Yeah, I think Oster is great. I think I only differ with her in two respects:
As you noted, she sometimes seems to imply “absence of evidence is evidence of absence”.
I think she’s too quick to dismiss PROBIT. In Cribsheet, she notes that the IQ measurements at 6.5 might be biased since the evaluators were not blinded. But she doesn’t mention the audit results or the teacher evaluation results. None of these were significant, but every single subtest was positive, and had surprisingly large effects once you account for the fact that the intervention had such a small effect on breastfeeding.
For most of the plausible mechanisms, it seems like partial breastfeeding (and/or pumping) could capture most of the benefits. The major exceptions would be if the local water was unhealthy, or some of the weirder theories, e.g. that babies feeding in a supine position might cause temporary deafness. (Sounds crazy to me, but seems to be taken seriously).
Regarding benefits for the mother, may I introduce you to the most surprising thing I learned of all: Breastfeeding apparently causes the uterus to contract faster.
Yeah, I think Oster is great. I think I only differ with her in two respects:
As you noted, she sometimes seems to imply “absence of evidence is evidence of absence”.
I think she’s too quick to dismiss PROBIT. In Cribsheet, she notes that the IQ measurements at 6.5 might be biased since the evaluators were not blinded. But she doesn’t mention the audit results or the teacher evaluation results. None of these were significant, but every single subtest was positive, and had surprisingly large effects once you account for the fact that the intervention had such a small effect on breastfeeding.
For most of the plausible mechanisms, it seems like partial breastfeeding (and/or pumping) could capture most of the benefits. The major exceptions would be if the local water was unhealthy, or some of the weirder theories, e.g. that babies feeding in a supine position might cause temporary deafness. (Sounds crazy to me, but seems to be taken seriously).
Regarding benefits for the mother, may I introduce you to the most surprising thing I learned of all: Breastfeeding apparently causes the uterus to contract faster.