junk science

A couple of years ago, Panera Bread went crazy. Somebody high up in the corporation decided that selling (what is, in my opinion1) really great tasting food was no longer a sufficient strategy.

A recent article in the Times swallowed whole a junk study about an increase in death from eating red meat. ACSH advisor and biostatistician Dr. Stan Young dissected out the fat, bone, and grizzle, and found... nothing left.

It's amazing what sort of nonsense shows up in your inbox every day. I always wonder who falls for this stuff, but it must be a substantial number of people. Otherwise, spammers wouldn't spam.

The Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT) sounds like a respectable organization. Who's opposed to responsible technology?

Organic or so-called "natural" products are all the craze. People wrongly believe, often because of purposefully misleading advertising, that these products are safer and healthier than other products.

Though we've been debunking junk science for more than 40 years, we never cease to be amazed by the amount of hype and exaggeration that continues to permeate the mainstream press.

How do you know when a "study" isn't really a study? When the people who performed it wrote up a brochure hyping its results before actually bothering to publish a scientific paper.

Why are charlatans like Dr. Oz so popular?

I must be psychic. (And before you ask, no, we aren't getting paid by the dairy industry.)

There is so much disinformation on the Internet, that debunking junk science and bogus health claims could be a full-time job. Indeed, debunkery is one of the main reasons why ACSH exists.