Mistakes in measuring error? Do such things get acknowledged? The Retraction Watch blog reports: A paper published in Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science has been retracted for statistical and typographical mistakes. Here’s the notice for “Comparing Measurement Error Between Two Different Methods of Measurement of Various Magnitudes”: Due to errors, the statistical analyses of the manuscript […]
Year: 2014
Does it matter for men (and pharma companies) whether they sit or stand?
A new Dutch study on an old question — should men stand or sit when urinating? — just might weaken the revenue stream of pharma companies that offer treatments for male urinary ailments. The researchers suggest (that is their word) that altering a man’s stance when urinating can sometimes be effective at treating some prostate-related (and similar) problems. Sometimes as effective, even, as treating the […]
Coffee: Healthful or harmful? An emphatic maybe
Here’s a new answer to the much-researched, much-debated question about whether drinking coffee helps boosts people’s health or harms them. The answer appears in a newly published paper: “Is it dangerous or beneficial to drink coffee? Reflections on a meta-analysis on risk at birth and a population study on risk in late life,” Ingmar Skoog, European […]
The Dunning-Kruger Effect and the vast evo-bio expertariat
The PressTurk web site discusses (in Turkish) how the Ig Nobel Prize-winning Dunning-Kruger Effect helps explain why there are so very, very many people who think they are experts on the subject of evolutionary biology. Here’s part of the discussion, auto-translated into English: Resulting from ignorance Courage Darwin, I have noticed it in the 19th […]