The largest meta-analysis in the world of maternal exposures to air pollution and newborn birthweights, which combined effect estimates on about 3 million births from 14 international research centers, found no link. That’s not what is being reported, however. Continue reading
Category Archives: Scientific method
Null results in largest environmental study of its kind
Posted in EPA, Risk assessment, Scientific method
Beware the spin in research reporting
Go to the original source and read the full study for yourself. The actual findings are often far different from what the headlines and abstract report. Continue reading
Posted in Cancer research, Scientific method
Correlations are not causations — except at universities and in public policy?
Beginning with a false premise, university researchers dredged computer simulation studies looking at associations (risk factors) and reported that one of the variables could be causal. This, it appears, now passes for science and support for public policies. Continue reading
More epidemiology shenanigans
By Sandy Szwarc, BSN, RN, CCP
The media has been quick to report, verbatim from the press release, of a new study finding that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) could be contributing to a global epidemic of type two diabetes. Continue reading
Posted in Beverages, Diabetes, Food labeling, Methodology, Scientific method, Sugar, Sweeteners
Teaching people not to think
A new book has chronicled three decades of censorship on America’s college campuses, prohibiting discussions of politically incorrect ideas. Continue reading
Posted in Scientific method
Get a flu shot or you’re fired
While it can be challenging to keep up with the amount and quality of research coming out every day, having access to studies and the ability to examine the data and conclusions, along with all of the qualifiers, subtleties, uncertainties, flaws and peer debates, can help give us a balanced perspective and better understanding when we’re making informed health decisions for ourselves. Continue reading
Posted in Scientific method, Vaccines
Antibiotic use during pregnancy – a link to childhood asthma?
Children whose mothers took antibiotics while they were pregnant were slightly more likely than other kids to develop asthma in a new Danish study… Continue reading
Posted in Medicine, Scientific method
Gargle with sugar water to improve your focus and self control?
A new study on sugar can best be said to illustrate the decline in our educational system, which is failing to teach the scientific process and increasingly leaving students and professors unable to design, conduct, evaluate and report a clinical study that is a fair test of an hypothesis. That may sound like an exaggeration until you read the study. Continue reading
Posted in Methodology, Scientific method
Twitter Dredges — The next research frontier?
Did anyone really need a report telling them that conducting research using self-reported data from social media and online communities might make the results unreliable and more than a little biased?
Apparently so. Continue reading
Posted in Scientific method
Looking for clues
With clinical trials and meta-analyses failing to support significant health benefits from fish oil and omega-3 supplements in reducing all-cause mortality and preventing various chronic diseases of aging, fish is back in the news. The news reported on a meta-analysis of data from 38 published observational and intervention studies from 15 countries, involving nearly 800,000 people. The study was a head spinning stream of contradictions and junkscience favorites that may be fun to read. Continue reading
Posted in Methodology, Scientific method
More epidemiological bunkum
This past week, two startling admissions came out of Harvard. Continue reading
Posted in Cancer research, Diabetes, Obesity, Scientific method
Richard Black: Climate science and acts of creation
The role of formal scientific processes in climate science appear to be under threat as never before. Continue reading
Matt Ridley: Three Cheers for Scientific Backbiting
If, as I argued last week, scientists are just as prone as everybody else to confirmation bias—the tendency to look for evidence to support rather than to test your own ideas—then how is it that science, unlike cults and superstitions, does change its mind and find new things? Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Health, Scientific method
Tagged climate hysteria, dioxycarbophobia, irrational fears, research, weather superstition
BBC Radio 4: Philip Stott On ‘Reclaiming the Sceptic’
All scientists are sceptics, doubting both their own and others’ research, and weighing the evidence carefully to produce the most robust conclusion. Continue reading
Journal retreats from controversial arsenic paper
Two new studies of controversial research on a bacterium found in California’s arsenic-rich Mono Lake led the journal Science on Sunday to say that the 2010 paper it published on the microbe was incorrect in some of its major findings. Continue reading
Posted in Peer review, Scientific method
Gone Feudal: Oregon State Uni (OSU) sack and target skeptics (and their children)
In an extremely worrying development, we can add Nick Drapela’s name to the list of skeptics fired for the heresy of speaking out. This email from Gordon Fulks came around today, and I want to spread the message. Continue reading
Lee Harris: Science and the Republican Brain
The so-called Republican brain, with its deep resistance to yielding before mere scientific evidence, has played an indispensable role in the making of modern science, long before the emergence of the Grand Old Party. Continue reading
William Briggs: Love Of Theory Is The Root Of All Evil
Love of truth, on the other hand, is the root of all that is good. Continue reading
Roger Pielke Jr.: Questionable Research Practices: The “Steroids of Scientific Competition”
A new research paper just out in the journal Psychological Science by John et al. seeks to quantify the incidence of what are called “questionable research practices” in psychological research. Continue reading
The Highest Authority in Science is the Data
How do you find the truth about some disputed point in science? Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Methodology, Scientific method
