On the Nature of Things | Forum

Science has lost its way, at a big cost to humanity.

Researchers are rewarded for splashy findings, not for double-checking accuracy. So many scientists looking for cures to diseases have been building on ideas that aren't even true.

A few years ago, scientists at Amgen set out to double-check the results of 53 landmark papers in cancer research and blood biology. Only six could be proved valid. . . .

The American Council on Science and Health bills itself as an independent research and advocacy organization devoted to debunking "junk science." It's a controversial outfit—a "group of scientists…concerned that many important public policies related to health and the environment did not have a sound scientific basis," it says—that often does battle with environmentalists and consumer safety advocates, wading into public health debates to defend fracking, to fight New York City's attempt to ban big sugary sodas, and to dismiss concerns about the potential harms of the chemical bisphenol-A (better known at BPA) and the pesticide atrazine. The group insists that its conclusions are driven purely by science. It acknowledges that it receives some financial support from corporations and industry groups, but ACSH, which reportedly stopped disclosing its corporate donors two decades ago, maintains that these contributions don't influence its work and agenda.

Yet internal financial documents (read them here) provided to Mother Jones show that ACSH depends heavily on funding from corporations that have a financial stake in the scientific debates it aims to shape. The group also directly solicits donations from these industry sources around specific issues. ACSH's financial links to corporations involved in hot-button health and safety controversies have been highlighted in the past, but these documents offer a more extensive accounting of ACSH's reliance on industry money—giving a rare window into the operations of a prominent and frequent defender of industry in the science wars.

American Family Association radio host Bryan Fischer attempted on Thursday to justify the conservative case denying the very existence of trans men and women, saying the Bible backed up those “operating in the realm of science.”

“The people that are pushing this transgender bathroom deal, they’re the ones that are anti-science,” Fischer said, alluding to the California law allowing trans students to use locker rooms and restrooms according to their gender identity. “They’re the ones that have closed their minds to biology, have closed their minds to anatomy, have closed their minds to everything we know about genetics.”

Without mentioning Fox News’ Keith Ablow’s recent column by name, Fischer suggested that Christianity backed Ablow’s “scientific” reasoning, because a person’s DNA is assigned to them “by a creator God who doesn’t make those kind of mistakes,” and that trans people can reaffirm the “truth” about themselves” through prayer, since thinking otherwise is a lie “just coming from Satan.”

“If we embrace the truth that we find in the Scriptures — that you are either male or female, DNA does lie, anatomy doesn’t lie — and you take authority over any lie that comes into your mind, then you eventually will be thinking straight about your sexual identity,” Fischer said. “So we’re the ones that are operating in the realm of science here.”

Conference proceedings removed from subscription databases after scientist reveals that they were computer-generated [using SCIgen].

Americans get riled up about creationists and climate change deniers, but lap up the quasi-religious snake oil at Whole Foods. It’s all pseudoscience—so why are some kinds of pseudoscience more equal than others?

If you want to write about spiritually-motivated pseudoscience in America, you head to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. It’s like a Law of Journalism. The museum has inspired hundreds of book chapters and articles (some of them, admittedly, mine) since it opened up in 2007. The place is like media magnet. And our nation’s liberal, coastal journalists are so many piles of iron fillings.

But you don’t have to schlep all the way to Kentucky in order to visit America’s greatest shrine to pseudoscience. In fact, that shrine is a 15-minute trip away from most American urbanites.

I’m talking, of course, about Whole Foods Market.

Nonc Hilaire wrote:Whole Foods has the best steaks I have ever found in a grocery store.

Doc wrote:

Nonc Hilaire wrote:Whole Foods has the best steaks I have ever found in a grocery store.

Try a local meat market. One with local beef.

Typhoon wrote:Psychology and Psychotherapy: How Much Is Evidence-Based?

Typhoon wrote:Orthorexia | The Health Food Eating Disorder

High-fat milk products reduce diabetes risk

Last Updated: Sunday, April 5, 2015 - 12:28

London: Consumption of high-fat dairy products is associated with reduced risk for Type-2 diabetes, says a study.

The new findings are in line with previous studies that indicated a link between high consumption of dairy products and a reduced risk of Type-2 diabetes.

"Those who ate the most high-fat dairy products had a 23 percent lower risk of developing Type-2 diabetes than those who ate the least.

Vitamin D deficiency has been inconclusively linked to numerous conditions, including breast, bowel, lung and prostate cancers, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, dementia and rheumatoid arthritis. In fact, research on the topic was recently described by a Harvard medical professor as “the wild, wild west”. Amid the fog of conflicting studies, the big news story that doctors in the UK were expecting last month has been postponed until after the election. The government’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) was due to release its first report on vitamin D since 2007. The consensus is that the volume and ever-changing nature of the research to be waded through has rendered their job almost impossible, although some believe that this most recent delay (not the first) is political – perhaps an expensive mass supplementation programme is on the cards.

Nonc Hilaire wrote:The problem is all these relational surveys which are presented as scientific fact. If all you read is " X gives you a Y% greater chance of developing symptom Z" you are reading a preliminary exploration designed to see if there is any real world support for a real scientific inquiry.

Azrael wrote:Has Vitamin D deficiency been conclusively linked to any serious disease?

I'm on supplements for very low Vitamin D blood level.

Typhoon wrote:

Azrael wrote:Has Vitamin D deficiency been conclusively linked to any serious disease?

I'm on supplements for very low Vitamin D blood level.

Rickets

Vitamin D deficiency (Beyond the Basics)

Typhoon wrote:Lancet | What is medicine's 5 sigma?