- The art and science of miso. High-quality miso from Massachusetts.
- A former BMJ editor on research misconduct. Biased reporting of research.
- Health-care CEOs are America’s best-paid executives. “John Hammergren, chief executive of McKesson Corporation, . . . took home $145,266,971 in 2010. McKeeson is . . . is the largest pharmaceutical distributor in North America. . . Ronald Williams, boss of health insurance giant Aetna, made $57,787,786 in 2010. . . . Since he became CEO, Aetna’s stock price declined by 70%.”
- “How one man got away with mass [scientific] fraud.” I agree with almost none of the opinions expressed in this article, but the facts are interesting.
- From here: Compare the number of articles written by an average physicist and an average mathematician:
- Physicist: The first announcement, the second, correction, detailed version, and the crucial error found. [5 articles]
- Mathematician: The proof. [1 article]
Thanks to Alex Chernavsky and Casey Manion.
What opinions in the article about scientific fraud do you disagree with?
Here are two opinions I disagree with in the “mass scientific fraud” article:
1. “There is now enough evidence to say what many have long thought: that any claim coming from an observational study is most likely to be wrong – wrong in the sense that it will not replicate if tested rigorously.” I disagree. I think epidemiology has taught us a lot of useful stuff. For example, that heavy smoking causes lung cancer, that folate deficiency causes birth defects. It’s true that epidemiologists persistently overstate the strength of their evidence but that doesn’t mean their evidence isn’t worth anything. To say “any claim” is “most likely to be wrong” is black-and-white thinking, not to mention a vast overstatement.
2. “Science, at its most basic, is the effort to prove new ideas wrong.” Science is also, at its most basic, about coming up with new ideas worth testing. That isn’t easy.