National Post

Fake science meets fake news

- WARREN KINDZIERSK­I Warren Kindziersk­i is an associate professor in the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health.

Before news was considered fake, Order of Canada recipient Brian Haynes was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada in 2007. In his acceptance speech, the clinical epidemiolo­gy professor from McMaster University stated “Less than one per cent of published biomedical research is both scientific­ally valid and clinically useful.” Given claims made in research journals and media today, perhaps one per cent is optimistic. John Ioannidis, one of the world’s foremost experts on the credibilit­y of medical research, agrees: “Much of what biomedical researcher­s conclude in published studies is misleading, exaggerate­d, and often flatout wrong.”

Nowadays, this i s how it works. A research study pronounces “( enter any potential risk factor here) may, might, can, could cause a health impact.” This quickly makes headline news. However, it should set off different alarm bells than the fears the media report on. Your first thought should be: What contrived or sel ective science methods were used to lead them to say this? By selective science I mean selective design of a study, selective use of data, selective analysis or selecti ve reporting of results. These are all done to try to show a health impact. These deceptive methods heavily bias a study. Nonetheles­s, it is all too common to do this in research and still get it published.

The opening paragraphs of most air- pollution- epidemiolo­gy studies that report health impacts from previous studies pick and choose those that suit their claims. When scientists ig- nore studies that do not show impacts, and these studies exist, they practice confirmati­on bias. But try and get a scientist to admit he holds a bias in their research when he does this.

Science is the methods, not the evidence. If the methods are flawed, the evidence is flawed. In almost any study, evidence for the null hypothesis ( meaning the result shows no i m- pact) is much stronger than evidence against it. When selective science is used, evidence against the null is worthless because of bias. There is a reason for double or triple blinding a study: to reduce the bias of scientists performing the study.

Journal peer reviewers, many of which are repeatedly drawn from the same pool, do not understand or ask the right kinds of probing questions about selective science and its built- in biases, or whether the research they review is even true. Journals and their editors favour publishing novel research and many simply reject studies that do not show health impacts (here we have publicatio­n bias).

Media like to dress up science stories and to them methods are messy details. In the process of making science stories lively for viewers, they introduce errors of omission, emphasis and fact. Reporters like to put their own spin (viewpoint bias) on a story. But objectivit­y falls by the wayside in their reporting, in order to create a sexy story with a splashy headline ( strongly “for” or “against” a subject).

Too many scientists in academia have strayed far from their roots in training young people what to think, instead of how to think. Selective science is about the only way to support the former. Pressure to get work published in order to get more funds for more research also encourages use of selective science. Upton Sinclair once stated “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understand­ing it.” This describes perfectly the problem in academia.

An unsuspecti­ng public is being constantly bombarded with biased studies and left to figure out which studies are real and which are fake. Years ago I would have been skeptical of a view that life experience and common sense outweigh the value of a PhD. In a world where selective science is allowed to flourish in academia, it is true.

YOUR FIRST THOUGHT SHOULD BE: WHAT CONTRIVED OR SELECTIVE SCIENCE METHODS WERE USED?

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