Science in the Media
XKCD usually is pretty good; this one, however, is a brillant commentary on science journalism. People forget that once an event has happened, the probability of that event is exactly 1, and the probability of all other outcomes is exactly zero. (Click image for full-size view.)
(Source page.)
Yes, this is old news. I've written about it before, as have
numerous other progressive scientifically-oriented bloggers. But
now that there is an opinion piece featured prominently in the New York
Times, perhaps the issue is gaining momentum.
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18kennedy.html?hp">Cows
on Drugs
By DONALD KENNEDY
Published: April 17, 2010
NOW that Congress has pushed through its complicated legislation to
reform the health insurance system, it could take one more simple step
to protect the health of all Americans. This one wouldn't raise any
taxes or make…
I guess Fox News is starting a series of vignettes, hoping to show that
stimulus money is being wasted. In an early attempt, Hannity and
Carlson track
down an entomologist, at Michigan State University, who got a $200,000
grant from stimulus funds. The scientist is
href="http://www.ent.msu.edu/Directory/Facultypages/Cognato/tabid/135/Default.aspx">Dr.
Anthony Cognato, Associate Professor in the Department of
Entomology.
I will let the viewers judge for themselves if the Fox crew managed to
demonstrate anything at all. One thing that is clear: they do not
understand basic science,…
At first, I was going to title this post WSJ: Incompetent Ranting. Then
I decided that was too strong. Then I read the article again, and
went back to the original title. Mind you, this is not intended
to be an ad hominem attack. The author,
href="http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/history/faculty/facultyprofiles/shorter.html">Edward
Shorter,
has been the Hannah Professor in the History of Medicine since 1991,
and in 1996 was cross-appointed as Professor of Psychiatry (at the
University of Toronto). He has written some good books, including
A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the…
I've been mulling this over for a few days, finally deciding to write
about it. There was an article in the NYT on 13 January 2010
about an NEJM article:
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/health/research/14morphine.html">
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/health/research/14morphine.html">Morphine
May Help Traumatic Stress
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: January 13, 2010
Doctors have long hoped to discover a "morning-after pill"
to blunt the often disabling emotional fallout from traumatic
experiences. Now it appears that they have had one on hand all along:
morphine...In…
I couldn't resist that title, but I must admit it isn't mine; the
author's post is
href="http://pasadenasubrosa.typepad.com/pasadena_sub_rosa/2009/12/let-them-eat-antipsychotics.html">here.
This is about the NYT article about the finding that children on
Medicaid are more likely to be prescribed antipsychotic medication,
compared to those with private insurance. The obvious correlation
is that children with Medicaid are from poor families, whereas those
with private insurance are from families that have more
resources.
It is one of those studies that documents an evocative finding…
The Union of Concerned Scientists
has issued a press release:
href="http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ucs-gives-obama-high-marks-on-0229.html">UCS
Gives Obama High Marks on Scientific Integrity for First 100 Days.
Granted, after suffering through eight years of the Bush II
Administation, they'd probably give high marks to Pee Wee Herman.
They believe that Obama has taken a personal interest in restoring
integrity to the interface between science and politics. While
acknowledging that he hasn't and couldn't take a lot of action in his
first 100 days in office, they express the…
When I was at work today, I saw a headline that irritated me. I decided
I would blog about it when I got home. But now the headline has
been changed. I will still blog about it, though.
The original headline was: Report: Alternative energy quest endangering
birds. Now, it is worded differently:
href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/ENERGY_BIRDS?SITE=TXWIC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT">Report:
Birds endangered by energy development
By DINA CAPPIELLO - 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As the Obama administration pursues more homegrown
energy sources, a new government…
I chose three articles from this month's edition of Archives
of General Psychiatry, upon which to comment. For
those not familiar with it, Arch Gen Psychiatry is
an AMA journal, like JAMA, but for psychiatrists. It's an
influential journal.
1.
href="http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/65/8/870">Selecting
Among Second-Step Antidepressant Medication Monotherapies.
This is their one open-access article, so I will mention it
first. A little background: We've known for a long time that
all antidepressants work for some people, but nothing works for
everyone. A lot of effort…
Welcome to the Lake Wobegon Scientific Society Journal, where
all research studies are "authoritative", all scientists
"experts", all findings "breakthroughs". Not to mention
"above average".
That happens to be almost a direct quote from a recent article in the
the Guardian. (HT:
href="http://www.blacktriangle.org/blog/?p=1801">Black
Triangle)
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/02/pressandpublishing.healthandwellbeing">Overhyped
health stories? They're all pants
Peter Wilby
The Guardian,
Monday June 2 2008
Last Tuesday, the Daily Mail informed readers that
cocoa…
When generic drugs started to become popular, many people were
skeptical. Many people got switched from brand name to
generic products, and complained that the generic did not work as well.
These complaints often were treated with skepticism. After
all, generic drugs contain the same active ingredient(s) as the
brand-name product, but cost less. Plus, the FDA assured us
that they were bioequivalent.
Over the past decade or so, public acceptance of generics has
increased. Many people want to get the generic equivalent.
But now there are questions about the validity of the testing
done…
Judith Warner has some insightful essays in the NYT column, pertaining
to the long-raging question about whether psychiatric patients are
style="font-style: italic;">overmedicated or
style="font-style: italic;">undermedicated.
One of the essays addresses the question directly:
style="font-weight: bold;"
href="http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/overselling-overmedication/">Overselling
Overmedication
Judith Warner
February 14, 2008
...In the book, Barber
argues that Americans are being vastly
overmedicated for often relatively minor mental health concerns. This
over-…
A fellow blogger, Logtar,
href="http://blog.logtar.com/2008/02/18/bodies-revealed-boycott/">tipped
me off to a controversy, and asked if I had anything to say
about it. The controversy has come about over an exhibit:
rel="tag" href="http://www.bodiesrevealed.com/index-home.html">Bodies
Revealed. It's a traveling exhibit that displays
plastinated human cadavers. The exhibit was organized by
href="http://www.prxi.com/prxi.html">Premier Exhibitions, Inc.
A bit of background can be gotten from an article in Scientific
American,
href="http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=…
Usually I cringe when I see yet another newspaper article about
suicide. But I always read them. This time, I did
cringe, but needlessly. The article turned out to be OK.
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/washington/24fda.html?ei=5090&en=69952ee3ab69a7b3&ex=1358917200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print">F.D.A.
Requiring Suicide Studies in Drug Trials
By
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/gardiner_harris/index.html?inline=nyt-per"
title="More Articles by Gardiner Harris">GARDINER HARRIS
January 24, 2008
src…
Any time something related to a
medical use for cannabis is found, it
makes headlines. Mostly, the interest is generated by the
relationship to an illegal drug. Sometimes, though, the media
do a decent job of reporting the real issue.
href="http://www.researchblogging.org/">Researchers
at the California
Pacific Medical Center Research Institute
have announced that one of the compounds found in cannabis,
cannabidiol,
inhibits a gene that is important for the growth and metastasis of
breast
cancer.
Note that this has nothing to do with medical marijuana, really.
Cannabidiol is not…
Tilly is an eagle that has been trained to fly with a pair
of video
cameras. The cameras weigh less than 30 grams and can
transmit video signals more than a mile.
I gather this was shown on Aminal Planet, but you can see it on the
Internet
href="http://animal.discovery.com/convergence/spyonthewild/birdtech/birdtech.html">here.
Is it just me, or do others find this article to be
offensive?
href="http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1681838,00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-healthsci">When
the Patient Is a Googler
By SCOTT HAIG
Thursday, Nov. 08, 2007
We had never met, but as we talked on the phone I knew she
was Googling me. The way she drew out her conjunctions, just a little,
that was the tip off — stalling for time as new pages loaded.
It was barely audible, but the soft click-click of the keyboard in the
background confirmed it. Oh, well, it's the information age. Normally,
she'd have to go through…
href="http://www.researchblogging.org/">
alt="Blogging on Peer-Reviewed Research"
src="http://www.researchblogging.org/public/citation_icons/rb2_large_gray.png"
height="50" width="80">The
researchers did fMRI
of brains of persons with
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder"
rel="tag">Borderline Personality Disorder, before
and after psychotherapy. This was a small study, using a
design that would be difficult to use routinely, but it is
provisionally interesting. Difficult, because the patients
received 12 weeks of inpatient therapy (perhaps…
PZ has already
href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/10/dont_worry_kids_curry_is_just.php">written
about this, primarily to dismiss it as nonsense. He is
correct, but there is one point (or two) that I want to add.
Oliver
Curry is described in WIkipedia as an evolutionary
theorist as well as a political theorist. He was granted a
Ph.D., on the topic of morality as natural history, by the
Government Department of the London School of Economics.
Apparently, he is fond of saying that humans will divide into
two species, approximately 100,000 years from now.
The article PZ…
Howard Hughes Medical Institute has announced a policy to
promote open-access publication of scientific papers. They
are not only supporting it philosophically, but financially as well.
In fact, they are not only supporting it, but requiring
it for their researchers:
href="http://www.hhmi.org/news/springer20070927.html">HHMI
Expresses Support for Springer Open Choice
September 27, 2007
The
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has expressed support for
Springer's Open Choice program whereby articles are — if
accepted for publication after a process of rigorous peer-review
—…