Comments for Bad Science

Comment on About Dr Ben Goldacre by Superfoods: Just How Super Are They?

Superfoods: Just How Super Are They? — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:13:38 +0000

[...] renowned authour, columnist and doctor Ben Goldacre states in his thoroughly excellent book, Bad Science, the evidence frequently touted about the [...]

Comment on About Dr Ben Goldacre by International Clinical Trials Day: A Q&A with Ben Goldacre - Biome

International Clinical Trials Day: A Q&A with Ben Goldacre - Biome — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:28:01 +0000

[...] Ben Goldacre is a doctor, writer, academic and campaigner well known for his Bad Science columns in the UK Guardian newspaper, and for his books Bad Science, and Bad Pharma. Most recently, Goldacre has spearheaded the AllTrials campaign, calling for the publication of all trial results regardless of outcome to ensure the most transparent reporting of clinical research. [...]

Comment on Why is Imperial College permitting Westminster public school to sell an internship? by HungryHobo

HungryHobo — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:44:17 +0000

Tangentially related but this reminds me of a quote from Eliezer Yudkowsky:

“Have I ever remarked on how completely ridiculous it is to ask high school students to decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives and give them nearly no support in doing so? Support like, say, spending a day apiece watching twenty different jobs and then another week at their top three choices, with salary charts and projections and probabilities of graduating that subject given their test scores? The more so considering this is a central allocation question for the entire economy?”

There seems to be more and more of a shift towards requiring a donation of unpaid labor to actually get into any decent professions in this country.

Comment on About Dr Ben Goldacre by Nate Silver interview: ‘Politics is uniquely full of bullshit’ » Spectator Blogs

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:16:25 +0000

[...] bad stats journalism is limited to the field of politics. ‘I’m actually reading some of Ben Goldacre’s books now and some of the stuff he describes is more problematic, where I think the way newspapers [...]

Comment on About Dr Ben Goldacre by Clinical Trials – stumbling blocks and solutions | BHD Research

Clinical Trials – stumbling blocks and solutions | BHD Research — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:01:12 +0000

[...] calls to make clinical trial data available – such as the Alltrials petition spearheaded by Dr Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Pharma – have been heard by pharmaceutical companies, and a number of companies, [...]

Comment on Why is Imperial College permitting Westminster public school to sell an internship? by Xobbo

Xobbo — Wed, 15 May 2013 01:19:57 +0000

I don’t think any of us are arguing that selecting by parental wealth doesn’t exclude ethnic minorities disproportionately – of course it does. What we are saying is that (in this case, at least) this is not due to racism.
As martinlong pointed out, calling something racist simply because the disadvantaged group correlates with race is mistaken, because by that logic you could say that fruit trees are racist because the average Chinese person can’t reach as much fruit as a European.

It seems to me that the poor are disadvantaged equally by the issue of internships, regardless of race. The fact that ethnic minorities are disproportionately poor is an important but separate issue, and mixing the two confuses the matter.

Comment on Why is Imperial College permitting Westminster public school to sell an internship? by Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre — Tue, 14 May 2013 22:24:17 +0000

No way. The comment about race was related to the worryingly frequent clinical psychology work experience posts. That’s a profession that professes to be passionate about access and equality, there is no way on earth that selecting entrants by parental wealth doesn’t tend to exclude people from ethnic minorities in the UK.

Comment on Why is Imperial College permitting Westminster public school to sell an internship? by Xobbo

Xobbo — Tue, 14 May 2013 22:16:48 +0000

@razumny
I think the relevance of martinlong’s was clear from the portion of text he quoted, and I feel the same way as he does. It’s completely fatuous to bring racism into the discussion. This is not a race issue.
The fact that race correlates with poverty is irrelevant unless there is an intention to exploit that correlation, and I don’t see any indication of that here. In any case, lots of things correlate with other things in the same way (poverty with age, location, gender, favourite football team…), so why highlight race?

Comment on Why is Imperial College permitting Westminster public school to sell an internship? by misterjohn

misterjohn — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:22:26 +0000

This isn’t really an internship; it’s a one week work experience at best. But having to pay for work experience is appalling, and even though the Westminster parents can probably afford it, it’s not a good precedent. The next stage will be auctioning undergraduate courses.

Comment on Why is Imperial College permitting Westminster public school to sell an internship? by gimpyblog

gimpyblog — Tue, 14 May 2013 16:59:46 +0000

Never mind selling them, actual research internships pay less than minimum wage. We got funding for one from a certain research council, hourly rate, assuming standard 37 hour week (they’ll be putting in 50 hours+) works out as just over £5/hour.

Comment on Why is Imperial College permitting Westminster public school to sell an internship? by razumny

razumny — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:32:35 +0000

@martinlong: There is a huge difference in terms of accessibility between education, which I think most would agree is something to which everyone should have access, at the highest quality possible, and travel or luxury items.

The first is paramount to get a job, particularly in an economy like the one we currently see, the second is not. If you do need to travel, or own a car, for that matter, there are cheaper alternatives than First class and Ferraris.

At any rate, I fail to see the relevance of your comment to this post. Would you care to expand on it?

Comment on Why is Imperial College permitting Westminster public school to sell an internship? by martinlong1978

martinlong1978 — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:12:23 +0000

Not your words but:

“I think you could also argue – though I am happy to agree this is a more tenuous point – that since lower levels of wealth and income are associated with specific ethnic groups, this employment policy from universities is frankly racist.”

By that logic you could argue that first-class tickets, Ferrari cars, or fillet steak are also racist. Making something only available to people with lower incomes is not racist. Racist is making pre-judgements based specifically on somebody’s race.

Comment on How vaccine scares respect local cultural boundaries. by whisperingmum

whisperingmum — Sun, 12 May 2013 16:47:53 +0000

Sound Choice are looking for ethical alternatives rather than completely anti-vaccine I should add.

Comment on How vaccine scares respect local cultural boundaries. by whisperingmum

whisperingmum — Sun, 12 May 2013 16:43:13 +0000

P.S. To clarify – I don’t live in the States at the moment but my husband is American and we have four children aged six and under so this is an understandably important issue for us!

Comment on How vaccine scares respect local cultural boundaries. by sickpuppy

sickpuppy — Sun, 12 May 2013 06:01:11 +0000

I recently was looking at old newspapers form 19111 in county meath ireland. In it was lots of “letters to the editor” saying Jenner wasn’t a “real” doctor and this was a money making scam by the rich . Big pharma conspiracys existed back then too

Comment on Shame on you, Sylvia Browne, for telling Amanda Berry’s mother her daughter was dead. by Jim-Bob

Jim-Bob — Fri, 10 May 2013 18:52:27 +0000

I’m still waiting for the head-line ‘Psychic Wins Lottery’ before I will even give these nasty people my consideration.

Comment on Teachers! What would evidence based practice look like? by Marcus Hill

Marcus Hill — Fri, 10 May 2013 11:12:24 +0000

There are plenty of longitudinal studies in education that last a number of years. The problem is that any major changes to the education system are, by thei nature, driven by government. It’s easy in medicine to make incremental changes to practice and research how best to treat particular ailments. There’s nothing in medicine as all-controlling as the National Curriculum or the public examination system. Education secretaries tinker with these, but major changes do need to be backed by evidence. Ideally, such a change would start with a consultation exercise leading to draft new documents – that’s around two years to do properly. You then need to pilot these with at least two cohorts to fine tune things, and then consider whether the evidence warrants a national roll-out. That’s another three years of work. So, from initial idea to national roll-out you’re looking at a minimum of five years if it’s done properly. The problem, of course, is that there is bound to be a general election in the next five years, and the Secretary of State needs to have his or her grand new scheme in place before that. This is why education is beset by wave after wave of sweeping change, politically motivated and insufficiently researched.

Comment on Shame on you, Sylvia Browne, for telling Amanda Berry’s mother her daughter was dead. by finbikkifin

finbikkifin — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:59:31 +0000

The depressing thing is that in a few years, if anyone brings it up, people’ll just remember “Oh, didn’t she make a prediction about that?” If told she was life-destroyingly wrong, they’ll just handwave it as just a little mistake but she was /basically/ right, and then get annoyed if you look up what actually happened.

Why yes, I am speaking from experience!

Comment on Shame on you, Sylvia Browne, for telling Amanda Berry’s mother her daughter was dead. by Nozzferrahhtoo

Nozzferrahhtoo — Wed, 08 May 2013 06:30:10 +0000

Unfortunately something like this will bring her more fame and success, not less. Sure there will be some temporary angry backlash but in the end people will laud praise on her as much as ever.

A clear example of this is the story of Peter Popoff the charlatan faith healer (is there any other kind?). He was outed as receiving messages from his wife over radio which is how he received his “information from god”.

He went bankrupt after this. However a recent resurgence sees him more popular and rich than ever. No amount of facts or truth, it seems, can over come the human desire to be fooled and ripped off.

Comment on Shame on you, Sylvia Browne, for telling Amanda Berry’s mother her daughter was dead. by bobledrew

bobledrew — Tue, 07 May 2013 21:29:08 +0000

Sadly, it’s my prediction that Sylvia Browne and her ilk lost whatever sense of shame they once possessed long, long ago.