Tag Archives: worst junk

by Carl V Phillips

I will resume my regular responding and debunking shortly.  In the meantime, I thought I would crowdsource the following question:  What do you think are among the worst examples of research papers or other writings making scientific claims about e-cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, cigarettes, and other tobacco products, or about consumption of those products, their effects, etc.

By “worst” I am thinking of some vague combination of especially junk science or overreaching scientific claims, along with the specific claims having some importance for future policy or current thinking (because of the content or the influence of the authors).  I am not actually restricting this to the anti side (i.e., I am also interested in junk science that is in the pro direction), though I suspect there is little of that to be found that I have not already commented on.  It can be a particular paper, a body of papers, or just a repeated claim.

Please post your nominations in the comments here, or email them to me if you prefer to avoid blog comments (my casaa.org email is cphillips).  Links are highly welcome, but anything is fine — I can track down the original.  Feel free to suggest as many as you might want, to duplicate suggestions, or whatever else you want.  You can explain why you think a suggestion is particularly bad, or just suggest it without comment.

Thanks in advance for your contributions.

UPDATE: In response to a question I received, suggestions about particular repeated “expert” claims are welcome, even if there is no particular key paper they refer to, so long as they seem to be systematically claimed and not just some one-off gaffe.  For such topics, multiple examples of the claim being repeated are highly welcome.