Huge math error in paper about black plastics

[@Its__Good]

"No one in the media looked through the numbers" . . . . I would be amazed if any of them even read the abstract.

[@MrMartinSchou]

> "No one in the media looked through the numbers" And immediately points out that various media did indeed look through the numbers.

[@thomasherzog86]

the study has way more problems than only one math hiccup. iirc only about 14 of the 300 tested plastic utensils were considered harmful and the message was to get rid of cooking ware when the actual problem were disposable sushi trays...

[@kenmore01]

Disposable sushi trays which never come into contact with heat!

[@1a1u0g9t4s2u]

My first year college physics professor would have multiple choice test to which several questions would have wrong answers that were off by a decimal point either way, sometimes even with an incorrect positive/negative indication. This taught us students to pay attention to this type of errors. Thanks professor, and Thanks Presh for sharing.

[@boomergames8094]

Engineering multiple choice will have all "right" answers, if the math is done wrong. Might be off by a decimal, double, half, pi, e, square root of 2, and in some cases, a negative number can be valid, so it might be a negative option. The goals is to try to get the students to do it wrong, and weed out those who do things wrong.

[@stuntmonkey00]

My physiotherapy licensing exam was like that too. Sign of a good test design.

[@MeenuChauhan-z9u]

Congrats on pie million subscribers

[@peteroleary9447]

The black plastic scare was everywhere! The retractions: crickets

[@47Jaspers]

It's very hard for news outlets to convince people to read an article called "Kitchen utensils safe to use"

[@robertellis6853]

"Further News in the Black Plastic Contamination Scare!" "Concerning Developments in the Research on Plack Plastic Cookware" "Failure of the Scientific Community! Why did No One Catch this mistake!" There are any number of ways to write a headline and news article that presents the fact that the paper is flawed.Negative news sells, and it's easy to put the failure of the peer review process on blast for this. Unless of course, you are trying to maintain an agenda where you discourage questioning the science.

[@joshuanorman2]

The media is just a scare machine at this point

[@IRanOutOfPhrases]

I actually didnt hear a word about the scare. But I have seen two videos now saying the scare was wrong.

[@skandragon586]

@@IRanOutOfPhrases same 🤣

[@Mr.Smith.C.R]

This is a bigger problem than people realize. Hundreds of Peer Reviewed medical and scientific studies have been recalled because the reviewers received compensation for their work! Wink, wink! In many cases, the data was incorrect or plain fabricated. This practice results in more investor money and grants being wasted. I think the word is making people Accountable.

[@danielf3623]

How do you expect to have decent peer review if the peers are never compensated for reviewing things? The combination of publish or perish flooding the zone with crap papers (which AI will only make worse), and the fact that "peer review" is expected to be an act of pure altruism, is the reason errors like this slip through.

[@robeik]

This is indeed NOT the practice. I've peer reviewed dozens of manuscripts and not received a cent. And I do not know of anyone being paid.

[@bluegrassengineer]

When I was working for my master's degree in engineering I wrote a paper for a peer reviewed journal. It was initially rejected, not because of errors, but because they didn't have a reviewer who could interpret the math. They eventually published the entire paper as a "technical note." I'm not sure what this says about the process, but I was disappointed. I had not intention of staying in academia or doing further research. I just wanted to have one peer reviewed publication. Seems trivial now after all these years. Great video, and a nice detour from the norm.

[@ssifr3331]

It IS concerning that a peer reviewed paper contains such a blatant mistake and yet noone who peer reviewed it noticed it. This will make a huge blow to any peer reviewed papers, seeding doubts to the standard of 'peer review'.

[@derrickthewhite1]

You've been watching science news carefully, this is an old issue. Peer review at this point is a rubber stamp and who you are and what you're publishing about matters more than your actual work

[@mickmoon6887]

Peer reviews mistakes have always been people The scientific community rejected the old realists and pessimists ages ago Some people sabotage the review due to how small the academic world is where you can easily guess the author of the work, ideas against current popular or established ideas, in recent times ideology is playing a huge role in these reviews if you're an centrist or right winged researcher your work will either get rejected by the common left winged academic community or have hardest time getting your work approved due to first point on how small the academic community is Peer review system is similar to overwatch system same flaws the people within it

[@JimmyMatis-h9y]

@derrickthewhite1 as a former academic research scientist, I can verify that this is true - a rubber stamp And that it was like that 20 yrs ago too when i finally had enough of the bs in the field.

[@wbfaulk]

Yeah, someone really needs to talk to this "Noone" guy. Is he related to Peter Noone from the '60s rock band Herman's Hermits?

[@Pyriz]

this has been happening for so long there was a paper that had ai generated images back when image generation created completely incomprehensible things that was peer reviewed by a ton of people that got passed and cited

[@WombatMan64]

TBH the first thing I was thinking was... 7000ng/whatever.... why not switch to µg. Working with easier to think about numbers, and the mistake would have been that much more obvious 7µg x 60 is definitely not 42µg, this is so much easier to notice. Both factors are >1, therefore the product must be larger than either.

[@VectoRaith]

Probably the same reason why almost everyone doesn't use centiliter or hectogram: original reference preservation. Authors often refers to the unit stated in original reference for easier comparison and reviewers in the other hand often ask to revise things based on what written in the original reference. I personally hate that too because it is too impractical. In my place, it causes awkward written dose of nicardipine, a dose-sensitive blood pressure-lowering agent, which cause it to hard to calculate and apply unless calculators or dosing table is involved.

[@mrosskne]

Any scientific work should be using 7 x 10^(-6) grams.

[@danielf3623]

ng/kg is a standard reference measurement for toxicity, that allows easy relative measure of toxicity between substances. It basically just clarifies parts per trillion as a mass measure (instead of volume measure). Same reason we use moles or percent to express certain values. It's an arbitrary measure, valuable solely in that it's standard (and often makes the math easier).

[@michaelmoorrees3585]

@@danielf3623 - If they're bad at math, they shouldn't be in that field ! I'm and EE, and we bounce between uF, to pF, to nF, routinely. The primary unit is F (farad). Putting u, n, or p is the same as 10^-6, 10^-9, or 10^-12. Its not that hard. Always stating the units used is the important part. What gets me, is when they state a number and just leave out the units.

[@fritz46]

n is easier to type than µ...

[@redwinedrummer]

Related to your point towards the end at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="465">7:45</a>, another possibility this error came through is that the authors have already made their conclusions before the analysis. It's so much easier to wag fingers at 82% of the limit vs. 8.2%. Sprinkle a little publication bias and there you go.

[@craigthomas2497]

With regard to the Bloomberg tweet and blowback. It isn't just the calculation error, but the hubris required to not think it through. Not only was the calculation wrong, but it is illogical to think he spent 1 million per American on advertising and even worse to tweet angrily about it. The total lack of mental brakes which someone demonstrates in writing such a tweet is shameful.

[@ibubezi7685]

The poor thing writes for Cosmo - "where she primarily covers fashion, culture, and lifestyle".... Oh, Cackela spent $1B - basically $2M per American. And she still lost.

[@Token_Civilian]

Peer Review is far less scientific, IMO, than independent replication. F=ma is taken as fact since it's replicated every time I pilot pushes the throttles forward for takeoff (for example). One reason peer review is a suboptimal, IMO, process in sussing out scientific fact is because of exactly what you highlight - errors not detected by the authors or in a peer review. In this case, it was relatively easy to spot the error. In a more complex situation, the error may more subtle and not be revealed until someone else is trying to do the same thing, detailed step by detailed step, but just can't get the results to match the original paper. Reconciling the differences is far more likely to approach physical reality (scientific fact) vs peer review. Not yet replicated results should be treated as unconfirmed.

[@pierrecurie]

People keep talking about peer review being the gold standard, but as your said, the real golden standard is indep replication. Unfortunately, the latter can get rather time consuming and $$

[@gabrielgauchez9435]

@@pierrecurie well both are fine tbh, the more checks you have the less likely to make mistakes, i do totally agree that if itsnt replicated it shouldnt yet be considered a confirmed truth but i do too understand that some experiments are really hard to be replicated

[@riluna3695]

Accurate, but since I work so much with the mindset of science denial, I'd like to just state clearly that no part of this comment is a condemnation of Peer Review as "unscientific". You could get that impression if you read six words in and then stopped at the comma, but "less scientific than going out and trying it yourself" is not at all the same as "not at all scientific". That would be like reading the statement "one million is far less than one billion", and taking from it that a million is equivalent to zero or even a negative number. 'Less' is not 'none'. Peer Review certainly isn't a flawless system from which no errors can emerge, that's _never_ possible anywhere that humans are involved, but it does still lower the probability of missed errors every time someone checks it through and finds nothing. That chance may never hit 0%, but I'd much rather it be 0.0001% than 0.1%, as that tiny-looking change is the difference between one mistake and one thousand mistakes. But people who don't want you to believe in the fruits of the scientific method will often do their best to play it off as if any tiny chance for failure means that the whole system is horrendously flawed and can never be trusted. They'll point to one or two rare mistakes that slipped through the cracks, and try to imply that there are millions more mistakes just like it hiding just around the corner. Meanwhile, any mistakes found within whatever ideas they're proposing are always shrugged off with garbage like "that's not a mistake, you just don't understand why it's secretly correct", while utterly refusing to try to explain any of it. And they'll be sure to say it all super confidently, because confidence is a backdoor into the brain. "They sound sure of themselves, they MUST be correct." Fight that urge at all costs. Make people prove their truths to you, no matter who. Scientists can do it, and most will enjoy the process. Conmen and cult leaders never can, and they'll do everything in their power to avoid making things clear and easy to understand, as that would just give their game away. So there's your random Pseudoscience PSA for the day. Stay safe out there, people. What you believe will affect every part of your life, and believing untrue things can ruin your life.

[@drossword]

Replication and peer review are both important, and neither one is a substitute for the other. We do need more replication studies, but unfortunately there's a bias in favor of novel research with positive results.

[@isodoublet]

@@riluna3695 The flaw with your argument is; if you, as a researcher in a given field, can't tell whether some article you're reading is nonsense or not, you have no business being in that field to begin with. This "safety net" is completely superfluous; its main effect is to prevent well-established studies from being challenged. Peer review is in fact relatively recent, and Science operated beautifully without it. Many all-time science classics like Darwin's Origin of the Species or Einstein's Annus Mirabilis papers were not peer reviewed.

[@OneSon-lv3xn]

Some businesses will go down by that mistake. And I do not even want to mention the consequences. Who will share the responsibility?

[@jeanmartin963]

responsability of what ? As he says it is concerning that non alimentary products containing toxic chemicals ends in kitchen tools at the end, no matter the quantity, they do not belong here.

[@jdgower1]

I have two points I'd like to make - 1) I worked almost exclusively in the plastics industry for over 20 years, and I can tell you that practically ALL plastic products have some type of additive in them to enhance the properties of the polymers used in "first life" runs. "First life" pertains to when a product is made from virgin plastics (with necessary additives) for it's first iteration of use. When you then have public policy and social pressure to 'Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle', you need to keep in mind that those additives are still there in the polymer being reused. If you use ground up car bumpers to make cookware or anything else for that matter, guess what else is going to be in there - UV light inhibitors, flame retardants, impact modifiers, etc., etc. - because all that stuff was needed for the Fist Life product. So, if you want to REGULATE undesired additives completely out of plastics regardless of any minuscule risk they might imply, you need to absolutely quit, full stop, any recommendations for recycling plastics. Another sub-point to this is that if you think any manufacturer is intentionally putting flame retardants in cheap plastic cookware, you don't understand the economics of polymer processing. Flame retardants and flame inhibitors are TERRIBLY expensive compared to what the base polymer is, so it's highly unlikely that anybody is adding them just out of malice, because the only reason they would be willing to lose money on making a dangerous product by intentionally making it harmful, is for malicious reasons. While we're talking about malice.... 2) You say "...we shouldn't shame people for making errors in calculations." and I agree in most situations. But, the Mikta Rivas kerfuffle was born of her being blinded by political malice for Bloomberg that she didn't even waste one second on considering whether or not she was right about her assumption. It went from her brain to her fingers to hitting the "Submit" button in no time at all. I am willing to shame someone who puts themselves out as a source of reliable information making such a sophomoric error that would get you a failing grade in most any 5th grade math class.

[@offo-one]

Pros of using plastic utensils and containers: - Cheap on the short term (never did the math for the long term) Pros of not using any plastics in the kitchen (and other stuff that comes in contact with food/liquids): - Generally more durable (if you're careful) - WAY more hygienic and easier to clean (specially plastic vs. steel or glass containers) - Glass is always microwave safe - Silicone doesn't scratch your pans and is more heat resistant - Better safe than sorry about the many unknown (AND KNOWN) dangers of the many different types of plastics I've ditched plastic everywhere in my kitchen years ago. It makes absolutely no sense to use them.

[@ColonelSandersLite]

Silicone is awful. Makes everything taste like crap. I seriously don't know how people tolerate it.

[@CatholicSatan]

Where on earth did they get an average adult weight of 60kg? In the UK (which is not the heaviest country in the world), the mean weight between 1993 and 2019 increased from 78.9kg to 85.4kg among men, and from 66.6kg to 72.1kg among women. So even in lighter years, the average for both male and female adults was significantly over 60kg.

[@mb-3faze]

Americans don't 'do' kilograms. 60kg, 132 pounds, then they'd understand how woefully underestimated that value is. Maybe they should use stones - haha!

[@__--_-_-.__---___.__---__-]

would it not be better to assume a lower lower bound?

[@flowingafterglow629]

Note that standard medication doses (the ones you see on the bottles) are based on a 75kg adult male. If you are a different size, YMMV. Moreover, as pointed out by Dr. Nieca Goldberg, "Women are Not Small Men," so we don't actually even know the proper dosing by mass for women. 60kg is not realistic.

[@strange-universe]

@@mb-3faze ffs, we use metric all the time, and those that don't, don't need to use it. What an asinine statement.

[@tagferret6898]

​@mb-3faze actually, we DO understand kilograms AS WELL AS pounds and most of us know that a simple multiplication or division by 2.2 is perfectly adequate for anything we will encounter in daily life. Go beyond the "average" American to those with almost any kind of technical / applied science background and you will find a familiarity with SI units memorized to several digits. TBH the only problem I ever have with metric units is when some knucklehead has used a metric nut/bolt/etc where an imperial was supposed to go (or vice versa) because it was "close enough." Often seen when secondhand vehicles require repairs... 😅

[@solandri69]

Any scam artist will tell you - the easiest way to fool people is to show them what they want to see. This is why it's crucial to have people with a wide variety of opposing opinions reviewing things. That way at least half the reviewers will check everything with a fine-toothed comb trying to find mistakes.

[@okaro6595]

Yes, I have found that when people read something they like in good or bad they believe it uncritically, even if they misread it completely. In fact method to read is to pick some keywords and then fill the rest with your own preconceptions.

[@vib80]

One of the benefits of the metric system is that multiplying and dividing by powers of 10 is easy. That's also sometimes its flaw... because 10s are easy, this sort of magnitude error is not that rare. Had the numbers been more complicated people verifying it would have been more likely to put it into a calculator and see the result... instead of just thinking 7*6 and add the zeros (and then get the number of zeros wrong).

[@okaro6595]

One could avoid this by using appropriate prefixes. The issue compares similar units so it is in no way related to the metric system.

[@isodoublet]

This is nonsense; the same units were used throughout so the error would've happened regardless of the choice of unit system. If anything, it'd be more likely in imperial since you're more likely to end up in some weird desert without convenient unit choices.

[@trescatorce9497]

a) did the researchers measure the average concentration of flame retardant chemicals, or were these numbers extracted from published papers? b) how did they measure the leaching rate of the target chemical from the sample? c) did they use the same kitchen utensil several times, or did they use a new one for every test? i ask this because surface leaching of chemicals is common, but not the diffusion of said chemicals from the molecular structure of the object to its surface. a "driving force" must be present (if the chemical is a gas, a pressure difference will do) , otherwise the object's surface will be gradually depleted from the chemical, and surface wise, it will be "inert"

[@michaelgoff4504]

I do a fair amount of work that involves reading scientific publications around environmental issues, and this episode highlights a few issues that come up frequently. Yes, I see mistakes, publication biases, unsupported claims, and the like all the time. They usually aren't as blatant as this error, but mistakes in published works are distressingly common, especially when they support a preconceived notion. Oftentimes, they aren't errors in a direct sense, but the actual research says something different from what the headlines say. You have to actually read the papers. Most people don't have the knowledge or the time to do this, unfortunately. The second issue is that there is an anti-plastics orientation, and in particularly a hostility to plastics recycling, in the environmental community. Unfortunately, including even for many serious researchers, the belief comes first and the evidence comes second, which is why errors that work in favor of the belief are more likely to slip through the cracks. It's almost as bad as the antivax movement in that these beliefs will persist regardless of what the evidence says, because to some people it "feels" true that plastics must be bad.

[@gabrielgauchez9435]

also is good practice that when a paper says something dont jump to the news and spread it, wait for more papers its not unlikely that a paper comes with odd results for random chance or a peculiarity in the lab it was worked on or the reactives they used, dont trust scientist, trust science

[@thekinginyellow1744]

If you ever bought a cutting board made from recycled plastic that has chips of plastic flaking off into your food the first time you used it, you might be more sympathetic to the "anti-plastic" folks. You hear me WalMart? Yeah, I'm talking about that crap that you peddle.

[@colinslant]

Yes, it's the "environmentalist" narrative that wants to reverse the industrial revolution and leave us all shivering in the dark in our one set of hand-made clothes. Those of us that survive the famine, that is...

[@mohitrawat5225]

Presh coined a new term today - Mathshaming 😂😂😂😂

[@Neodynium.the_permanent_magnet]

Definitely need a scientific calculator to do 60 x 7000 :-)

[@tagferret6898]

Right??? It took me all of two seconds to think in my head "six times seven is forty-two, follow that with the four zeros, comes out to 420,000. Bingo!"

[@nbooth]

One order of magnitude error isn't bad. Close enough for government work. But it blows my mind how many people are apparently able to function while believing there are people who have a million dollars for every American. That is THREE HUNDRED TRILLION dollars. That is three times the entire Gross World Product, the combined annual economic output of THE ENTIRE WORLD. Imagine thinking the world's 13th richest person alone has enough money to pay the national debt AND fund the ENTIRE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FOR FIFTY YEARS at current spending levels.

[@mrosskne]

An order of magnitude is extremely bad and not close enough for any kind of work.

[@nbooth]

@mrosskne It's a joke, but for many questions in science and engineering, getting within an order of magnitude is actually close enough.

[@davidhowe6905]

@@nbooth Someone I knew was trying to model dust formation in supernovae; he was getting values much lower than observed. A colleague said 'At least you've got within an order of magnitude of orders of magnitude.'

[@Metheglyn]

@@mrosskne Perfectly fine in Astronomics.

[@okaro6595]

The more serious error is believing that giving everyone a million dollars would help them. When you went to spend your million you would have nothing to buy as everyone quit their jobs. Money has value because people do not have enough if it and want to work to get it.

[@mooing_cowmilk]

it was probably that it was such a simple calculation that everyone assumed it was correct

[@zihaoooi787]

as they say, the smarter you get, the more you tend to overlook basic errors :3

[@strange-universe]

after a lot of the BS pushed out over the past few years, not certain it was an error.

[@robertmcmanus4646]

No research funded with public money and published should ever be kept behind a paywall.

[@Leberteich]

This is double edged. A publication in a good open access journal like, say, Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, will cost the authors a $3600 fee to the publisher. If you have good research but can;t afford the fee, you can't publish in the first place. So either way, there may be good research hidden behind a paywall.

[@NealB123]

I'm quite happy with my black plastic cooking utensils and have no plans to stop using them regardless of the math skills of the paper's authors.

[@larrybud]

"Trust the Science" (TM). Question EVERYTHING. Did the authors give back their grants?

[@lanzelloth]

my eyes also glanced over it and maybe only noticed the 7x6 = 42 part and thought all is ok

[@markawbolton]

Me too....

[@floydross9000]

This shows why open source data is important. (But still not going to use black plastic cooking utensils haha.)

[@ShreeshM]

Regarding the post related to Bloomberg, some activists or opposition parties do the same calculation mistake when there is a lavish wedding in the family of India's richest man, saying that they could have instead distributed millions to every citizen of India. So I don't think it is a mistake. It might have been intentionally posted just to create hype

[@okaro6595]

It is a mistake caused by the fact that it matches their own preconceptions. The left has a preconception that the ultra rich are somehow holding the money back, that they almost have stolen it and their money is the problem and if people only got it problems would be solved. Nobody would deliberately create such an error as that is so easy to check.

[@Demasx]

As a Ragusea subscriber, I knew what this was before I clicked! 😁

[@davidkahnt2632]

Do you season your cutting board?

[@smylesg]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="334">5:34</a> Presh, there already is government regulation and oversight. That's why it doesn't work. We need someone else taking care of this.

[@KingdomCome811]

It only doesn't work when your government is bought and paid for.

[@davidhowe6905]

I remember a paper (same publisher) suggesting that, by careful design of buildings, a reduction of up to 160 percent in emergency evacuation times might possibly be achieved. They were using the larger, original time relative to the potential reduced time, instead of the other way round. It's a shame, as the correct results, if achievable in practice, were still impressive.

[@aaronbredon2948]

Any time something mentions a reduction of more than 100%, that means things go negative. So, if it took 100 minutes to do something, a 160% reduction would reduce the time by 160 minutes, meaning that afterwards, the thing would be done 60 minutes before starting work.

[@rakuengrowlithe4654]

That's not the only error. As has been pointed out elsewhere, they also use the mean concentration instead of the median, so the estimated exposure is exaggerated by another order of magnitude.

[@glynncordry5965]

Wait... Why shouldn't cookware be flame retardant? Aren't those the things nearest the stove?

[@Player-fg4ub]

No! They are nearest to heat, usually on a pan or pot. Direct contact to fire would require fire retardant, hence plastic utensils would only have to be heat resistant.

[@pierrecurie]

Trade offs. Flame retardants are toxic, so you don't want them near your food. Ideally, you supervise your utensils while you're cooking. If your spatula spontaneously combusts, you're probably also burning your noodles. Hopefully, you don't fail your cooking that bad.

[@trueriver1950]

Plastic kitchen utensils come with labels (*) advising not to leave them in the heat -- that's for two reasons: if left too long then they soften out of shape, and more importantly any toxic chemicals in them can migrate out of the utensil into the hot fat and from there into the food. (*) at least in the safety conscious UK, and in the EU. In North America this might be seen as intrusive: maybe someone from that part of the world could say if they've seen such warnings on cookware?

[@christopherg2347]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="184">3:04</a> Knowing there is a mistake, I instantly spotted it. Shifted comma. This is Spinach and Iron all over again!

[@Chris-hf2sl]

Yes, but the 'iron in spinach' claim still exists today, decades after it was exposed.

[@ComputerRouter]

We've just compiled a list of the Best Maths Videos of 2024.... This would be my new number 1 , such a great positive attitude and message in this video Fantastic

[@Vienticus]

It's not whether or not you make a mistake; it's what you do in the face of making a mistake.

[@bhgtree]

Start: _me throws all black cookware in the bin_ 😱 End: _me takes all black cookware out of the bin again_ 😂

[@kevinslater4126]

This type of error is actually very refreshing to see because the huge media blitz about it is proof that it's extremely rare. So rare that it made the news all over.

[@Fhcghcg1]

the error being made, then the media outlets reporting on the original paper, then the error getting caught is rare the errors on their own are much more common

[@trueriver1950]

No: is proof that spring such mistakes is rare. It proves nothing about the prevalence of mistakes that go unnoticed: that needs a sample of more than one

[@zagreus5773]

That's pretty faulty logic. The reason it made this media blitz is not because it was a mistake, but because thousands upon thousands of people own this type of cookware. If this mistake was about something not directly related to something as prevalent as black plastic cookware, it would not have gotten this media attention. In reality, it is completely up to the authors to make sure their math is correct, because peer reviewers and publisher don't care about it. So if the authors suck at math, but the rest of the research is logically sound, even the most blatant mistakes get published. After a while this hopefully leads to a correction, but the carelessness that is given to statistical rigor is troubling.

[@crazyhans]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="460">7:40</a> This sentiment is good when the stakes are low, but the attitude has to change when you're communicating with millions of people. Not only are you having a potential economic impact, you're also severely damaging the reputation of the entire field of science by being wrong in such a silly way. Every part of the chain that published those alarmist stories about black plastic should be ashamed.

[@SteenWinther]

This error is unacceptable because it changes the conclusion of the study completely. Unbelievable that it wasn't caught by any of the authors or the 'peers'! Pile on the math-shaming!

[@josephfisher426]

Well, at least this wasn't being launched into space... It's noticeable in the abstract that the listed authors are one formal academic and two representatives of an interest group. For most academic articles, some uncredited grad student probably gets assigned to check the math.

[@paulstudier5706]

Wow! Math applied to something that matters in the real world, and not just as an intellectual challenge. IMHO, more posts like this would be very good.

[@paulstudier5706]

@@noobvsprominecraftbuild I am a retired software and electronic engineer, so I know the value of math. This video brings the value of math to the general public on issues that directly affect them.

[@mrosskne]

Good job completely missing the point of those challenges.

[@manuelp7472]

Recycle now, ask questions later. Anything coming into contact with good should be met with intense scrutiny, but unfortunately, companies only care about putting a "recycled" sticker on the product.

[@jasong5913]

When 'peer reviewed' no longer means 'reviewed by peers'

[@JohnW118]

DARMN! I already threw out all the black plastic utensils (except for one oblong ladle I just don't have a replacement for). I have wanted to get rid of the stuff for a long time and used the article to tell my wife WHY I was now tossing it. We already have so much we didn't even need to buy ANYTHING else as replacement. But still. However, I am left wondering about this entire premise. Most plastics are NOT recycled anyway (regardless of color), and the black stuff is even less desirable and is hardly recycled at all if ANY is ever recycled. it's the DYE in the black plastic that makes it pretty useless for recycling. So, there's that, too. At least I was able to get rid of ALL my (ugh!) old overused and hardly serviceable black plastic kitchen utensils (except for one oblong ladle I just don't have a replacement for) and reclaim some drawer space. So, it worked out for ME. These authors need to ask MANY, MANY MORE questions regarding the study and application to the real world of black plastic kitchen utensil origin(s). Guessing never helps.

[@shabudinjaver4672]

Only a politician is allowed to make a deliberate mistake. You should never ask any questions.

[@flamencoprof]

Cooking and plastics should not mix, as a general rule. I have NO plastic utensils, NO coated pans, my hot water jug is stainless steel, I NEVER put plastic in a microwave. I once calculated how much lead could leach out of a cast-iron frying pan, because I care. I wire-brushed some unknown plastic anti-rust coating off it before doing the "seasoning".

[@romainhedouin]

bruh I saw the mistake INSTANTLY who the hell peer-reviewed this

[@conrad5342]

Where did you got that spatula? SPATULA CITY!

[@KevinBalch-dt8ot]

The media often trumpets alarming studies. But each study elicits comments in subsequent issues of the journal where the original study appeared that critique aspects of the study which are ignored.

[@Raven-Creations]

This just shows why proper peer review is important. By "proper", I mean where it's not just selected peers who review, but everyone gets to review the published document. The hiding of documents behind paywalls is one of the worst aspects of scientific publication. By all means, restrict the initial publication to paying subscribers, but after a period, the documents should be open-sourced. Many were paid for out of public grants, and the public has a right to see what they paid for. This also shows why science journalists need to learn science, not journalism. It used to be that a science journalist was a scientist with a flair for writing. Now, news outlets just take journalism majors and hand them the science brief. They have no concept of how to read or understand the information in a paper. Frequently, they read the synopsis, fail to understand it, and grossly misrepresent the paper's contents. They will also grab pre-review copies and publish under shock headings such as "study shows that..." when it does nothing of the sort, and if the paper survives peer review it may very well have significant changes. My contempt for so-called scientific journalism grows daily. I don't wholly blame the journalists. They have been asked to do a job for which they have no qualifications. Yes, they have a duty of care to ensure that they get informed comment from people who are qualified to assess a paper, but journalism standards in general are so poor today that such ethical behaviour is rare. My real anger is towards the employers of the journalists. They need to stop going after sensationalist headlines and concentrate on truth. It's not as if there aren't enough genuinely amazing scientific discoveries being made all the time.

[@vrdrew63]

"Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence" is a cliche when it comes to the process of critical thinking. But it is still a very useful guideline to keep in mind. Especially when it comes to assertions involving any amount of mathematics. And this principle becomes even more important when you're dealing with numbers that are very large, or very small. When the EPA, etc. talk about nanogram quantities, there are talking about one thousand millionths of a gram. Billionths of a gram. Check, and double-check your math on every single step before you jump to any conclusions. If you get a conclusion that "seems" unusual, check it again. Maybe ask a colleague to check it again for you, before going public with it. Math, and mathematicians, made the incredible technological world we live in today. Let's honour that achievement, and make sure that we don't pollute social media with plain bad math.

[@darrelstickler]

Food containers and utensils from any reputable brand are almost certainly made from virgin resin beads.

[@mcdon2401]

Anyone who's ever been unfortunate enough to sample my cooking knows we absolutely do need flame retardants in the cookware 🤦‍♂️

[@fluffysheap]

Stir in pasta, add salt, garlic, and tetrabromobisphenol A to taste

[@shubhamg9495]

Adam Ragusea (food science youtuber) mentioned this error on this video. I think he was the first person who spotted this error.

[@forestpandabath]

I am glad that you re-visted the main point of the paper. And it's best to avoid any doubt and just don't use plastic. Haha but then careful you don't scratch your non-stick coating. Just use plain stainless steel all around :)

[@Dark_Peace]

Why are all my ytb recommendations about black plastic ustensils today ??

[@Sonny_McMacsson]

Don't question. Just react to headline and buy new stuff.

[@vinni522]

Reminds me of HS summer math camp, we had to review a paper (in no way were any student qualified), and the professor editted the paper and intentionally sprinkled in mistakes to make sure the students really read through it (each student copy had diff mistakes even). I think a third party that edit / make intentional errors prior to distributing for peer review is a possible solution.

[@jhouck1969]

Since I haven't read the paper, do the authors say how much exposure people are getting from other sources? That ~8% may not be as much as was feared, but it's still a significant source, and if people are being exposed to unsafe amounts overall, getting rid of black plastic cookware is an easy way to lower that exposure.

[@adamrussell658]

Id say calling it a huge error is an understatement. It is a blunder.

[@russelleverson9915]

I was thinking a similar thing - perhaps a more accurate title for this video would be "A basic math mistake...". Although, I guess it's "huge" in the sense that it makes a big difference to what we should be doing or not doing about the issue. (Kind of like I or vaguely remember the stock dealer a few years back who punched in a transaction for x billion shares, instead of x million shares. Kind of a small mistake but it did have a huge impact... it sent the financial market into a frenzy, until it got sorted out. 😖)

[@pcdispatch]

I think it was on purpose. Nobody would be talking about it if the number was correct from day 1.

[@AfffS-oz5sd]

Do you know what the word “understatement” means?

[@strange-universe]

a creation of bias, I suspect

[@alhypo]

This is why I only do math in my head if it's for something that doesn't matter. But also, I avoid using plastic whenever possible. I don't trust it even if it's not recycled e-waste. Also, we have mountains of better plastic we could prioritize over recycling contaminated e-waste. We should recycle all the good stuff first.

[@garyrowe58]

I think it's good that the utensils dont burst into flames when used on a gas stove. Might be just a personal preference, though.

[@flamewing7851]

I hear people all the time saying that problems happen when we mix numbers and letters in math. I agree. We need to get rid of all those pesky numbers.

[@tapiolankiira1968]

While it is common that hazardous waste, shipped to Asia, is converted to products and send back to west, one should be aware this habbid. Most expensive hard cast collectors figurines, are made and paint at poisonous heavy metals by the way . At kitchen setting plastic is so problematic, because to kept clean, it need, washing with hot water after every use, to kept clean, while stailes steel can be rinced at hot water and then wiped at paper towel, like teflon is cleaned. Wood or bambu spatula is hygienic and way cheapest and quickiest to use, as it have to cleaned with rinsing cold water, and then to be compleate to dry out. Avid cook need many of them, as drying can take day or two

[@CWinterstorm]

I remember seeing something years ago that said that Popeye exists because of a decimal point error. They'd apparently made a mistake on the calculation on the amount of iron in spinach. Whether apocryphal or not, I'm unaware. But the moral still remains: double check your work, folks. :)

[@rosiefay7283]

After years of using plastic utensils that weren't black, the only black plastic ones I ever bought were flimsy, and I threw them away because they broke. Now I have silicone utensils so don't need black plastic ones.

[@okaro6595]

The plastic example is something that could be possible. The Bloomberg case shows total lack of understanding of how money works. Giving everyone a million dollars would be a disaster. It would truly be life changing.

[@chrisglosser7318]

On one hand, we get to worry less about ingesting toxic chemicals. On the other, spontaneous combustion is way more likely than previously believed

[@petersage5157]

420 micrograms? Just goes to show you shouldn't math while stoned.

[@skandragon586]

Maybe im confused, but plastic cookware intended to be used with open flame/other heat sources containing flame retardants seems like a good thing? I dont want my spatula to catch fire as i flambé my chicken or whatever. i understand the possibility of chemicals contaminating the food is real and concerning, but i would personally be more worried about a fire burning my house down or something

[@FlyingFox86]

You said that making the paper open access has the downside of coming with additional scrutiny, but I would consider that to be another positive.

[@donaldasayers]

Misplaced decimal point or not, recycled plastic containing brominated fire retardants should never have been allowed anywhere near the food chain.

[@avengersxcubing7824]

Hey Presh I am Rajdev from India. I had a query that every polygon have internal angles and their sum is expressed by(n-2)×180degrees. As circle is a polygon with infinite sides so how can I find the sum of interior angles, please aid me in this

[@WitchidWitchid]

Probably because it was such a simple basic grammar school arithmetical error multiple sources just simply overlooked it. The easiest mistakes to overlook are most often the simplest ones.

[@Llanchlo]

Despite the error it highlights an important issue. These contaminants simply should not be in the plastic used for such utensils. Even at the order of magnitude lower the safety margin assumes no other source of contaminant. This is not warranted. Unless they can prove there is no other possible source there is no valid reason to use contaminated material in the manufacturing process, given that uncontaminated resources are available.

[@Chris-hf2sl]

The 'safe level' presumably takes into account all such possible sources. However, the key thing about teflon (non-stick) coatings that are used in many cooking utensils is that by definition, it doesn't stick to anything, including anything inside the body, should you end up swallowing some. In other words, it passes straight through you, thereby causing no harm.

[@Llanchlo]

@@Chris-hf2sl Safe levels have no regard to source. If the safe level of aspirin is 8 tablets a day, and I have had 8, I cannot safely take a cold powder containing aspirin because it only contributes 1/4 of the allowable daily dose. No food utensils should leach ANY aspirin.

[@Sam_Hue]

It happens… As an academic, that sucks.

[@cielprofondinfo]

Has the error been reported to the publishers and/or authors? It would be the sensible thing to do…

[@voronische]

fire retardancy is qute important in kitchen utensils that are used near the stove. i am glad that i can leave my spoon near the saucepan, near the fire

[@andymanaus1077]

If you do a little digging, you find that the peer review process itself is in beleaguered territory. Many peer reviewed papers are being retrospectively removed from their peer review status after fundamental errors found in their texts, often by members of the public. The fact that peer reviewers are staying quiet about their own errors in judgment flies in the face of your comment that errors should be disclosed and admitted. Peer review is seen as the gold standard of research, which makes such secrecy even more egregious.

[@andymanaus1077]

The other problem with peer review publication is a bias towards "findings positive" results. Papers that make positive findings (or in other words, they confirm their initial premise) are eight to ten times more likely to be submitted for review than papers that make negative findings (they refute their initial premise). This practice itself causes research bias and a distorted impression of the topic.

[@farrier2708]

I take it that the analysis of contamination referred only to new utensils. Surely this would only be a temporary level which would reduce over time as the contaminant leached out with use. Unless they are actually talking about nano plastics getting into food, which is due to wear and tear not chemical leaching. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="167">2:47</a> "...average adult of 60kg..." I haven't been nine and a half stone since my early teens and, even then, I was considered small for my size. (Yes! I know!) Lastly: I may be wrong but it did not take into account any meal portion size in the calculation nor the frequency with which the utensils were used. From this vid', I've come to the conclusion that this is bad science, barely suitable for peer review. Having said that; I detest plastic as a material. Give me wood, metal, ceramics, beef dripping. ANYTHING BUT PLASTIC!!!!.

[@kamilhorvat8290]

Well, we don't want to catch fire or get burned as well, just like other common household items. Is there any research on this topic, evaluating whether there are any benefits of consuming low doses of flame retardants?

[@DonDueed]

I would rather be in the control group for that experiment, thank you very much.

[@g.mitchell7110]

Even if the math had been correct, what the study indicated didn't necessitate throwing away black plastic utensils. If your mass is about 60kg (132 lbs.) AND you use black plastic utensils on a daily basis AND those utensils were one of those that contained the recycled plastics then the projected dosage was still only about 80% of the calculated safe dose. If you weigh more than that, as most Americans do, or use such utensils less often than daily, the risk would have been even smaller. Even with the math error, the projected dosage would have been under the listed safe maximum dosage. It was unlikely to be dangerous with the math error, and it's much, much less likely to be dangerous with the correct math. I just checked, and my utensils are mostly grey resin, so I'm good.

[@xlerb2286]

Well that's an oopsie all right, and not even a subtle error. Just shows how you've got to stay on your toes. Though I'm still glad I'm using stainless steel utensils from the 50's. They worked great for Mom, and they work great for me. I've got very little modern junk in my house.

[@Leberteich]

Apart from the mathematical error: I don't want my spatulum to catch fire in a frying pan. So yes please do put flame retardants into plastic kitchenware. A non- toxic one, of course.

[@someguyonyoutubeidk]

Hey! I've found something interesting. But you may need a calculator for this one. Get 1.1^10. This equals to ~2. Now do 1.01^100. This equals to ~2.7. You see where I'm going here? Do 1.001^1,000. Now it says ~2.71. What happens here is: start at 1.1^10. Then add a 0 after the dot in the first number (1.1 -> 1.01) and add a 0 at the end of the second number (10 -> 100). Repeat the process over and over again. What's happening here is that you're making e (Euler's Number) more and more closer to each time you do the process Finally, 1.000001^1,000,000 is equal to 2.7182047, while e is equal to 2.7182183. This is pointless but it could be useful some time.

[@bhbr-xb6po]

In Addition, the last example also shows a poor understanding of economics. by spending $500m on ads, Bloomberg actually DID give it to common people.

[@seekingpurpose]

It is technically approaching limit, albeit from a long distance..

[@UncleJoeLITE]

Quite amazing! But who amongst us HASN'T submitted a peer reviewed paper with a Year 4 maths mistake? Thanks from Canberra 🇦🇺

[@Akronox]

There is something off with the tweet, one of the term was billion, still incorrect but at least a plausible mistake.

[@Chris-hf2sl]

The problem with the term "billion", is that until a few decades ago, here in the UK, a billion is/was defined as a million million, rather than a thousand million as in the USA. I still have a couple of old English dictionaries with the 'old' definition. In recent times, the UK has gradually moved over to the American version, but just to be clear, I usually say either "American billion" or if I want to confuse people, "English billion".

[@Akronox]

@@Chris-hf2sl billion is still used as your old definition in French, but my point is more than the person wouldn't get mistaken using millions twice.

[@Chris-hf2sl]

@@Akronox Yes. The Americans like everything to be as big as possible. So defining a billion as 10^9 instead of 10^12 allows them to make things sound bigger than they really are. "I'm a billionaire" sounds a lot more impressive than "I'm one thousandth of a billionaire."

[@Apfelkiste]

reminds me of the iron content of spinach, also 10 times… generations of children forced to eat spinach 😂

[@pierrecurie]

Its oxalate content also great for kidney stones. Joking aside, dose makes the poison.

[@johnangelico667]

Another queation about the logical fallacy: is this problem isolated to black plastics? What about other colours? What about other plastic products outside the kitchen? I suppose the answer is "More research required" - good for the next grant application, I suppose...

[@wellesmorgado4797]

And that went through peer review... What a shame.

[@nemeczek67]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="390">6:30</a> This tweet is pure idiocy even if one is math illiterate.

[@chillwhale07]

My concern is why did they assume an average adult weighs only 60kg. Isn't it supposed to be higher?

[@__--_-_-.__---___.__---__-]

wouldnt it be safer to low-ball ?

[@timturner7609]

I ditched my plastic cookware a while ago. It just doesn't hold up to the amount of abuse I give them.

[@strategicbacon7349]

What about other colours of plastic?

[@okaro6595]

Average adult 60 KG. LOL. It is 84 kg. There was once a airplane accident that was caused by them using obsolete averages for the weight of people.