Re: “” March 8 guest commentary.
Isaac Orr’s commentary is best described as a hatchet job on Dr. Lisa McKenzie and her recent study that explored whether residential proximity to oil and gas development was associated with risk for disease. These types of commentaries are often used to discredit individuals versus the work they perform.
An example is if I chose to focus on Orr’s lack of credibility due to his only having a bachelor’s degree in political science and working for the Heartland Institute, better known for its rabid free-market ideology than the public’s well-being. Orr’s article has many faults; I will point out two. First, he conflates cause and effect with what McKenzie’s study was designed to uncover, that of associations, not causation.
Orr’s paragraphs on causation are totally irrelevant to McKenzie’s study. A second point and related to the first is that McKenzie’s study was exploratory and used a pattern analysis approach (Orr uses the disparaging term “data dredging”) that is widely used in exploratory research across many different disciplines and is taught in many leading universities.
David Dickason, Fort Collins
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