Drink In Data Colada’s Fake Researchers

Academic researchers insisting on being perfect need to stop it as Data Coladas of world expose inaccuracies in studies from Covid treatments to Aspartame safety. No one expects perfection just perfect honesty in helping us.

As you may have read, artificial sweetener’s “safety” is being assailed by more recent research suggesting otherwise, the latest having to do with suspicions it may be causing autism in male babies when consumed during pregnancy by mothers. That comes after years of being told by industry players, including their researchers, that aspartame is perfectly safe to consume from every possible angle. In a WSJ article titled, “The bank of Debunkers Busting Bad Scientists,” we’re reminded, however, of “Stanford’s president & a high-profile physicist are among those taken down by a growing wave of volunteers who expose faulty or fraudulent research papers,” especially by Uri Simonsohn, Leif Nelson & Joe Simmons, who run the Data Colada blog. The article notes how “at least 5,500 faulty [research] papers were retracted in 2022, compared with 119 in 2002,” largely thanks to their follow up work as well as those of others.

Why is this so important? As the WSJ says: “The hunt for misleading studies is more than academic. Flawed social-science research can lead to faulty corporate decisions about consumer behavior or misguided government rules & policies. Errant medical research risks harm to patients. Researchers in all fields can waste years & millions of dollars in grants trying to advance what turn out to be fraudulent findings.” These data “detectives” say they want their work to keep science honest, “at a time when the public’s faith” in it are “ebbing”. The trio hails from such elite schools as Princeton & California Berkeley. Don’t we need more of them in today’s high stakes, billion dollar “research industry” that’s selling us their goods based upon studies that sometimes are debunked?

Davd Soul