Jan 30, 2026 07:07 PM
(This post was last modified: Jan 31, 2026 05:16 PM by C C.)
Dr. Michael Greger’s bias is food for thought
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medica...od-thought
INTRO: How can we distinguish between a sufficiently objective science communicator and an advocate? Communicating science to the public means choosing scientific papers, reading them, and appraising their worth before synthesizing all of this knowledge. We try to do it as impartially as we can… but what if we are ideologically biased?
Dr. Michael Greger is a well-known physician and communicator online. Since 2011, he has been the founder (and now Chief Science Officer) of NutritionFacts.org, which he calls a non-commercial public service meant to educate people on nutrition. It’s a slick, multimedia empire: over a dozen employees and volunteers managing near-daily video uploads, as well as articles and podcast episodes (although the same content ends up feeding all of these platforms).
Outside of the Internet, Greger also gives talks. In early March, he will be part of the Holistic Holiday at Sea, a cruise that will take wellness hopefuls from Galveston, Texas, to Mexico and Honduras and back. Greger’s videos—where he discusses scientific studies in voiceover—are clear, well-produced, and short. So, what’s the problem?
Greger is a vegan, which in itself is not troublesome. But it seems to motivate him to say things that are not borne out by the data... (MORE - details)
The UK government is backing AI that can run its own lab experiments
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01...periments/
“There are better uses for a PhD student than waiting around in a lab until 3 a.m. to make sure an experiment is run to the end,” says Ant Rowstron, ARIA’s chief technology officer...
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Fudging or fraud?
https://fosci.substack.com/p/fudging-or-fraud
Irrespective of the approaches taken, research fraud will continue to pose a problem for universities and the higher education sector as a whole. There is much to be said for the threat of potential criminal prosecution...
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Critical social-media posts linked to retractions of scientific papers
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04146-6
Posts on social-media platform X that are critical of scientific research can act as early warning signs of problematic articles, according to two large studies. The findings reflect how post-publication commentary can help to identify errors nd fraudulent results, say scientists...
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Five major challenges for medical bibliometrics
https://ugeskriftet.dk/dmj/five-major-ch...liometrics
A fundamental requirement for bibliometric measurements is, of course, their reliability, which is closely related to their value. As described below, however, bibliometrics now faces an increasing number of serious problems and pitfalls that question its value – and hence its usefulness and very existence...
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Back and forth on the value of replication
https://goodscience.substack.com/p/back-...eplication
My friend Jordan Dworkin recently wrote an excellent piece titled, “How Much Should We Spend on Scientific Replication?” It is the first attempt to model the probability that funding replication studies will be more impactful than just funding new scientific studies...
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Are India’s private universities hacking global rankings?
https://www.financialexpress.com/jobs-ca...s/4119122/
In most global rankings – such as the QS and ARWU (Shanghai Ranking) – IITs and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) are the best India has to offer to the world. [...] But a startling trend that has raised eyebrows amongst academics is that these novice institutes posted ‘Research Quality’ scores that rival the likes of Oxford, Cambridge, and Yale, and far surpass IISc and IITs...
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medica...od-thought
INTRO: How can we distinguish between a sufficiently objective science communicator and an advocate? Communicating science to the public means choosing scientific papers, reading them, and appraising their worth before synthesizing all of this knowledge. We try to do it as impartially as we can… but what if we are ideologically biased?
Dr. Michael Greger is a well-known physician and communicator online. Since 2011, he has been the founder (and now Chief Science Officer) of NutritionFacts.org, which he calls a non-commercial public service meant to educate people on nutrition. It’s a slick, multimedia empire: over a dozen employees and volunteers managing near-daily video uploads, as well as articles and podcast episodes (although the same content ends up feeding all of these platforms).
Outside of the Internet, Greger also gives talks. In early March, he will be part of the Holistic Holiday at Sea, a cruise that will take wellness hopefuls from Galveston, Texas, to Mexico and Honduras and back. Greger’s videos—where he discusses scientific studies in voiceover—are clear, well-produced, and short. So, what’s the problem?
Greger is a vegan, which in itself is not troublesome. But it seems to motivate him to say things that are not borne out by the data... (MORE - details)
The UK government is backing AI that can run its own lab experiments
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01...periments/
“There are better uses for a PhD student than waiting around in a lab until 3 a.m. to make sure an experiment is run to the end,” says Ant Rowstron, ARIA’s chief technology officer...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Fudging or fraud?
https://fosci.substack.com/p/fudging-or-fraud
Irrespective of the approaches taken, research fraud will continue to pose a problem for universities and the higher education sector as a whole. There is much to be said for the threat of potential criminal prosecution...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Critical social-media posts linked to retractions of scientific papers
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04146-6
Posts on social-media platform X that are critical of scientific research can act as early warning signs of problematic articles, according to two large studies. The findings reflect how post-publication commentary can help to identify errors nd fraudulent results, say scientists...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Five major challenges for medical bibliometrics
https://ugeskriftet.dk/dmj/five-major-ch...liometrics
A fundamental requirement for bibliometric measurements is, of course, their reliability, which is closely related to their value. As described below, however, bibliometrics now faces an increasing number of serious problems and pitfalls that question its value – and hence its usefulness and very existence...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Back and forth on the value of replication
https://goodscience.substack.com/p/back-...eplication
My friend Jordan Dworkin recently wrote an excellent piece titled, “How Much Should We Spend on Scientific Replication?” It is the first attempt to model the probability that funding replication studies will be more impactful than just funding new scientific studies...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Are India’s private universities hacking global rankings?
https://www.financialexpress.com/jobs-ca...s/4119122/
In most global rankings – such as the QS and ARWU (Shanghai Ranking) – IITs and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) are the best India has to offer to the world. [...] But a startling trend that has raised eyebrows amongst academics is that these novice institutes posted ‘Research Quality’ scores that rival the likes of Oxford, Cambridge, and Yale, and far surpass IISc and IITs...