What about twitter threads from well-respected researchers in the field? What about a poorly-designed study (for the reasons pointed out in the thread)?

I don't see any reason to believe that guy is well respected outside of the pharmaceutical industry.

I don't know if the Twitter thread is from a well-respected researcher, or whether their criticisms of the study are valid. That's my point.

It sounds like you're not the target audience of either the paper or the twitter thread.

Again, you make it sound like these are somehow equivalent. Why even have peer-reviewed journals in the age of Twitter?

Because this is how science has always been done, it's just visible on twitter now. Someone submits a paper to be published. A few scientists look it over and check for basic correctness. Then the paper is published and people read it. If the paper is interesting, they start talking about it. They use the breakroom, email, twitter, facebook, science journals, backs of envelopes, and anything else that's convenient. This conversation about a paper is a critical part of the community absorbing a new piece of evidence. From these conversations, subsequent experiments are planned and published and science keeps moving forwards. These conversations are not as formal as a journal publication, but they are much more formal and structured than laypeople usually realize. Comments are worded in particular ways, and only certain kinds of objections make sense. Proving things about nature is an excruciating task that requires an enormous level of care and evidence.

the point of the twitter thread is that it is not a well designed study.

Yeah, but I'm not a scientist in this field, so I have zero idea of whether the Twitter thread itself has any credibility. So I'll ignore it.