Author Archives: Fallacy Man

Understanding grants in science: doing research without selling your soul

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Fallacy Man

Last week was a good week for me, because I received a several thousand dollar grant for my research, so I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about exactly what that means. Many people seem to be under … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature of Science | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Global warming isn’t natural, and here’s how we know

Posted on June 6, 2016 by Fallacy Man

The cornerstone argument of climate change deniers is that our current warming is just a natural cycle, and this claim is usually accompanied by the statement, “the planet has warmed naturally before.” This line of reasoning is, however, seriously flawed … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming | Tagged , , , , , , , | 37 Comments

Even if medical errors were the 3rd leading cause of death, that wouldn’t be as bad as it sounds

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Fallacy Man

There has recently been a lot of hype over a “new” study claiming that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the US (this was really just a rehash of previous studies). Dr. Gorski has already done … Continue reading →

Posted in Vaccines/Alternative Medicine | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

When is it reasonable to demand more studies?

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Fallacy Man

I recently wrote a post in which I reviewed the scientific literature on vaccines and autism, and the responses from the anti-vaccine crowd were predictable. The most common of these responses followed the basic format of, “but it could be … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Most scientific studies are wrong, but that doesn’t mean what you think it means

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Fallacy Man

When faced with scientific studies that disagree with them, many people are prone to claim that they don’t have to accept those studies because most scientific studies are actually wrong. They generally try to support this claim by either citing … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature of Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment