Bakers bake bread, scientists write crap

Phone call for Dr. de Marchi:  correlations exist, and can be used to publish "science."

Dr. Allison said that the true relationship between eating breakfast and body weight, if there is one, was still an open question. But observational studies that tout an association between the two are churned out “just about every week,” despite doing nothing to actually test or prove the claim.

“At some point, this becomes absurd,” he said. “We’re doing studies that have little or no value. We’re wasting time, intellect and resources, and we’re convincing people of things without actually generating evidence.”

As for why the subject has created something of an echo chamber of observational research, Dr. Allison said that unlike randomized controlled trials, which are expensive and difficult to carry out, sifting through large sets of observational data to find tantalizing associations is fairly low cost and easy to do. “Just like bakers bake bread, scientists write papers,” he said, “and we get rewarded for writing and publishing papers.” 

Nod to Anonyman

Grand Game: Unbelievably Arrogant Scientist Edition

This is...it's.... well, it's hard to describe.

But I bet you find some howlers.  Please share your favorites in comments.

Nod to M.

Selling Carbon Offsets by Growing Plankton?

"A California businessman chartered a fishing boat in July, loaded it with 100 tons of iron dust and cruised through Pacific waters off western Canada, spewing his cargo into the sea in an ecological experiment that has outraged scientists and government officials...The entrepreneur, Russ George, calling it a 'state-of-the-art study,' said his team scattered iron dust several hundred miles west of the islands of Haida Gwaii, in northern British Columbia, in exchange for $2.5 million from a native Canadian group. The iron spawned the growth of enormous amounts of plankton, which Mr. George, a former fisheries and forestry worker, said might allow the project to meet one of its goals: aiding the recovery of the local salmon fishery for the native Haida. Plankton absorbs carbon dioxide, the predominant greenhouse gas, and settles deep in the ocean when it dies, sequestering carbon. The Haida had hoped that by burying carbon, they could also sell so-called carbon offset credits to companies and make money." [NYT]

Nod to Kevin Lewis