It’s been a long while since I’ve given much credence to science headlines in most newspapers, but this look at science headlines justifying moral prejudice on the Bad Science blog had me open mouthed with incredulity for most of it.
It takes a good look at the reporting behind the cervical cancer vaccine and the “Twitter and Facebook give you cancer” headlines and calls bullshit. Loudly.
Definitely worth a read. You’ll never trust another science headline again.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Clair // 18th Apr 2009 at 10:23 am
Terrifying isn’t it?
(Love ben goldacre though)
2 anabels // 19th Apr 2009 at 12:38 am
Interestingly I read most academic papers with exactly the same disbelief especially the kind of social science paper underlying the story associated with Twitter. While this one had some hard science element things like study design, data analysis, interpretation and write up all change what is found. We all have biases and most academics won’t say what theirs are so you have to be very careful reading their output. I took my name off a paper because my interpreation of the replies in an interview was so drastically at odds with the lead researchers!
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