[dang]

I feel like the point may be getting lost here. If you're poring over a paper line-by-line, you're engaging with that specific material and are in a position to point out specific things about it. That's not a problem. The problem is generic dismissals—the ones that don't take work or thought. Those dilute discussion, especially when they're an internet reflex as this one is becoming.

Most published studies may well be false, but that's no basis for substantively discussing a specific one, any more than "most movies are bad" is a movie review.

[tokenadult]

The problem, dang, is that some of the submissions here are generic submissions (health is a chronic topic here, because we all desire to be healthy), and not submissions based on a line-by-line reading of a few different sources to see which one is worthy of discussion here. A university press release about a small-n preliminary research finding rarely deserves more dismissal than noting it is a publicity puff piece about an unsettled conclusion.

We only discuss what's submitted here. The first filter that distorts reality here is what never gets submitted, because it is thoughtful and nuanced and takes too much thinking to read and discuss.