Bad Science

Found in a bookstore in Malaga, caught my interest.

A neat book by a Guardian columnist, someone who enjoys a good argument. The chapters cover various bad science practices, from homeopathy to natural remedies to bogus claims, etc.

Still entertaining, even if it recaps biases I already know, but it has an engaging, interesting style. I like how he calls out his “colleagues.”

Notes

• Often natural remedies like the little tub of water to eliminate toxins are just simple chemical/psychological effects. People then convince themselves they feel better and promote the method
• Beyond various biases with the placebo effect, there is also regression to the mean. When we go to an osteopath, we are at our worst, so when we improve because the worst passes we think the method worked
• Homeopathy gets debunked, obviously, an easy one. It is water and sugar, with zero evidence it works
• When we read a paper, if the evidence is in a lab or in mice it is pretty useless for us. To be credible it needs at least 3 groups, one control, one with placebo, and one with the medicine, and randomized and blinded to avoid bias
• For example, if someone knows they are being monitored they might do better in the study. This is why you look for p < 0.05 to account for chance
• So when someone mentions a study, always check how many people and what method was used
• Introductions to various scammers, like a couple of fake professors who sell pills. The author loves dismantling their claims, and it can feel pretty personal. Very funny
• Marketing research like the formula for happiness or the perfect day gets taken apart too. It is pseudoscientific stuff made to get a clickbait headline for journalists, those “doctors” are not legitimate
• By the way, there is a big problem because real discoveries are gradual and not that exciting, journalists always want a big splash and often misrepresent sources and what is found. It is hard to read a paper properly
• Final discussion on the bogus claim that vaccines cause autism. Zero evidence, lots of media noise, big problems since diseases have reappeared