Comments on: Supersized Amygdalas Linked to Sprawling Social Circles

By: Albuquerque

Albuquerque — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 16:28:16 +0000

correlation does not imply causality. Checking this out on populations not aligned with access to facebook would be interesting. In all research you must start with one study, then move onward and outward.

By: Amos

Amos — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 23:49:52 +0000

The lefties are already trying to use it to paint conservatives as ‘fearful’ and irrational, despite the small size of the sample etc etc. That’s what ‘science’ is now, anything they say it is for the purposes of cheap political points-scoring and tribal self-congratulation.

Utterly pathetic. It’s like they say, the only thing dumber than a journalist is a political hack, and the Venn diagram of those two groups is a pretty much a 99% convergence.

Did I call you pathetic yet? Well one more time; you’re pathetic

By: Andrew Moseman

Andrew Moseman — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 19:13:14 +0000

@Brandon
Good point about the regression analysis. Indeed, the Facebook-dropping whenever there’s a study about social networking annoys me as well, so I try to avoid it as best I can.

I thought the argument here was interesting despite the study problems, though it would be interesting to see how many well-publicized neuroscience studies would never have been covered at all if sample size had been a disqualifier.

By: Brandon Keim

Brandon Keim — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 15:55:55 +0000

The coverage this study got makes me understand why some people hate science journalism so much. There are *so many* reasons not to get carried away: there were just 58 people in the study, including only 22 women; the findings weren’t replicated; the amygdala’s involved in just about everything, so one might as well say, “people who have more friends can be more afraid”; and the regression analyses hides all sorts of variability. There are many of people in there with small amygdalas and large networks, and vice versa.

At best, the study was an interesting preliminary finding that could suggest further avenues of research. It didn’t deserve to be covered journalistically at all. And not only was it covered, it was conflated with Facebook and online social networks — even though the study didn’t look at these. Blech.