On 8/5/2014 7:55 AM, Warp wrote:
> It's a common problem with woo "science" that the experiments they
> perform are extremely faulty. They fail to perform proper double
> blind testing, they fail to have controls, they often use sample
> sizes that are statistically too small, and they often engage in
> confirmation and publication bias.
>
> Publication bias is something that very easily misleads, and is
> easily missed by the public.
>
Lets me honest here - publication bias means a) nearly everything ends 
up behind a pay wall, or in a pop-sci mag, where they may not even get 
the facts right, when they have real facts, and b) negative results, as 
in, "We didn't find anything.", are ***never*** published where they can 
be easily found, never mind where the public will see them. So, yeah, 
bias... Kind of like how reading an old book on, "things to see, and 
have fun at, in country X.", is a tad "biased" against the small war 
that just broke out there, and the people shooting tourists who show up 
to look at the attraction that was just blown up by rebels...

Its such a minor "bias".

And, its only getting worse as the publishers are pushing harder and 
harder to make more money, by putting *everything* behind a pay wall, 
permanently, instead of allowing it to be release via things like Pubmed.

-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

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