MetaFilter posts tagged with BadScience

Scientists: cancer prevention causes cancer

fatllama — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:00:32 -0800

Kill or cure: making sense of the Daily Mail’s ongoing effort to classify every inanimate object into those that cause cancer and those that prevent it. Paul Battley uses automation and crowd-sourcing in the war against bad science reporting.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

Artw — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:13:08 -0800

Home taping didn’t kill music, says Ben Goldacre - but where did all the money go?

The Doctor Will Sue You Now

xchmp — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 08:11:34 -0800

"If you’re ever looking for a warning sign that you’re on the wrong side of an argument, suing Medecins Sans Frontieres is probably a pretty good clue." Science journalist and blogger Ben Goldacre has released the missing chapter of his book, Bad Science, telling the story of Matthias Rath, vitamins and the AIDS crisis in South Africa. [Previously. Also.]

Bad science meets bad broadcasting

creeky — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:28:48 -0800

Following panic about a now-discredited study on the MMR vaccine, measles cases in the UK are on the rise. Radio host Jeni Barnett hosted a phone-in about it (transcript), defending parents' rights to choose not to vaccinate their children. Bad Science blogger Ben Goldacre had a thing or two to say about Barnett's argument. When the broadcaster of the radio show threatened legal action, bloggers of bad science responded...

Bullshit Easier To Swallow In Pill Form

christonabike — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:17:15 -0800

Vitamin purveyor Matthias Rath^ has dropped his libel case against Ben Goldacre^ and the Guardian. Goldacre's take. Background: Goldacre originally wrote about Rath in two consecutive columns in January 2007 (1 2) and was barred from discussing the case until now (including in his recent book.) Rath previously successfully sued the British Medical Journal for libel and has a history of litigation. Rath was also ordered to stop defamatory remarks against the Treatment Action Campaign, an AIDS treatment organization, and has had multiple conflicts with their leader Zackie Achmat. Goldacre's book was covered recently, but this story isn't really related.

Quantum Xrroid Consciousness Interface, The Musical

jack_mo — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 11:06:49 -0800

Quack and fugitive from justice Professor Bill Nelson, inventor of the Quantum Xrroid Consciousness Interface, sings of his noble struggle against the evils of conventional medicine! Via Ben "Bad Science" Goldacre. And that's just the trailer for one of Nelson's many autobiographical feature films. (All of which, you'll be glad to know, are hosted by an Angel of God and do not leave a carbon footprint.)

Superstring Backswing

chuckdarwin — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:22:06 -0800

The hucksters behind the QLink Pendant claim that it "utilises Sympathetic Resonance Technology to rebalance the energetic systems of the body". Apparently, some scientists and engineers think £69.99 is a fair price for a necklace consisting of a copper coil and a zero-ohm resistor [neither of which are actually connected to anything]. The inventor claims that the QLink does not use electronics components “in a conventional electronic way” yet it "increases your capacity to function in EMF saturated environments."I guess golfers will buy anything that promises an improved score. It's the perfect accessory for my new Faraday suit.

But who wants to do math? Math is hard. Scaring ignorant people is easy.

Artw — Fri, 25 May 2007 12:04:09 -0800

Wi-fi Routers: Silent blinking death. Via badscience.net, where it was posted in response to what sounds like a truly awful show. Electrosensitivity previously discussed here.

Water really is blue! Who knew?

flabdablet — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 07:26:44 -0800

Teaching bad science is not something only creationist wingnuts do. The redoubtable Bill Beaty sets us straight. (thanks, Laen)

Baddest science in the whole damn town

Sidhedevil — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 12:57:08 -0800

My fab fave UK public intellectual was somehow overlooked in the popularity contest discussed yesterday, and I was surprised that nobody had ever FPPd him here (at least, as far as the search function can determine...)

ptermit — Tue, 05 Nov 2002 07:23:51 -0800

Remember the Sokal Hoax? In the mid 1990s, NYU professor Alan Sokal got a deliberately ridiculous paper in the po-mo journal Social Text, which would have embarrassed the editors if the concept of shame weren't merely a social construct. Now it seems that turnabout is fair play. In this week's Chronicle of Higher Education, there's a fascinating article about two brothers -- they apparently got their physics PhDs by spouting nonsense, and even got their tripe published in peer-reviewed journals. (The article itself requires a subscription, but here is an account by one of the players in the drama. Even though every scientific field has bad journals and these papers are in French, which consigned them to less well-known journals, it's still a major embarrassment for physics.

joaquim — Wed, 19 Jun 2002 10:19:20 -0800

Stupid Movie Physics Tricks discusses bad physics in movies and even rates some movies (e.g., XP - physics not from this universe) based on their faithfulness to the laws of physics. Follow that up with bad astronomy and finish it off with bad science in general. (OK, so the last one is more about bad meteorology, but that sucks as a soundbite.)