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Buzzfeed did not invent lists


it's pretty well agreed that buzzfeed is responsible for bringing forth the "listicle" format. How about you lighten up, eh?


I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any similarity besides enumeration and HTML with the NIH article posted here and a listicle you'd find on Buzzfeed, much less find anything to worry about. It's well explained and referenced and features no graphics or clickbait text.


It's well referenced only on on a numeric scale; the breadth of topics makes the 209 links irrelevant. A great deal of the points are semantic in nature-- yes, It's not exactly correct to say that schizophrenia is "genetically determined" if genetics only are 90% responsible, so what? Yes, antidepressants are technically selective-serotonin-reuptake-inhibitors. Authors tend to use simpler and mostly-correct terms instead of very complicated but completely-correct terms in order to communicate their ideas properly. This is a necessary trade-off that is made when communicating with human language.

It's akin to clickbait in that it's inflammatory by design. "50 Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid" or "25 Foods You'll Never Be Able To Eat Again", the point is to cheaply engage the reader with terms they probably use (or food they probably eat) in order to reel them in. Then you hammer the same point into dozens of different situations.


> A great deal of the points are semantic in nature

Yes, they are cautioning against using terms that are frequently misunderstood or encourage jumping to an incorrect conclusion.

> genetics only are 90% responsible

From section (1) of the paper:

>> Moreover, genome-wide association studies of major psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, suggest that there are probably few or no genes of major effect

> so what?

Your suggestion that genetics could be "90% responsible" when available evidence is suggesting "few or no genes of major effect" is a good example of the kind of counterfactual belief that the paper is trying to fix.

> Yes, antidepressants are technically selective-serotonin-reuptake-inhibitors.

From section (2) of the paper:

>> some authors argue that these medications are considerably less efficacious than commonly claimed, and are beneficial for only severe, but not mild or moderate, depression, rendering the label of “antidepressant” potentially

Again, this isn't a minor technical quibble. The actual evidence for SSRIs (etc) having effects that counteract depression is thin and open to a lot of interpretation. Calling them "antidepressants" gives the incorrect, misleading impression that we know actually understand how depression works or how it is affected by these medications.


Eh? By who? Newspapers have been doing those for as long as I remember, certainly since the early 90s.




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