Specious stuff flourishes due to a media need for the sensational.

Risk of binge surveys revealed.



The results of a major scientific survey should alarm everybody, says a visiting professor.
Nobody's safe, nobody at all, said the professor in his keynote address to a conference of survey professionals held in Wellington at the weekend ... You see, said the professor, the situation is becoming critical. And it's not just binge-drinkers that run the risk of irreversible brain damage. A recent survey conducted by a colleague has revealed that bacon-eaters are right up there in the unacceptable risk category.



But rate of occurrence of behaviour in and of itself isn't bad, it's purely descriptive. It is the inevitable correlation studies ascribing causal relationship when such relationship cannot realistically be attributed by such process.
Unfortunately such studies and the publicity seeking perpetrators of such do a tremendous disservice to science and scientifc process ... it relegates it to the level of astrology ... a slight mental reframing and everyone can apply it, and the associated negative effects, to themselves ... scurrilous really ... charlatanism in fact.