[kareninoverseas]

I was going to ask, this sounds overly dismissive, but then I read your last paragraph.

Also I know SciRep is fairly new but isn't it still under the Nature umbrella? ie. There's still some peer review; the study is likely to be legitimate.

The authors are pretty explicit about the weaknesses in their study and I think that the flaws are reasonable for a pilot study. I'm surprised the authors didn't say anything about their conflict of interest though.

Showing a link between autism and the gut microbiome would be incredible. Obviously more work needs to be done before anything is concluded but this is a really interesting result.

[avip]

I think he was understating. Dismissing this results is in fact the right approach for a scientist.

[cjbprime]

Agree, and furthermore, dismissing any single paper result without replication is the right approach for most scientists and (I'd argue) almost all non-scientists.

The publication incentives are extremely messed up and in favor of exciting results that aren't true.