Wow, what a great article to kick off this blog with. Quackwatch.org has published an excellent article on some of the signs of bogus scientific claims. Check it out here: Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science

This is a great starter for showing some of the common signs that make it easy to spot dubious claims being made about products or discoveries. However, I do caution that not all bogus science will always show all these signs. So while it may be an easy way to spot questionable claims, failure to show these signs does not mean you’re in the clear.

This article mostly shows how to spot claims that are pure BS, but there’s another type of bogus science which sometimes comes across as a wolf in sheeps clothing. This is the unsubstantiated or unverified claims which are often taken out of context or sensationalized despite a lack of good data. An example of this would be a small or informal study done with poor controls that indicates a connection between health problems and something like cell phones, daily habits or diet. It’s not uncommon for a small-scale or poorly controlled experiment to show up in the press with implications far beyond it’s scope.

For example you may read a headline about how cell phones cause a drop in sperm count, but not hear the whole story behind the information. In fact a study like this did get some press recently, but what did not get as much attention is that the study in question was conducted on a small group of those visiting a fertility clinic (already a bad sample), lacked any control and failed to factor in any possible alternative explanations for those talking on a phone having lower sperm counts. (Maybe those who talk on the phone a lot also drive a lot? Maybe they tend to be older.)

At best, such a study is very inconclusive. Nope. There’s no shortage of bogus science out there!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 at 5:32 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Education, Good Science, Quackery, Website. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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