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Piltdown
Skeptic Friend
USA
312 Posts |
 Posted - 07/05/2001 : 14:22:21
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http://www.observer.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,515181,00.html
quote:
All that you think you know is wrong
The risk of skin cancer, the causes of global warming, the dangers of high cholesterol - one expert says it's all bunk. Report by Robin McKie
Sunday July 1, 2001
The Observer
Imagine a world where cholesterol is harmless, depression is beneficial and only suntan lotions cause skin cancer. Or a planet on which the industrial gases that pour from cars and factories are unconnected with increasing temperatures and rising ocean levels.....
In Fragile Science: The Reality Behind the Headlines, Dr Robin Baker, former reader in zoology at Manchester University, argues that confusion over statistical analyses, pressure to provide speedy answers, misguided belief in computer models and the desire to attract the attention of journalists and broadcasters have misled scientists to such a degree that 'we can scarcely believe anything they tell us'.
I can just see creationists, moon hoaxers, ufools, and every other kind of pseudoscience quack quoting from this book to "prove" the unreliability of "establishment" science. As far I can tell, it is actually just the conclusions drawn from media reporting on science that are being questioned, something with which we are already painfully familiar.
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