Study says many studies suck

[n2doc]

Research shows we are far too drunk on stupid studies that tell us what research shows
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, February 1, 2008


Here is this lovely questionnaire. It is part of a big national study designed by a major medical clinic/university/government body and it is therefore presumably quite important and serious and high-minded and its conclusions might very well go a long way toward telling us a great deal more about who we are as a people, as a species, as a weird semi-intelligent flesh-eating creature of this vast and impenetrable galaxy. Please respond accordingly.

Question No. 1 (please be as specific as possible): Exactly how much of an idiot are you? More to the point: How arrogant and ignorant and out of touch with your body, your heart, your mind, your divine sense of self do you feel you are on a day to day basis? Are you, in short, a moron? How much of a moron? Too much of a moron to actually understand this paragraph? Please check the little box on the right. No, the other right. Thank you.

From what I have gleaned from glancing through a whole slew of recent studies, these are, apparently, the questions we most need answered. These are the questions that plague us and torment us and, oh my God, if we only had the answers to these questions and the many, many other urgent queries like them, such as: Is sunlight necessary? Is breathing compulsory? Is having a dog around sort of nice? If you eat less crap, will you feel better? Sleep: Who cares? Should humans move? God: WTF? — we might just figure out how to live long enough to, you know, accidentally stab ourselves in the eye with a fork and bleed to death.

Which is perhaps an overly snarky way of saying: Many of these studies are getting dangerously inane. And insulting. And actually harmful. Because if you believe many of these deceptive factoids that fill our newspapers and magazines and universities, if you take them as they're meant to be taken, as helpful guidelines for behavior or even as some sort of serious demarcation of human understanding, well, we are doomed indeed.

more:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/02/01/notes020108.DTL

[Avalux]

1. Might be helpful to clarify that these studies DO NOT follow a scientific model.

They are objective, and trying to put all the data into some sort of factual form gets really, really messy. :hi:

[philb]

2. Its been shown most "peer-reviewed " studies aren't valid and propaganda by special interests rather

than science

see Scientific Method thread and here are examples from a Med School MD

Malignant Medical Myths, by Joel M. Kauffman, Ph.D., 326 pp, softback, $24.95, ISBN 0-7414-2909-8,West Conshohocken, Pa., Infinity Publishing.com, 2006 (This well-researched attack on mainstream medicine inflicts serious wounds. by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD )
) http://www.donaldmiller.com/Book%20review-malignant%20Medical%20Myths.pdf


The Government Grant System, Inhibitor of Truth and Innovation? Donald W. Miller, Jr. MD
http://www.donaldmiller.com/The_Government_Grant_System.pdf