Bad Science

Is everywhere in the media. Ben Goldacre examines why in The Gaurdian. (via Mr. Reynolds)

I think he is too harsh on Humanities students. After all, we have to get cheap labor somewhere. But he definetly isn't too harsh on the journalists:

"Statistics are what causes the most fear for reporters, and so they are usually just edited out, with interesting consequences. Because science isn't about something being true or not true: that's a humanities graduate parody. It's about the error bar, statistical significance, it's about how reliable and valid the experiment was, it's about coming to a verdict, about a hypothesis, on the back of lots of bits of evidence."

Sad, but True. Silly Journalists Statistics are for kids.