[tonyarkles]

> How is people misinterpreting the result that way a fair criticism of their work?

Part of it comes down to overall scientific responsibility and being careful about defining the scope of the claims and conclusions. I haven't seen the final paper here, but if the Conclusions section says "This research indicates that ketamine given while patients are already sedated with general anesthesia doesn't not appear to provide a benefit for patients suffering from depression." then that's great.

If their Conclusions section says "By isolating ketamine-the-substance from the ketamine trip by administering the substance while the patient is under general anesthesia, this work demonstrates that there is nothing inherently anti-depressant about ketamine and that ketamine treatment for anti-depression is no better than placebo.", that's going to potentially have a huge ripple effect.

Throughout this thread there's a fair bit of discussion about "the trip is the treatment". The first conclusion leaves a number of other lines of inquiry open for exploration. The second conclusion opens the door for funding agencies and physicians to put an end to additional research and terminating treatments that are potentially effective.

Scientific communication absolutely must be very careful with the breadth of the claims and state them loudly and explicitly. While journal and conference proceedings have historically been generally only consumed by other practitioners of a field, now that everything is online and accessible to the general public there is definitely an increased burden for clear communication with explicit, conservative, narrow unless otherwise warranted conclusions.