor or factors that makes a person more likely to work on their projects and less likely to drink.

WWFD?

[argent]

What Would Feynman Do?

Exactly

[dreamchaser]

Studies that make these kinds of leaps are generally BS. It could be that the scientists who don't drink AT ALL are the type AA driven types who don't socialize much at all. Or it could be that the ones who like to go drink are lazy. Or it could be some unknown effect of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The point you make is spot on; the researches need to take a better look at possible causation and not jump to conclusions.

Re:Yay for statistics

[TheThiefMaster]

Your (admittedly intentionally stupid) example has THREE factors, not only two. Leaving the location out of the conclusion is stupid. If you can find a stupid correlation that doesn't involve two groups separated by location you might have a better point.

The article's inverse correlation between beer and success is inside a single country, and seems to be among scientists of only one science. Extending the conclusion to apply to the world and all kinds of science is admittedly a stretch, but not as bad as your example.

Re:what is cause and effect?

[zappepcs]

It doesn't even have to be that simplistic. When I'm working on projects I tend to drink less even if I have the same opportunities to drink beer. Productivity decreases with alcohol, even on personal projects. If you mix into that the fact that for most people drinking is a social thing, there is even less productivity. Serious science takes concentration and attention to detail. Now, lets try to get a correlation to good music and drugs/beer? Aerosmith anyone?

I think they picked two things that don't go well together and blamed the lack of one for the existence of the other. I've seen some evidence that shows good artists are all depressed whackjobs. Of course theoretical physicists have had some social issues too. There are correlations to other things, but we don't quite understand what they are. I think the human brain/body has a lot to do with the chemicals floating around inside it, and definitely when you remove the chemicals they stop working but exactly how they all interact is still a bit more mysterious than saying beer has a direct effect on good science.

Re:what is cause and effect?

[superbrose]

It boils down to this: successful scientific workhorses simply don't have the time to socialize.

I am sure that this can be extrapolated to other professions as well -- especially anything that demands a lot of concentration.

On the upside highly successful scientists doesn't regret being singletons, after all they are successful because they are passionate about what they are doing, so no sacrifice here I'd say.

Re:Yay for statistics

[TheThiefMaster]

So, location again?

Re:WWFD?

[Anonymous Coward]

In "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" there is a short comment that Feynman stopped drinking after a particular event:
One day, he walked down the street and realised that he wanted a drink - despite the fact that there was no reason (e.g. social) to drink right now.

If I remember right, his comment was something along
"The brain is such a beautiful and complicated machine, enabling me to appreciate all the wonders of the world. I did want to risk destroying it.'

"Drinking Feynman" is just as much a bad excuse that "Einstein was bad at school, too"...

Re:teh goggles...

[RancidMilk]

I think that with further testing, they would also notice a strong correlation between beer drinking and getting/having ladies. Further analysis would prove that when ladies increases, time decreases. The end result being that there is less time to write papers. This would tend to lead researchers to believe that if you didn't like girls, you could be more successful, however you would get laid less often.

Re:what is cause and effect?

[Vancorps]

On the flip side though if you are always obsessing about your projects then you are probably missing some important piece of the puzzle that you would get if you just slept or if you let your mind switch gears. I know I was exhausted and making bone-headed moves at work. Then some friends came to visit for 5 days, we partied it up and at the end of it I went back to work and did some pretty darned amazing work. Stuff I thought I couldn't do just came easy to me.

Sometimes a little distance is a good thing, and beer helps you get that distance rather quickly. Of course many people cross the fine line between drinking too much, causing you to be unproductive.

I'd say balance is always a good thing, just like a little exercise helps you clear your mind allowing you to concentrate better than if you'd just sat there for 18 hours straight coding.

Re:what is cause and effect?

[CrazedWalrus]

I'm a programmer, not a scientist, but I do know I used to be much more creative and productive at work before I was married. As soon as I got married, had kids, got a mortgage, etc, my productivity at work just seems to have plummeted from previous levels.

It's not that where I am now is abnormally low, it's just that when I was single, bored, and living by myself in an apartment, I had a hell of a lot more time to focus on work. Wives and children have a way of demanding significant amounts attention.

You might write it something like:

productivity for a given demand = (concentration / total # of demands for attention)

As the denominator goes up, productivity goes down across all of those demands. The total productivity and concentration are, of course, constant.

Re:Many problems with that study

[Anonymous Coward]

a) Correlation does not imply causation. Some regions are generally poorer, meaning their universities get less money, they attract less good scientists, etc. And these regions also have higher alcohol consumption. And so observation that alcohol consumption anti-correlates with scientific achievements doesn't necessarily imply that drinking makes you bad scientist.

Ah, the article discusses exactly that: "More important, as Dr. Grim pointed out, the study documents a correlation between beer drinking and scientific performance without explaining any correlation."

b) I just moved from UK to USA and the amount of alcohol people drink in UK is completely unheard of in USA. Basically, we used to have three British pints 4 times a week. Properly drunk. In USA I can convince my colleagues to have one beer (over two hours!!) once a week. And yet, UK is THE most scientifically successful country per dollar spent.

Ah, yes, anecdotal delusions of grandeur. A common symptom of mixing social drinking and science. I'm not sure if I buy your last statement. Failure to cite such a bold claim is demonstrably unscientific. It sounds like you just made it up for the purposes of the post.

c) My feeling is actually the opposite: alcohol acts as a social lubricant and many personal frictions can get dissolved that way. After two pints, the guy who you hate so much for having more papers than you, suddenly seems an ok chap. People are more likely to speak about their work, share opinions on papers, don't be secretive about future projects, etc. This effect must have bigger positive impact than negative effects of drinking.

Strange, the article also addresses this point. Common myth amongst scientists: "...scientific schmoozing is often beer-tinged, famous for producing spectacular breakthroughs and productive collaborations, countless papers having begun as scrawls on cocktail napkins. Yet the new study shows no indication that some level of moderate social beer drinking increases scientific productivity." Did you actually read the article or are you just reacting to the headline on slashdot? Moreover, dismissing data out of hand in place of feelings is not exactly very scientific of you, is it. The title of your post was "Many problems with that study," but you haven't attacked the study at all, rather just spouted off a couple unsupported opinions about the study's conclusions after summarizing points already mentioned in the article.

Re:teh goggles...

[chazbet]

You like people who think?
You'll find plenty of company at the faculty lounge.
Just ask for Bruce:

"Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya'
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed. "

Ecological fallacy

[TheBAFH]

This is called ecological fallacy [wikipedia.org].