It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.It seems that The Lancet - Britain's most prestigious medical journal - has an editorial problem.
- Benjamin Franklin
Again.
We've seen The Lancet here, some time back. They published a "scientific paper" in October 2004 (right before the U.S. Presidential election) that said that the U.S. invasion of Iraq had caused vastly more civilian casualties than any other study.
Of course, the study was junk. It wasn't peer-reviewed (against the standing Lancet policy), the authors refused to release their data and methods for independent validation, and the authors ultimately were censured by the American Association for Public Opinion Research for hiding their data.
The Lancet didn't publish a retraction.
Fast forward to 2009, in the run up to the Copenhagen climate summit. The Lancet published a study that made some disturbing claims. Climate Change could be “biggest global health threat of the 21st century.”
Wow. Bigger than Malaria? A million dead each year. Bigger than AIDS? Almost 20 Million orphans. Yup. Could be. And they want your doctor to make sure that you Shut. Up. And. Listen.
Could. That's some righteous science, right there. Published in the U.K.'s most prestigious scientific journal. Well, it "could be" the most prestigious (p > 0.95, if you make some assumptions, which I refuse to disclose, even under FOI request).
The only description for this sort of "science" is junk. The only description for the state of the "scientific" community that accepts this is degraded.
Pull the science funding. Money talks. Let's get the scientific Bulls**t to walk.
4 comments:
Don't forget that article linking childhood vaccinations to autism, causing Jenny McCarthy to think she had a brain and causing outbreaks of measles in the UK, Ireland, and the US. They did finally retract it (under pressure by another journal) but they let it fly for 12 years and the damage is done.
Nice to know I'm still not missing anything by ignoring The Lancet.
THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED, HATER!
I am developing a habit of ignoring any story that starts with "scientists say" or "Doctors say". Far too much usage of "might", "could", "may". These are frequently the stories my wife calls "he-whos", as in "people who eat kibbles more than three times a week are 30% more likely to grow extra toes". Let me know when something happens and you have some hard as nails data to read, and then I'll look at it, mm-kay?
Remember that Eisenhower line about the "Military Industrial Complex" and how danger it was? Instead of that, think, "government industrial complex" or "government science complex". That's where the problems are coming from today.
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