alt Hacker News> There are so many studies and papers published now that you can find both positive and negative results for just about anything.
Doesn’t that suggest that the effect overall is neutral?
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No, you can't just "average" different studies and I'm not sure what "neutral" means in the context of some studies showing a benefit and others not showing a benefit.
Only if you assume that all studies are valid and accurate. And even then you are drawing the wrong conclusion -- if everything is "neutral" then that means that all the positive studies are wrong and all the negative studies are correct. (You seem to have erroneously assumed that a negative study means that something is bad for you.)
Also, the very claim that there are positive and negative studies for everything is handwavy nonsense. There might 100 studies, all of which agree except for one outlier ... what does that "suggest" to you?
You can find positive and negative results for everything.
If that implies the effect is neutral, then by extension that means nothing works at all.