Science
Confused. That's how most people are about the scientific claims they hear in teh medias."Last week they said red wine gives you brain cancer, now they say it can cure AIDS! I wish the scientists would make up their minds; is red wine good for you or not?!"
Of course, in such cases it is often not the scientists that are at fault, it's the journalists that are reporting (or to put it more accurately - misrepresenting) their claims which are to blame. The problem is that people trust the media. They pretend they don't, they pretend that they "know newspapers can't be trusted and shit" but the fact is that if the BBC put on its website that scientists have welded a cat onto a donkey, then the very same evening a thousand pub conversations will begin with the words "Did you see on the news today that scientists are now welding cats onto the back of donkeys? Makes me sick. You couldn't make it, you just couldn't make it up."
The reason I mention this is because for the last few months I've been an avid reader of Ben Goldacre's Bad Science blog. His blog shines a light on bad science, and misrepresentation of good science, and does so in a very accesible manner. I can't recommend it highly enough really. His summing up of spurious claims of a miracle cure for dislexia is a good example of his work, and for lolz check his latest post about a creationist getting out of his depth.
2 Comments:
Ha, if you look at the Conservapedia website in the news there is a response related to that second reply from the prof. - unbelievable!
"Lenski's latest response to a request for his data is revealing ... about Lenski's attitude. Take a good look at the attitude our tax dollars are paying for."
They welded a cat onto a donkey? Cool!!
Where can I get one?
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