June 4, 2015
Round up on the chocolate hoax
Science journalism (or science) has a problem:
- Trolling our confirmation bias: one bite and we’re easily sucked in. Will Grant, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, writing at The Conversation
- Fake weight-loss study symptom of a wider problem. Ken Perrott, Open Parachute.
- John Bohannon’s chocolate-and-weight-loss hoax study actually understates the problems with standard p-value scientific practice. Andrew Gelman
- How, and why, a journalist tricked news outlets into thinking chocolate makes you thin. Washington Post
- Why A Journalist Scammed The Media Into Spreading Bad Chocolate Science. Maria Godoy, The Salt blog, NPR.
Meh. Unimpressed.
- Chocolate study sting: Where are these millions of fools, anyway? Emily Willingham
- What can reporters learn from the chocolate diet study hoax? Tara Haelle, Association of Health Care Journalists
Study was unethical
- Tricked: The Ethical Slipperiness of Hoaxes Hilda Bastian, PLOS Blogs
- Attempt to shame journalists with chocolate study is shameful. Rachel Ehrenberg, ScienceNews
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
Small sample, I know, but there does seem to be a gender bias in what people made of it.
Although it’s not directly on topic but the incident reminded me of the movie “Wit”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243664/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
I watched it one evening and had the most horrific nightmares.
9 years ago
Yes, I noticed the division by gender. And I could easily have classified Maria Godoy’s post differently and got perfect separation.
On the other hand, this doesn’t include my post on the ethics.
9 years ago