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My latest at BMJ Opinion: Should we trust meta-analyses with meta conflicts of interest?
A couple of years ago, psychologist Susan Fiske launched a broadside against science bloggers, with a whole lot of name-calling. Now there's a study of 41 blogs, including mine. My thoughts: "Destructo-Critics" and Mean Bloggers: The Study.
The methods section is fundamental to a research publication, but I think it's the poor cousin of science communication. At Absolutely Maybe: Why Don't We Do More Visualizations of Methods?
Ended the month with a look at self-reports in nutritional epidemiology: is only side of the heated debate right, are they both partly right, or isn't there enough evidence to know? My take: Does Our Poor Remembrance of Things Past Doom Much Nutrition Research?
Science can be a problem-solving exercise, but it also generates questions even faster than it answers them. This month, I discussed some new research that shows, yet again, that who is asking the questions can totally skew the knowledge base we end up with:
Science: A Method for Increasing the Number of Questions.
We talk and worry a lot about financial conflicts of interest. But what about when systematic reviewers are authors of the studies of the review? I looked for evidence of whether it has an impact, and discussed it at Absolutely Maybe: Should We Trust Meta-Analyses With Meta-Conflicts of Interest?
Also this month, a 2-part look at milestones in research on peer review: Off to a Patchy Start (1945-1989) and Trials at Last & Even More Questions (1990-2018).
This month, I contributed to the Cochrane Collaboration's review of its policy on conflicts of interest for systematic reviewers. My post on that has been slow coming, though, because I've been laid up recovering from surgery after an accident - a broken ankle, mending well. But the issues of trauma and conflicts of interest reminded me of a classic case involving both, and I wrote about it at Absolutely Maybe:
First up, I tackled the controversy around evidence on exercise and ME/CFS:
Consumer-Contested Evidence: Why the ME/CFS Exercise Dispute Matters So Much
And it was Black History Month. This year, I traced the stories of African-American STEM societies in 4 posts, chronologically from their founding:
Part 1: The First Wave (1895 to 1947)
Part 2: From Psychologists to Mathematicians
Part 3: From Sociologists to Engineers
Part 4: From Anthropologists to Academic Surgeons
You can see all my Absolutely Maybe posts for Black History Month here.
