But probably not
Q: Did you see icecream for breakfast may improve mental performance?
A: Pigs may fly
Q: But it’s a STUDY
A: That’s actually one of the questions left unresolved.
Q: Just follow the link. The International Business Times links to their source.
A: That link is to a Japanese news site. And it’s 404.
Q: Already? The tweet was just from this weekend.
A: The story is from November last year.
Q: But there’s a professor! Isn’t he real? Can’t you look at his publications.
A: Yes, he’s real. And he has publications. And they aren’t about icecream for breakfast.
Q: Back to the icecream. It could still be true, even if the data aren’t published, right?
A: Sure. In fact there’s a fair chance that, compared to no breakfast, icecream could improve mental performance.
Q: The comparison was to not eating anything?
A: It was compared to a glass of cold water.
Q: So, what does this tell us?
A: 2017 must be a slow news year.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »