[HN Gopher] "Why We Sleep" is riddled with scientific and factua... ___________________________________________________________________ "Why We Sleep" is riddled with scientific and factual errors (2019) Author : cwwc Score : 56 points Date : 2022-12-28 20:50 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (guzey.com) (TXT) w3m dump (guzey.com) | scoofy wrote: | I read the book. I think it's fairly obvious that the research he | presents is pretty speculative. That said, it's a _very_ popsci | book, which is not really where you should be getting your facts | from. It 's fine, and was an interesting read on the current | state on some theories coming out of Berkeley. | | Ironically, this is why i really liked Freakonomics. All the | studies they uses were just Levitt's studies, and you could just | look them up and read them. I recently listened to a podcast | criticizing the book and I couldn't even take it seriously, | because you had a couple of laypersons who are politically | aligned against the Chicago school and use that for the basis of | their criticisms. I though it such a hilariously terrible | "trashing" of the book that I couldn't stop shaking my head. | | If Books Could Kill: | https://open.spotify.com/episode/5wHpooGMRsSBrUHhQZbOZp?si=4... | | I would prefer if Walker provided the citations for what this | author is asking for, but the entire point of a popsci book _is | that it 's not a scholarly article_. Walker isn't a doctor, he's | a PhD in neurophysiology. I think the criticisms are warranted, | but I think it's glaringly obvious from reading that the book | isn't a work of serious scholarship. | ludicity wrote: | To respond to some concerns from marginalia_nu, I've spoken to | Guzey once remotely and keep up with his writing from time to | time. He is certainly not one to Gish Gallop someone, and | generally I've been impressed by his forthrightness. | | Furthermore, Walker is aware of all the concerns raised in the | original article (it was released a long time ago, not sure if it | has been edited since). I dimly recall that most, if not all, of | the concerns raised by Guzey turned out to be true. Walker | essentially got away with it anyway. There's also a debate | between the two of them on some British radio station, I believe, | though at that point I declined to listen as I knew I'd get | frustrated as it was clear you can just get away with this stuff. | | What's doubly weird for me is that I spent a year doing research | at a prestigious sleep lab when I was studying, and honestly feel | that Guzey's writing elsewhere is weirdly hostile to the concept | of sleep. I'm extremely careful about it myself, and absolutely | have massive performance degradation if I get anything less than | eight hours. I,e. I don't even understand why Guzey is so opposed | to pro-sleep messaging, but I think that's irrelevant when | discussing Walker's conduct in writing the book. | | Asking Guzey to focus on just one or two undermines the thrust of | his argument. Walker doesn't commit to a few big lies, truth | throughout the entire first chapter is conveniently twisted for | the sake of 'storytelling' that I saw done constantly in certain | academic circles. The disdain for inconvenient facts (and oh boy, | some of the graph edits seemed fraudulent to me when I last | checked) is unacceptable if you have any respect for your | audience or honesty. And I believe there was also a fabricated | WHO quote? I just don't see how there can be nuance to this - the | only thing I can see Walker hiding behind is a flimsy excuse like | "it isn't a journal article". I don't expect pop science to be | phenomenal, but I expect an academic not to falsify graphs: | https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#appendix-what-do-you-d... | thenerdhead wrote: | Every time I read this blog, I imagine that every popular author | out in the world has one person on the internet who despises that | author so much, they maintain a fact checked list and | correspondence timeline as if it's some way to discredit the | author. Meanwhile the author gets even more famous and helps many | get better sleep even if part of their magnum opus contains | errors. | choxi wrote: | This seems incredibly nit picky. My summary of a few points | below: | | #1: Walker claims sleep deprivation decreases life span, but so | does sleeping too much. | | #2: Walker says sleep deprivation is always bad, but sometimes it | helps people with depression. | | #5: Walker said the WHO recommends 8 hours of sleep, but it's | actually the National Sleep Foundation and they recommend 7-9 | | Here's Walker's response to some of this: | https://sleepdiplomat.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/why-we-sleep-... | meindnoch wrote: | As a rule of thumb, any popsci book hyped up by techbro/Joe | Rogan/Lex Friedman/etc. types is going to be riddled with factual | errors and "creative" interpretations, especially if it's about | longevity, nutrition, health, etc. | trts wrote: | I think I've seen this guy appear on at least a half dozen | shows and podcasts including Lex, Tim Ferris, Sam Harris, Fresh | Air, TED Radio, Hidden Brain... seems like 5 years or so ago he | was everywhere. This site lists 67 appearances: | https://www.owltail.com/people/Uw4Ky-matthew-walker/appearan... | | In general the media has very low science literacy and loves | someone credentialed, self-assured, and with an erudite accent | and story to tell that can easily fill airtime. | | Acknowledging that junk science has managed to platform itself | on some of the podcasts you mentioned, for myself I'd say that | the long-form format at least allows for a greater possibility | that the b.s. will out itself over 1.5-2 hours, versus a show | like TED Radio Hour that is happy to bundle up a few nice | sounding stories into something they can slip a Blackrock ad | into. | have_faith wrote: | What does Lex have to do with the book? | reducesuffering wrote: | The book's author was on Lex's podcast. | [deleted] | k__ wrote: | Isn't Friedman the counterexample to Rogan? | xyzzyz wrote: | Good thing then that Why We Sleep was hyped by always reliable | and accurate New York Times, so we know we can trust it: | | https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/books/review/snooze-micha... | | I mean, this Mathew Walker guy has been thoroughly vetted for | accuracy by the diligent fact checkers from places known for | integrity, like CNN | | https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/videos/tv/2020/10/15/matthew-walker-... | | or NPR | | https://www.npr.org/2017/10/16/558152847/why-we-sleep | | More seriously, though, _of course_ it's true that smart and | confident sounding people are going to dupe Joe Rogan. He | doesn't even pretend to be any sort of intellectual or rational | truth-seeker. It is more concerning that such lousy kind of | "expertise" as exhibited by Dr. Matthew Walker is more than | good enough to dupe mainstream media organizations as well, but | to anyone paying attention, this should not come as any sort of | surprise: public trust in experts has been in free fall for | more than a decade, and really accelerated in last 3 years. The | thing you should ponder about, which you won't, is that your | first instinct here is to slander your ideological opponents, | using slurs like "tech bros". | ryanklee wrote: | I'm so sick of this cohort. They are obvious smugglers of bunk | and loose thinking by bad actors. Sincerity is a paper thin | cover and it's starting to rain. | pastor_bob wrote: | talm'bout leggs fridman bappa? Smartest guy I ever met | lexandstuff wrote: | Thank 'em. | marginalia_nu wrote: | In general, criticism of this format is quite problematic and | should be considered bad form. You see the format quite often in | politically sensitive research and other infected areas (like | nutrition), as a means of character assassination. | | For any given book, you can construct a list of accusations like | these, laden with quotes and references. Some of the accusations | may be absolutely true (it's rare for a book to be 100% | accurate), or superficially seem to be true but actually more | nuanced than that in a way that is not trivial to explain, some | may even be fabrications. It's hard to tell for an outsider. | | Regardless of the accuracy of such a barrage of accusations, it | takes an inordinate amount of time to respond to the criticism, | as it will typically contain of several dozen points each of | which require a lengthy response. And by that time it doesn't | matter, the accusation will have already been accepted as true. | | If you're going to publish something like this, you should at | least notify the author well ahead of time and give them ample | opportunity to explain what you've found and construct a | response. | notRobot wrote: | > _Regardless of the accuracy of such a barrage of accusations, | it takes an inordinate amount of time to respond to the | criticism, as it will typically contain of several dozen points | each of which require a lengthy response. And by that time it | doesn 't matter, the accusation will have already been accepted | as true._ | | See also: the gish gallop: | https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop | | > _The Gish Gallop is the fallacious debate tactic of drowning | your opponent in a flood of individually-weak arguments in | order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument collection | without great effort._ | skinnymuch wrote: | The book is accepted as true by more people than the | criticism. The author got away with it. | | Interesting all of the criticisms are individually weak | arguments. Like you're saying no argument is strong? | Barrin92 wrote: | There's nothing problematic with the criticism. The book is | riddled with false claims and what's actually problematic is | that someone sold countless of copies of fraudulent self-help | on a contentious topic like sleep because they knew exactly it | would sell like hotcakes regardless of its scientific accuracy. | | You're right that it's excatly like nutrition advice or | politics in that there's a 80%+ chance whenever someone sells a | hugely popular book in this field that most of it is just made | the f*** up. | | Other sleep experts have asserted that the book is so awful as | to constitute research misconduct and what we should do is give | posts correcting bad science the attention they deserve and | hold shoddy scientists and public intellectuals accountable. | thatswrong0 wrote: | This same vacuous argument could be applied to the book itself: | Pop-sci books like this make a million claims and take an | inordinate amount of time to verify. And by that time it | doesn't matter, the claims will already have been accepted as | true. | | See how pointless this is? | marginalia_nu wrote: | It is quite different. | | To argue against a book, you really only need to argue | against its central theme. To combat a dozen accusations, you | need to reply to each and every one to avoid being wounded by | them. | zeroonetwothree wrote: | What would be a better form of criticism of accuracy of a book? | marginalia_nu wrote: | The intellectually honest thing is to assume not that the | author is maliciously incompetent, but that you, the reader | are missing something and inquire with the author about | sources or reasoning for claims that contradict the apparent | scientific consensus. | | If the author doesn't respond to such an inquiry within ample | but reasonable time, then you can go loading up the shotgun | with accusatory birdshot and take it to the court of public | opinion. | | That's the last resort. | TillE wrote: | Some people ( _lots_ of people) really are just bullshit | artists, and it 's a waste of time to consult with them | personally when their thoughts are already out there, in | the form of a published book. | amadeuspagel wrote: | > in this essay, I'm going to highlight the five most egregious | scientific and factual errors Walker makes in Chapter 1 of the | book. This chapter contains 10 pages and constitutes less than | 4% of the book by the total word count. | pastor_bob wrote: | point 3 is some nitpicky claim about Fatal familial insomnia. | | I don't find it to be egregious | marginalia_nu wrote: | This doesn't really change anything. The problem is the large | number of accusations, not the size of the work being accused | of inaccuracies. | MisterBastahrd wrote: | You still haven't explained how pointing out 5 factual | errors in the first 4% of the book is actually in bad form. | | This in particular: "it takes an inordinate amount of time | to respond to the criticism" | | Ain't it. If you are going to present yourself as an | authority on a segment of human knowledge, then you should | necessarily EXPECT to receive challenge when you haven't | actually done your own homework. Nobody who writes a book | while acting as an authority should be incapable of showing | their work. | sammalloy wrote: | I think the point others are making is that you can make | this accusation about most topics. Take the average, well- | sourced Wikipedia article on a similar topic as an example. | Choose it by random. You'll find the same issue. Every | subject has some amount of internal disagreements, | controversies, and inaccuracies. There will always be more | questions than answers. | prgmatic wrote: | I had no idea that some people _benefit_ from sleep deprivation, | but it makes a lot of sense to me experientially. I feel like I | 'm a bit more focused when I get 4-6 hours of sleep even though | my body typically wants 7-8. | sammalloy wrote: | I've seen some work on this. It turns out that some percentage | of the population doesn't need sleep like the rest of us. | Nobody knows why. | Jorengarenar wrote: | >a sleep scientist at Google | | A scientist of what at where?! | muststopmyths wrote: | They're researching injecting ads in your dreams | Jorengarenar wrote: | The worst part: I can imagine it | bryanrasmussen wrote: | >Any book of Why We Sleep's length is bound to contain some | factual errors. Therefore, to avoid potential concerns about | cherry-picking the few inaccuracies scattered throughout. In this | essay, I'm going to highlight the five most egregious scientific | and factual errors Walker makes in Chapter 1 of the book. This | chapter contains 10 pages and constitutes less than 4% of the | book by the total word count. | | Sometimes I write comedic science fiction with pseudoscientific | argumentation from absurd angles so I don't hold the above | against the authors, except they seem to think it should be taken | seriously? | Sniffnoy wrote: | Rather than just being dismissive and expecting everyone to | already agree with you, perhaps you could actually explain what | problem you're seeing here? | bryanrasmussen wrote: | I would think the point was obvious, the implication of the | text is that in finding 5 errors in 4% of the book it can be | assumed that there are 125 errors of equivalent severity in | the rest of the book. | | The assumption is that errors in written work are evenly | distributed (which is such a ridiculous assumption that I | have a hard time not being dismissive) Otherwise there would | be an evident concern that they cherry-picked a part of the | book that had more egregious errors than other parts. | Sniffnoy wrote: | Yes, my point is that spelling this out is important; I | didn't find it obvious what you were trying to convey at | all. (And more generally that people will not find obvious | the same things as you, and that it's helpful to be | explicit where possible.) | dang wrote: | Related: | | _"Why We Sleep" Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26684519 - April 2021 (151 | comments) | | _Why We Sleep: A Tale of Institutional Failure_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22844723 - April 2020 (52 | comments) | | _"Why We Sleep" Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22419958 - Feb 2020 (34 | comments) | | _"Why We Sleep" Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual Errors_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21546850 - Nov 2019 (58 | comments) | | _Why We Sleep, and Why We Often Can't_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18798366 - Jan 2019 (80 | comments) | | _Productive on six hours of sleep? You're deluding yourself, | expert says_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15401397 - | Oct 2017 (295 comments) | | _Sleep deprivation is increasing our risk of serious illness_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15324195 - Sept 2017 (77 | comments) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-28 23:00 UTC)