David Weinberg is an academic physician and Professor of Ophthalmology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He has also been an occasional contributor at Science-Based Medicine.
P-hacking, or massaging of trial data and analysis in order to present a statistically relevant finding, distorts the scientific literature, and over-promotes dubious discoveries
It is a common skeptical mantra that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - but is this true, or is it simply setting unlikely ideas up to fail?
Randomisation ensures treatment and control groups are as similar as possible when beginning a study - placebo controls ensure they are similar during a study
When people become over-invested in their beliefs, they can develop intellectual photophobia: an active resistence to any evidence that might shed uncomfortable light
From the outside, the peer review process can seem like a black box; from the inside, it can be a time-consuming, imperfect process... but an important one.
