Bad Science

[khaosworks]

It occurs to me that maybe I should have tried doing a paper on fraudulent and crackpot science. I'm sure there's a good synthetic book out there examining the attitude towards dubious science and examining why people are dead set on giving credence to claims that collapse with a little poking - not to mention why in some cases reputable scientists don't even want to speak out when they have doubts - like the recent Mumps, Measles and Rubella scare in the UK shows. If there isn't a book out there, someone should write one.

(uh, not me... got enough worries about my actual thesis as it is)

But I digress. This is to point your attention to the Guardian 2004 Bad Science Awards, which include the "Andrew Wakefield prize for preposterous extrapolation from a single unconvincing piece of scientific data", which went to the Daily Express, for declaring that "recent research" has shown turmeric to be "highly protective against many forms of cancer, especially of the prostate" on the basis of lab studies on individual cells in dishes, but none on humans and "Award for outstanding innovation in the use of the title 'Doctor'" which went to the "nutritionist" Dr Gillian McKeith for her Ph.D. via a correspondence course from the Clayton College of Natural Health in Alabama, and her confident characterization of chlorophyll as being "high in oxygen".

The one that drew the biggest laugh from me (aside from the Space Tomato No. 1 from China - cosmically irradiated mutant vegetables... no, seriously, they send the seeds up in satellites, which seems an awful lot of trouble and expense when you can just stick 'em next to a burst of gamma rays) was "Least plausible cosmetics claim", which went to Bioionic for its process of Ionic Hair Retexturizing: "Water molecules are broken down to a fraction of their previous size ... diminutive enough to penetrate through the cuticle, and eventually into the core of each hair":

Shrinking molecules caused some concern among the physicists at the ceremony, since IHR was available just 200 yards away, and the only other groups who have managed to create superdense quark-gluon plasma used a relativistic heavy ion collider. The prospect of such equipment being used by hairdressers was deemed worthy of further investigation.

Back to grading.

Comments

[marmota.livejournal.com]

"Water molecules are broken down to a fraction of their previous size ..."

Let's see, that would be hydrogen and oxygen, so we'd have people's hairdos combusting like the Hindenburg when the hairdresser brought the red-hot hairdryer filaments near their heads?

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

There's a book called 'Why People Believe Weird Things', though I can't remember the author just at the moment and I have not enough energy to go upstairs, hunt through my room for the book, and come back down and report who the author is. But I'll try to remember to let you know the Author later. It's all about... well.. why people believe weird things...

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have that book - it's on my shelf back in Singapore, so I can't confirm the title, but I'm pretty it's the same one you're thinking of. Covers holocaust deniers and Ayn Rand, among others. Pretty pastel color-type picture on the cover.

The kind of book I'm thinking of is not a debunking kind of book (which it mainly is, although it does discuss the why peripherally), but an examination of the development of attitudes towards psuedoscience over time. I remember another book about bad science written by a scientist whose name escapes me - covered cold fusion, and a rant against manned space exploration, but not historiographical enough.

Anyway, just a thought. If I get the urge, I'll go and ask Alexei Kojevnikov - he's the science historian in the department and he should know.

[surrdave.livejournal.com]

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I like the style marginally better than the Ig Nobels.

Studies of how urban legends propagate are somewhat relevant. If anyone hasn't read Jan Harold Brunvand's books, I recommend them highly.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

The IgNobels are a different philosophy though - they are legitimate research subjects, although the humor comes from wondering what the researchers were smoking when they came up with the ideas, and/or the complete bizarro nature or uselessness of the results.

I like them a lot, especially since the receipients of the Iggies are (usually) happy to receive them and give as good as they get. Who says academics don't have a sense of humor?