Key Messages
Uncovering the Falsehoods Behind Bad Science and Misleading Media Stories
With Bad Science, you’ll be able to learn how to separate real science from cheap imitations.
It takes you through common tricks used by big players like pharmaceutical companies, homeopaths and nutritionists in order to mislead the public and how the media creates sensational stories without looking at evidence or backing of fringe scientists.
Specifically, it shows readers the analytical tools needed for determining whether a piece of science, such as a medical trial, has been designed properly in order for us to place trust in its results and the researcher’s conclusions.
This allows us to uncover false science, which can sometimes look good on paper but doesn’t actually work in practice.
The book also demonstrates how people portrayed as “experts” on the media have often not even seen the research they are discussing; teaches people how researchers can sway the results of medical trials towards their favor; and explains why one mother went to jail due to flawed statistical reasoning that was never challenged.
Don’t Get Fooled by Pseudo-Scientific Marketing: Think Critically Before Buying
We are all guilty of believing the claims made by health and beauty companies, even when there is no scientific evidence to back them up.
Take for example the detox footbath called Aqua Detox that promises to cleanse your body of toxins, evidenced by its brown bath water.
In fact, the brown color has nothing to do with actual toxins but rather comes from rust caused by iron electrodes in the device itself.
Likewise, we think face creams made from “specially treated salmon roe DNA” will nourish and revitalize our skin.
But DNA molecules are too large to be absorbed by skin, and if not even fish DNA is good for us, how can it be good for your cells? It turns out that you have to actually eat parts of salmon to reap its benefits – applying it on your skin won’t do a thing!
So why do we all so easily buy into these junk science myths peddled as health and beauty products? Simply put, we are too intimidated by complex scientific words and would rather just take their word for it.
As consumers we should be more aware of what’s being sold; just because a product looks scientific doesn’t mean it actually is!
The Dangers of Overextrapolating Nutritional Claims: How False Claims Can Have Devastating Human Consequences
When it comes to nutritionists’ claims, many of them lack scientific rigor and can’t stand up to scrutiny.
Oftentimes, as seen with Patrick Holford, academic nutritionists will make claims that are based on small-scale trials in a laboratory, but have been overextrapolated to apply to the general population.
For example, he once claimed that vitamin C was more effective than AZT for fighting HIV, based on a single paper that didn’t even mention AZT in the first place!
Furthermore, false claims like these can lead to sick people being denied proper treatment.
Take Matthias Rath’s case – he championed multivitamins over anti-HIV drugs even though his own research cherry-picked its data from Harvard studies involving 1000 HIV-infected Tanzanian women.
He failed to mention that vitamins were simply used as a way to delay taking anti-HIV drugs and even went so far as to claim they were superior and safer compared to medications.
Alarmingly enough, this misrepresentation may have caused 343,000 deaths had the South African government opted for medications over vitamins during this time period.
Therefore, it is clear that many nutritionists’ claims are fraudulent and misrepresent evidence.
It is important for consumers to do their research and seek reliable sources before believing everything nutritionists preach.
The Dangers of Publication Bias in Drug Trials: How Unreliable Are They?
Many pharmaceutical companies take advantage of the scientific process, manipulating and even sometimes hiding research data to support their products.
This is in part due to the high cost of trials – which can reach up to $500 million – making them unaffordable for public entities and therefore leaving companies to finance 90 percent of clinical drug trials themselves.
As a result, it becomes very easy for them to be biased with what gets reported.
For example, rather than releasing results from a negative trial, they are more likely to only publish positive ones.
This is known as publication bias, and has long been used by pharmaceutical companies to mislead customers about the efficacy of their drugs.
To make matters worse, some have even been known to report the same trial multiple times with slight variations in order to give their product more credibility.
These tactics don’t just stop at unreliable reporting either: it’s not uncommon for companies to bury any risks or side-effects associated with their drugs that could potentially dissuade someone from taking them.
One example of this is in regards to SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), which have been known to have anorgasmic side effects while rarely being mentioned on labels when offered up commercially.
The Power of Placebos – How “Theater” and Expectations Can Help Us Heal
Placebos are often viewed with skepticism, but they can actually tell us a lot about the way we heal ourselves.
Take for instance the placebo effect, where a person takes a sugar pill and experiences relief from symptoms, even though it contains no medicinal ingredients.
Studies have shown that theatre or presentation of placebos can be crucial to their success – for example details such as packaging, price and color all affect our expectations of the treatment itself.
When placebos are used in trials against real treatments, they can also help illuminate how much of an illness’ relief comes from our own belief system.
Take homeopathy treatment – while many believe it works because they seemed to cure illnesses, when observed against placebos in controlled experiments, they don’t perform any better.
Finally, when discussing placebos, one has to consider the ethical issues involved.
Placebo treatments are essentially shams and if used on people who are already ill could potentially cause them harm by denying them actual medical relief.
We should always be wary and conscious of these implications when considering placebo use as an option for treating people’s conditions.
Ultimately what these actions demonstrate is that we still have a lot to learn about how we heal ourselves and why these placebo effects exist – which is why further research is so important.
The Danger of Unclear Randomization in Medical Trials: How Not Blinding Tests Can Impact Research Findings
It’s no secret that medical trials are often highly respected sources of evidence and information.
Unfortunately, flaws in the design of these studies can massively affect the results they turn out – which could be disastrous if the treatments themselves turn out to be ineffective or potentially even dangerous.
For example, some trials don’t report how they randomize participants into control and treatment groups, which can lead to skewed data.
For example, a patient known as a heartsink – someone who is prone to unspecific symptoms and low success rates – may end up in one group simply because it was the next available place in the trial.
This alone can inflate the efficacy of treatment by as much as 30%.
Moreover, certain trials suffer from lack of “blinding” when testers know which patient is getting what drug.
This can influence their results through conscious or subconscious communication with patients, affecting both the tester’s judgement and way their body responds to treatments.
An experiment conducted without proper blinding showed acupuncture had incredibly positive benefits whereas tests with proper blinding demonstrated its benefits to be statistically insignificant.
Statistics are Powerful Tools But They Can Also Lead to Misunderstandings and Injustice
Statistics can be a powerful scientific tool, but they must be used responsibly in order to improve our understanding of the world.
For instance, meta-analysis can often yield more definitive results by combining the data from several smaller studies and analyzing it as a whole.
For example, one study looked at seven trials done to test whether steroids reduced the rate of infant mortality in premature birth.
Each trial did not show clear evidence that supported the hypothesis but when the results were combined and analyzed through meta-analysis, a very strong evidence was discovered showing that steroids did indeed reduce the risk of infant mortality!
On the other hand, statistics can also be misused or misunderstood.
For example, Sally Clark was wrongfully accused of murdering her two babies due to statistical improbability; her case highlighted how environmental and genetic factors are often overlooked when interpreting statistics.
Thus, when using statistics for any purpose, it is important to consider all possible factors before making a judgment call.
In summary, statistics can be incredibly useful when used correctly and responsibly – if not handled carefully it could lead to inaccurate results or even injustice!
We All Have a Bias: How Our Memory and Thinking Affects the Quality of Our Decisions
We are sadly biased and prone to delusions about information we come across every day.
Our memories may influence our chances of being deceived as we don’t treat all data equally – events we deem unusual are more likely to lodge in our brains than the mundane.
In addition, it’s easy to fabricate a relationship between two things when there is none.
For instance, an improvement in medical conditions can be due to background noise like regression to the mean, and not necessarily a treatment.
Similarly, people tend to fall back on preconceived views rather than examining a situation objectively.
A US study showed that these biases stayed true regardless of where people stood on a subject like death penalty and they readily dismissed evidence which contradicted them while giving undue credit to what supported their opinion.
It’s important that have access to good knowledge so we can separate truth from fiction.
Knowing what constitutes valid research will help us understand why bad science gets shared so quickly and how easily those lies can misguide us if we’re not careful.
The Danger of Relying on Media’s Interpetation of Science
News stories about science research are often dumbed down and sensationalized, leading to a lot of public misunderstanding and confusion when it comes to scientific concepts.
This is mainly due to the fact that groundbreaking scientific discoveries become less frequent as time passes.
In the past, between 1935 to 1975, significant advances in science were made almost daily.
For example, revolutionary tools such as mechanical ventilation and intensive care were developed in order to fight polio.
Despite this progress in science during the “golden age” of discovery, many scientific advances today happen gradually and not excitingly enough for newspaper editors usually keen on publishing bold headlines for their readership.
Thus, newspaper stories about science tend to be trivial or wacky in nature – designed more to grab attention than genuinely inform or inspire interest in scientific exploration.
False Stories About Health Risks: How Media Fails to Vet Non-Experts and Spreads Unfounded Fear
It’s an unfortunate truth that the media are often compelled to scare people with science stories that lack evidence.
Take, for example, the 2005 newspapers reporting of the presence of “superbug” MRSA in UK hospitals – when microbiologists from these very hospitals found no such bacterium.
It was later revealed that the expert peddling this story had little knowledge of microbiology, selling anti-MRSA products from a garden shed!
Unsafe and unfounded stories continue to appear in today’s newspapers due to a combination of factors – often non-experts will get exposure due to their media prowess as opposed to their scientific credibility, making scientifically rigorous studies go unreported.
This is ruthless seen in British newspapers reporting on a single anecdotal paper led by Andrew Wakefield relating vaccinations (MMR) to autism in children despite the overwhelming scientific evidence suggesting otherwise.
Not only did this doctor have conflicts of interest and suppress data that didn’t fit his theory, but no effort was made by the media to even look into it!
Consequently fewer people got vaccinated with MMR and cases of measles, mumps and rubella skyrocketed as a result.
Wrap Up
“Bad Science” is a book that takes a hard look at some of the false science and pseudoscience out there.
It’s a warning to us all that we need to take what we see in the media and big pharma-sponsored products with a grain of salt, as well as any so-called evidence presented by charlatans.
While it may seem like some of these claims are based on scientific fact, they are often anything but.
The main takeaway from this book: always be skeptical about authoritative news reports, sensationalized stories, and anything claiming to be “science” without any real evidence to back it up.
Stay informed and do your own research — don’t put blind faith in anyone!
That’s the final summary of what you can learn from Bad Science.
