Dentists and dental hygienists look into tens of thousands of mouths over the courses of their careers. It's not difficult for them to see that patients who floss have far healthier smiles, in general.
That said, they should get more studies done.
You could also be a bad flosser, so even the study could be flawed.
Again, there's the comparison of people who sell ice cream and see that when they sell more, there will be more drownings. Correlation does not imply causation.
I think it is quite obvious that people who floss also brush their teeth more regularly, and that is enough to give them healthier smiles.
(Regarding the benefits of flossing, I'm agnostic.)
It's true that correlation does not imply causation, but you're still wrong from my experience with hygienists and dentists.
They definitely and easily see a difference seen between those who floss and brush and those who just brush.
Also, those who use Sonicare, especially when used properly around the gumlines, also tend to have healthier mouths than those who brush with an old brush.
The one thing that can throw a wrench in this whole thing is smoking. Smokers' mouths are disgusting basically no matter what.
Point being, I love research, but I trust those who put their hands in tens of thousands of mouths more than skeptics on ArsTechnica article comments.
They look in your mouth and make assumptions that fit their preconceived notions. ie: "These teeth are in good shape, this person must've followed my advice on brushing and flossing!"
You can brush your teeth like a moron 24/7, but you still won't reach between them and remove the long-term unhealthy plaque with it - it doesn't have to do anything with a profession, but it's a physical fact. Not to mention that brushing teeth ain't proper brushing as itself, since you can easily irreversibly damage and remove the gum if using wrong technique, pressure and hard brush.
A => B does not mean !B => !A.
In US (culturally): "Good dental hygiene" => "You floss".
So dentists looking in your mouth can guess if you floss. However in Europe flossing is not as common and the link breaks. All dentists can say is if you take good care of your mouth, not if you floss or not.
Many chiropractors will also claim that they can directly observe the much lower incidence of cancer and heart disease in their patients, but that doesn't make it true.
Not relevant given that chiropractors are making money off said claims, and dentists are not. Dentists stand to make less money when their patients take care of their oral health with something that costs literally a penny per day.
People aren't automatically wrong just because they state something in their interest, nor are they right just because it's not. To me, the important difference between the two is that dentists can explain the basis of their recommendations in terms that make some sort of sense, whereas the mechanisms proposed by chiropractors are clearly nonsense.
No. Gums (and possibly even tongue) are also part of your "smile". Could have said "mouth" but smile sounds better.
On the note of tongues, using a tongue scraper is a great way to get rid of nasty bacteria that causes bad breath and spreads to the rest of the teeth/gums. Cheap and effective.
Gist is that tongue cleaning yields less bacteria (that's one major cause of bad breath), but they still recommend both brushing and tongue cleaning since the reduction of tongue bacteria didn't reduce plaque. I never claimed that it did though.
Tongue scrapers are cheap and awesome. It's amazing what kind of disgusting stuff you'll scrape off that thing. I'll nearly guarantee you better breath unless you have some serious other problems, like periodontitis.
That said, they should get more studies done.
You could also be a bad flosser, so even the study could be flawed.