Posted: May 08, 2011 5:04 am
Mr.Samsa wrote:natselrox wrote:Maybe the urge to make a social point overshadowed the scientific rigour.
Yeah, I think it's more about the intentions behind the research and their perspective on the issue rather than something as necessarily political as making a 'social point' - for example, when I study behavior I rarely touch upon genetics and evolution, not because those areas aren't relevant but simply because they aren't relevant to what I'm trying to study. So I don't think there's necessarily any problem with the scientific rigour, meaning that although a discussion on those points would have been nice, and a comment on how future research could aim to separate the effect they found from IUGR and epigenetic effects etc, I don't think it affects the 'rigourousness' of their work. Just would have been interesting if they were able to expand on those points. And maybe they did, but the editor removed it for space or because it wasn't relevant to a particular topic that the issue was dedicated to.
I get your point but there were some obvious things that were missing in the article.
I just mailed one of the authors asking him about how they linked the effects to the post-natal environment (and not the pre-natal/hereditary causes). Hope he replies.
