[rcdmd]

It's genius marketing-- they were guaranteed a "surprising" conclusion that people widely share.

edit: The point I'm making, perhaps too tersely based on the below response, is a flawed study can be designed where every outcome would be "surprising" but obviously the rationale supporting that outcome would be poor. That people tend to share surprising outcomes (ie-- post it on Hacker News)-- makes it genius marketing.

[dmix]

I believe the GP’s point was that it wasn’t surprising regardless of the outcome (unless you find it surprising the author would make a test whose outcome is correlated to the test itself).

Which I don’t think is a particularly new concept or a good use of smart people’s time. Nor would people ever enjoy music, film, food, x hobby, based on what a scientific study determines is ‘best’ in the first place, making the whole thing based on the false premise that an outcome could ever be known through this method.

[rcdmd]

Thanks. I clarified what I meant above.