There are a lot of evidence about brushing, and only brushing. Article admits it. Flossing is more contraversial, and the best argument is about problems that could arise decades later: this argument not just a rational argument for flossing, but also explains the weakness of scientific evidence. It must be hard to make a longitudal research while controlling subjects for flossing, I can understand it. But it doesn't mean that there are a lot of evidence, it means there are plausible excuses for a lack of evidence. I see this distinction as an important one.
(At the same time I acknowledge, that article doesn't express it in such a wording, it does it more vague, leaving some crucial information behind links and stressing the point of lack of evidence, to justify the headline. It is clumsy.)
Also in the article mentioned yearly X-rays, frequency of brushing, scaling and polishing, bonded amalgams, interdental brush, preventive visits. Not every in the exact sense that "little evidence found", and I didn't bother to visit the all linked articles to see what is there, but nevertheless, I want to point, that brushing and flossing is just a part of the article.
In any case I see that the headline is good enough. After some thinking I even do not see "surprisingly" as a redundant word: surprise is a subjective feeling and the author can be surprised when I'm not. Moreover I guess that not only the author was surprised but some of his readers also.
(At the same time I acknowledge, that article doesn't express it in such a wording, it does it more vague, leaving some crucial information behind links and stressing the point of lack of evidence, to justify the headline. It is clumsy.)
Also in the article mentioned yearly X-rays, frequency of brushing, scaling and polishing, bonded amalgams, interdental brush, preventive visits. Not every in the exact sense that "little evidence found", and I didn't bother to visit the all linked articles to see what is there, but nevertheless, I want to point, that brushing and flossing is just a part of the article.
In any case I see that the headline is good enough. After some thinking I even do not see "surprisingly" as a redundant word: surprise is a subjective feeling and the author can be surprised when I'm not. Moreover I guess that not only the author was surprised but some of his readers also.
edit: typo