“Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep Is Riddled With Scientific and Factual Errors”, Alexey Guzey2019-11-15 (scientific bias, sleep; backlinks; similar)⁠:

…In the process of reading Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep and encountering some extraordinary claims about sleep, I decided to compare the facts it presented with the scientific literature. I found that the book consistently overstates the problem of lack of sleep, sometimes egregiously so. It misrepresents basic sleep research and contradicts its own sources [eg. editing graphs to remove contrary data].

In one instance, Walker claims that sleeping less than 6–7 hours a night doubles one’s risk of cancer—this is not supported by the scientific evidence (§1.1). In another instance, Walker seems to have invented a “fact” that the WHO has declared a sleep loss epidemic (§4). In yet another instance, he falsely claims that the National Sleep Foundation recommends 8 hours of sleep per night, and then uses this “fact” to falsely claim that 2⁄3^rds of people in developed nations sleep less than the “the recommended 8 hours of nightly sleep” (§5).

Walker’s book has likely wasted thousands of hours of life and worsened the health of people who read it and took its recommendations at face value (§7).

• • No, shorter sleep does not imply shorter life span
    • Also, no—sleeping less than 6 hours a night does not double your risk of cancer
    • How much confidence should we place in epidemiological sleep data?
  • No, a good night’s sleep is not always beneficial: sleep deprivation therapy in depression
  • No, lack of sleep will not outright kill you
  • No, the World Health Organization never declared a sleep loss epidemic
  • No, two-thirds of adults in developed nations do not fail to obtain the recommended amount of sleep
  • Summary
  • The potential harm done by the book
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Citation
  • Appendix: things I’m not saying in this essay
  • Appendix: people who sleep just 6 hours a day might have the lowest mortality
  • Appendix: why I only checked Chapter 1
  • Appendix: is Why We Sleep pop-science or is it an academic book? Also, miscitations, impossible numbers, and Walker copy-pasting papers
    • Three papers referring to Why We Sleep
    • Two papers by Walker citing Why We Sleep
    • Walker copy-pasting papers
    • Further reading
  • Appendix: common objections
    • “Walker is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Berkeley who spent more than 20 years studying sleep. Who the fuck are you?”
    • “The mortality/sleep J-curve from §1 doesn’t disprove Walker’s ‘the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life span’. First, the association between long sleep and short life span is generally considered to reflect underlying comorbidities that prolong time in bed. Second, this doesn’t look at sleep loss or sleep extension at the level of the individual person and if you look at the individual person, then shorter sleep is likely to be associated with shorter life.”
    • “Only checking the introduction is wrong because it’s not representative of the rest of the book. In later chapters, Walker is much more rigorous.”
    • “But don’t many people get 8–9 hours of sleep when they don’t restrict sleep?”
    • “In Chapter 1, Walker writes ‘vehicular accidents caused by drowsy driving exceed those caused by alcohol and drugs combined’. This shows how dangerous it is to not sleep and you have not refuted this part.”
    • “Ok, maybe sleep and longevity are not positively related, but the part of the book I found most important is about sleep and learning. For example, in Chapter 7, Walker writes that ‘a memory retention benefit of 20–40% [is] being offered by sleep’. This shows how important sleep is for memory and you have not refuted this part.”
    • “In Chapter 15, Walker writes that ‘after a 30-hour shift without sleep, residents make a whopping 460% more diagnostic mistakes in the intensive care unit than when well rested after enough sleep’. This shows how dangerous it is to not sleep and you have not refuted this part.”
  • Appendix: my personal experience with sleep
  • Appendix: the concrete harm done by the book
  • Appendix: what do you do when a part of the graph contradicts your argument? You cut it out, of course
  • Appendix: a strong contender for the single most absurd paragraph in the book
  • Appendix: sleep and testicles; sleep and testosterone
  • Appendix: where did Walker get his PhD?
  • Appendix: serious problems in Chapter 8 found by a reader
  • Appendix: fatal familial insomnia
  • Appendix
    • Possible origin of the “sleeplessness epidemic” thing
    • “What You Can Learn From Hunter-Gatherers’ Sleeping Patterns”
    • Most sleep does not serve a vital function: Evidence from Drosophila melanogaster
    • No, not every living creature generates a circadian rhythm
    • Extended quote about the dangers of lack sleep from Chapter 1
    • The full discussion of sleep deprivation therapy from Chapter 7

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