Pointing out that biologists use animal models that don't map perfectly to our biology is a lazy criticism. It's not a good-faith way of engaging with research, and demonstrates ignorance to the purpose of modelling in any field.
I think it's perfectly far to be very very critical of these paper especially because of the impact they can have on society, medicine, and legislation.
It's not a lazy criticism, if the data is so variable when it comes to various conclusions of the same data set, imagine the difference when it goes from rats to humans!
I would agree, it definitely isn't always a lazy criticism. But to be unlazy it should include something that expounds on why it might matter. When the entirety of the response to the study is "in rats" that doesn't seem helpful to me
These animal studies are way too preliminary to waste time discussing by non-biologists. I think that the press popularizing these very preliminary studies as science actually serves to undermine the perception of science in the general population.
This info is conventionally added to HN titles since articles have the bad habit of omitting it so HN users often point it out. You can read it as equivalent to comments pointing out publication year so it can be added to a title.
Certain experiments are not ethical nor possible to do in human subjects, so scientists rely on model systems to interrogate biological questions. It has become somewhat common for people to immediately dismiss scientific findings on the basis that this research was done in a mouse, and therefore not applicable to human biology.
