Schmeck followed up on an article with another one titled "Critics Say Coffee Study Was Flawed." List three potential sources of confounding mentioned in this aricle and comment on why these could potentially destroy any claim to cause and effect?

a) Potential Sources of confounding:

1) Pancreatic cancer patients were being compared with persons hospitalized for cancerous diseases.  Coffee may likely aggravate the pains of pancreatic cancer patients unlike other cancer patients because the latter's cancer diseases were not digestive.

2) Unintended bias was introduced by investigators in questioning patients.  The investigators asked questions on coffee drinking habits of those already hospitalized.  This biased the drinking of coffee as a predisposing factor.

3) There could be differences among men and women because of other habits.  While drinking more coffee predisposed women to cancer, according to the confounding statements, drinking even more did not have much difference in men.

Explanation:

"CRITICS SAY COFFEE STUDY WAS FLAWED" was an article in New York Times written by Harold M. Schmeck Jr. on June 30, 1981.   It attempted to critique the study of drinking coffee and its disposal to cause cancer to the drinkers.

In this article, he introduced the views of critics of the Coffee Study which was earlier published in the New England Journal of Medicine and the accompanying refutal by the researchers.

answer

answer: a: they can affect the author’s perspective and in turn the theme and purpose for the writing.

the author's background and time period greatly affect the text that the author produces. this is because we are all a reflection of our time period and background. depending on where and when we were born, we will find some questions more important than others. for example, if we are a wealthy person born in medieval times, we will most likely be interested in courtly love and stories of knights and honour. however, if we are born in the 20th century in africa, we might instead focus on colonialism and its effects on the newly liberated countries. the theme and the purpose of writing are both affected by these conditions.

explanation:

if you want me to check your answer i agree with what you put. i read the story