Absence of controls -Treatment is given to the experimental group to see if it has any significant effects compared to the untreated control group. A cardinal sin in science is an absence of controls. This occurred in a case where claims by a certain cosmetics corporation were made on an anti-wrinkle product. The claim was later invalidated because it was found that there had been no controls.
Bias -Due to conflict of interest bias has found its way into scientific research quite frequently. Misrepresented science has been covertly used for financial or personal gain…
Cherry Picking – Involves selecting data to favour research that was done while leaving out that which goes against it.
There are many cases where language disguises speculation as fact. For instance this can occur when using scientific conclusion. This can mislead using speculative words like ‘can,’ ‘may’ or ‘could’ in say clinical drug trials when the research is trying to disguise the fact that it doesn’t have any solid findings…
Exaggerate – See play on words
Fiddling results – People are apt to blindly accept the work of scientific authority individuals… Take the case of educational psychologist the late Cyril Burt. He fiddled his results from research to make the false claim that individuals IQ’s (intelligence quotients) cannot be changed. Consequently, based on Burt’s advice the educational authorities used the 11 plus exam to determine the long-term future of children pending whether or not they passed or failed…
However, it was later found through different and more honest research that IQ can change over time in individuals. So rather than use the 11 plus aptitude test to determine the future of 11 year old children possibly for the rest of their lives while their IQ’s could change and be more suitable for other things… it was scrapped.
Gagging results – Not allowing conflicting evidence or data that challenges the official view. For example, Michael Cremo has done meticulous research to challenge the official line that mankind’s history is a lot older than what mainstream academics have claimed. A number of People in academia questioning the official line using Cremo’s work as examples of evidence have been threatened with dismissal if they don’t put the lid on it…
Hypothesis -A hypothesis is where a scientist has a theory that something is occurring in reality. So he/she devises an experiment to see if it actually is happening in reality. However, bad science is where the reverse happens instead of seeing if the theory fits reality, the reverse happens: reality is looked at to if it fits into the theory! This is done to make twisted claims about something usually because of vested interest.
Inadequate sample sizes – Significant findings from small sample sizes could well be valid. However, as in the way of bad science, sometimes in corporate research the fact exists that these tentative insubstantial findings due to only a small number are played down: The fact that large sample sizes produce different results can be covered up…
