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Lucky Wizard · Daedalian Member

These sites should be required reading for students.

http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/BadScience.html
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/index.html

Oh, and what examples of bad science irritate you? (Not just the ones on these sites, but others you've noticed.)

It irritates me when people mix up energy and power, or confuse the megawatt (power unit) with the megawatt-hour (energy unit). I've seen this a few times in articles about the investigation into Enron.

extropalopakettle · No offense, but....

Just wanted to say I think this is a good idea for an "educator Ideas" thread, though I haven't thought of any specific examples of bad science to contribute.

An auxilliary topic might be "Bad Science Reporting" - how scientific concepts get butchered in the popular press. Yahoo and CNN.com science news are good places to start.

Quailman · His Postmajesty

You mentioned confusing units. How about using the term "Light Years" to mean "a very very long time"? It's a measure of distance, not time.

Ferris · Daedalian Member

Nice link!

Slightly tangential, but the media often confuse correlation with causality (especially in medical studies), which is just sloppy reasoning.

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nec sorte nec fato

Bicho the Inhaler · Daedalian Member

Yeah, the light-year thing is pretty annoying. I think a lot of people think "parsec" is also a measure of time; I think it was even used as such in the original Star Wars. Parsecs are distance too, like light-years (actually longer than a light-year).

[This message has been edited by Bicho the Inhaler (edited 08-20-2002 10:20 AM).]

Quailman · His Postmajesty

Longer than a light year? Wow! That must really be an astronomical unit!

CrystyB · Misunderstood Guy

Precisely 3.258 light-years, or 3.086 × 10¹³ kilometers

OcularGold · Daedalian Member

reading the "pathetic fallacy" section made me laugh, but i think theyre taking the issue way too seriously. i admit, ive fallen for it before, but its due more for simplicities sake.

its much easier to say "an electron is happier in a lower-energy state" than "an electron has a physical tendency to be in a lower energy state due to" blah blah blah.

of course no one believes these inanimate particles/objects have human feelings; but simplifying it this way makes it easier to understand, overall.

Hitchhiker · Finally got a ride.

I agree -- I think that both adults and children understand that personification of inanimate objects is just a way of describing things. When tutoring high-school students I will often say something like "this atom wants another electron" or "these particles don't want to be near each other." It's a manner of speaking.

mith · Pitbull of Truth

Ditto. My students get scared enough sometimes when I ask them to multiply two numbers.

Though I do usually explain what I mean by "happy" before I use it.

Antrax · ESL Student

I saw a program in the nature channel the other day, about a "research" "proving" that homeopathy works, because "water remembers what was in it", or some other inane idiocy. Also featured was the sentence "homeopathy worked where placebo would've failed" (not that they tested, they just magically know placebo wouldn't have worked). It was great.
Antrax

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"Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em" - Lu-Tze, Thief of Time