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Comment by i_love_limes

So, it is like that, but it's also not. A couple decades ago, with the advent of GWASes, because of all the multiple testing that was going on, there was an agreed new p-value threshold p < 5e-8. This was to account for multiple testing going on (how that number came to be requires more explanation of LD + other things).

That is the minimum threshold. This study found that peak was at p < 1e-37 or so. But that is where the biological analysis begins. Unlike social scientists, we don't stop with the statistical correlation, we then go on to look at what we know about that gene, the type of mutation, if it's a loss or gain of function, what role that gene has in various tissues, etc. And mendelian randomization is another way to unpick the causal direction of effect.

Not to say this is the truth or causal, but it's a lot closer to causal than what you are implying.

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