The third annual ‘celebrity audit’ from the charity Sense About Science has been released, and it makes for amusingāand depressingāreading. The campaign, targeting celebrities who promote theories, therapies and campaigns that make little or no scientific sense, this year takes a swipe at Tom Cruise, Jim Carey, Barack Obama and Demi Moore, among others.
In similar fashion, Ben Goldacre compiles his end-of-year list of Bad Science. This quote sums it up nicely:
It’s only when you line these jokers up side by side that you realise what a vast and unwinnable fight we face. [ā¦] In a world where rigorous evidence from scientific research languishes unpublicised, the media continued to churn out bogus wacky science stories.
As Andrew commented yesterday, books such as Goldacre’s Bad Science should be compulsory reading in schools.