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Today we give a mega-shoutout to Alex Berezow over at RealClearScience for his brilliant letter to Dr.Oz.

The recent excellent article by Josh Bloom, “NYC Pol Uses Phony Cancer Scare & ‘Children’ to Ban Glyphosate in Parks,” talks about the scare tactics used by a council member in New York to ban glyphosate (Roundup) from city parks. I’m taking a deeper dive looking at how the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and our EPA determine whether or not glyphosate causes cancer. A flawed process leads to flawed science, which like radioactivity – stays around forever!

This piece appeared on NationalPost.com.

A new paper touting great news is sure to be embraced by the organic customer base. There is just one problem: The research was funded by industry, the very thing organic consumers say is wrong with industrial farming. Organic food corporations and trade groups are clearly a lot more like 1950s Big Tobacco companies than Big Tobacco is today.

Want to advocate for a food you want to sell or criticize a competitor? There's a study for that.

This piece first appeared on TheDailyCaller.com.
Studies published in peer-reviewed journals become the basis for everything from the advice your doctor gives you to the very laws that govern us. A journal s ability to tell good science from bad is critical. But some journals have used poor judgment, and even replaced judgment with a bias of their own.

NYU physicist Alan Sokal thought very little of the research performed by his colleagues in the social sciences. To prove his point, he wrote a paper that used plenty of trendy buzz words but made absolutely no sense. As he later explained, Dr. Sokal wanted to find out if a humanities journal would "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions."

Two studies look at how you can use words to spin non-significant findings into published studies, and how falsified data spreads unchecked from one meta-analysis to another.

In part two of our series on the Lancet's descent into ideological activism, we look at the journal's proposal to "transform" global dietary habits and protect the planet from the ravages of animal agriculture. Is there any evidence to justify this campaign against meat production and consumption?

Roundup can only affect the shikimate pathway in plants, so how can it be argued the weedkiller harms bees? By invoking the mystical, ill-defined "microbiome." What's next, their chakras?

This award needs to go to a media outlet that has credibility (in some people's eyes, anyway), yet consistently gets the science wrong, likely for ideological reasons. Using those criteria, the Times was the runaway winner. There isn't even a close second.

A recent study found that moderate alcohol consumption — even one drink a day — could shrink your brain. The explosion of context-free headlines predictably followed. Let's dive a little deeper and examine what most reporters missed.

Serious science writers don't follow the Huffington Post. But when Dr. Angela Logomasini of Competitive Enterprise Institute posts something, it's worth walking into the belly of the anti-science beast. Here's that, and a few other things we've been up to recently.

Here's some of what we've been up to over the last few days, regarding outreach, making our science-based case and engaging with the media.

A recent JAMA paper which concluded that opioid drugs are ineffective for long-term pain relief is flawed, perhaps intentionally so. American Council advisor Richard "Red" Lawhern explains.

Statistics is difficult, and choosing the proper tools becomes more challenging as experiments become more complex. That's why it's not uncommon for large genetics or epidemiological studies to have a biostatistician as a co-author. Perhaps more biomedical studies should follow suit.

What do consumers think about organic or genetically modified foods? Demographics don't seem to make a difference, but according to a recent survey "food ideology" does.

As courts bash sound science and generate questionable decisions, an old cry for constituting “science courts” has been revived. Ethical dilemmas created by scientific advances also cry for resolution. Some believe that special tribunals dedicated to scientific questions might be a panacea. I advise against this facile solution.

The credibility of the peer review process has come under vehement attack.
Scientists who receive no-strings-attached financial support for their research from demonized industries -- tobacco, pharmaceuticals, and food, among others -- are no longer deemed trustworthy.

"Science" took a walk on the wild side in a recent New York Times piece. It tried to tell us that the tiny amount of a class of chemicals found in macaroni and cheese (and everywhere else on Earth) is going to wreak havoc with our sex hormones. It's so bad, it's almost funny.

Some might argue that democracy not only leads people to believe that all humans are of equal value (which is true), but all humans are equal in their abilities, thoughts, and behaviors (which is completely false). Yet, many people in a democracy believe the latter. And it leads to a very bad outcome.

As I learned one day at an alternative medicine expo, pseudo-scientific health remedies come in all forms: animal, vegetable, and mineral literally. Let's take them in reverse order.
Mineral: Healing with Crystals

Earning a living in science has been "uneven" (let's be kind) over the past 15 years. In 2008, in the middle of what would be known as the Great Recession, a chemist with the pseudonym Chemjobber started a blog about finding science jobs. He is now widely followed and we thank him for speaking with us about his experience.  

What if I told you that the EPA, to push more stringent air pollution limits, would use bad air pollution research to claim current air pollution kills? What if I told you the research was published by the most prestigious American medical journals without any comment about whether it was funded by the EPA or organizations the EPA sponsors such as the Health Effects Institute and American Lung Association?

Are you aware of the concept of the three gates? Most simply, before you speak or – in my case, write – let your words pass through three gates. Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?