Thinking Clearly about Association Studies (Risk Factors and Causal Salad included)

trumanfrancis:

It’s a rhetorical posture causal intent with the causal accountability stripped out. The authors want you to read the finding causally. They just don’t want to be held to the standards that causal inference requires.

+1

besttd:

Having been confused about this state myself: rationally, I lean towards this research being generally useless or even harmful

Agree completely. When poorly-considered, poorly-designed, and poorly-reported clinical research gets press coverage, there’s no question it can harm patients. I’ve seen this happen countless times.

Here’s another recent publication you might find useful:

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/392/bmj-2025-085749.full.pdf