A Rough Guide To Spotting Bad Science
I know I’ve written about this before on the blog, but today I came across two infographics which are worth sharing on how to spot medical quackery. Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Science, classifies science reporting as falling into three categories – wacky stories, scare stories and “breakthrough” stories, the last of which he views as “a more subtly destructive category of science story”.
While the first of these infographics will meet with near-universal approval; the second may not, if the popularity of celebrity doctors and natural medicine are anything to go by! When you are seriously ill, you are vulnerable. We must be wary of so-called miracle cures and doctors. I hope these two guides will help you separate medical truth from fiction.
This is so true, Marie. I wish everyone would read your blog post and separate pseudoscience from real science. I can’t tell you the number of times well-meaning people have pushed products on me that have no scientific evidence behind them. I will die when my time is up, but refuse to be scared into buying extra life when the promise is empty. It is truly sad how many people are taken in by these scams. xox
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This post is a real service to your readers, Marie. I know this stuff and yet sometimes it all sounds so HOPEFUL that I am ALMOST tempted to bite. Those copywriters are really good. And most of us are trusting persons. And those of us with cancer and/or chronic fatigue syndrome and/or anything else of which we would really like to be free are vulnerable.
Keep up the good work! Love you, Lois
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Marie, thank you for this informative post. Words are so powerful, and they can easily sway an unsuspecting audience into hysteria or other emotions. I am not a fan of Dr. Oz.
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Jan, Beth, and Lois, your comments add so much to this post – thank you all for taking the time to share your thoughts
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Sounds like the tactics used by the global warming crowd. Excuse me, where is the parallel Earth that differs only in CO2 levels?
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I love this, Marie! Dr Google is fabulous, and it’s great that so many of us are significantly medically-savvy because of the ease of internet research, but there is also the other, less helpful side of this too. I’m sharing on my FB pages. Thank you xx
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