Junk science

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Junk science is spurious or fraudulent scientific data, research, or analysis. The concept is often invoked in political and legal contexts where facts and scientific results have a great amount of weight in making a determination. It usually conveys a pejorative connotation that the research has been untowardly driven by political, ideological, financial, or otherwise unscientific motives.

Contents

The concept was popularized in the 1990s in relation to expert testimony in civil litigation. More recently, invoking the concept has been a tactic to criticize research on the harmful environmental or public health effects of corporate activities, and occasionally in response to such criticism. Author Dan Agin in his book Junk Science harshly criticized those who deny the basic premise of global warming, [1]

In some contexts, junk science is counterposed to the "sound science" or "solid science" that favors one's own point of view. [2] Junk science has been criticized for undermining public trust in real science. [3] : 110–111  Junk science is not the same as pseudoscience. [4] [5]

Definition

Junk science has been defined as:

Motivations

Junk science happens for different reasons: researchers believing that their ideas are correct before proper analysis (a sort of scientific self-delusion or drinking the Kool-Aid), researchers biased with their study designs, and/or a "plain old lack of ethics". [6] Being overly attached to one's own ideas can cause research to veer from ordinary junk science (e.g., designing an experiment that is expected to produce the desired results) into scientific fraud (e.g., lying about the results) and pseudoscience (e.g., claiming that the unfavorable results actually proved the idea correct). [6]

Junk science can occur when the perpetrator has something to gain from arriving at the desired conclusion. It can often happen in the testimony of expert witnesses in legal proceedings, and especially in the self-serving advertising of products and services. [7] These situations may encourage researchers to make sweeping or overstated claims based on limited evidence. [7]

History

The phrase junk science appears to have been in use prior to 1985. A 1985 United States Department of Justice report by the Tort Policy Working Group noted: [8]

The use of such invalid scientific evidence (commonly referred to as 'junk science') has resulted in findings of causation which simply cannot be justified or understood from the standpoint of the current state of credible scientific or medical knowledge.

In 1989, the climate scientist Jerry Mahlman (Director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory) characterized the theory that global warming was due to solar variation (presented in Scientific Perspectives on the Greenhouse Problem by Frederick Seitz et al.) as "noisy junk science." [9]

Peter W. Huber popularized the term with respect to litigation in his 1991 book Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom. The book has been cited in over 100 legal textbooks and references; as a consequence, some sources cite Huber as the first to coin the term. By 1997, the term had entered the legal lexicon as seen in an opinion by Supreme Court of the United States Justice John Paul Stevens: [10]

An example of 'junk science' that should be excluded under the Daubert standard as too unreliable would be the testimony of a phrenologist who would purport to prove a defendant's future dangerousness based on the contours of the defendant's skull.

Lower courts have subsequently set guidelines for identifying junk science, such as the 2005 opinion of United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Judge Frank H. Easterbrook: [11]

Positive reports about magnetic water treatment are not replicable; this plus the lack of a physical explanation for any effects are hallmarks of junk science.

As the subtitle of Huber's book, Junk Science in the Courtroom, suggests, his emphasis was on the use or misuse of expert testimony in civil litigation. One prominent example cited in the book was litigation over casual contact in the spread of AIDS. A California school district sought to prevent a young boy with AIDS, Ryan Thomas, from attending kindergarten. The school district produced an expert witness, Steven Armentrout, who testified that a possibility existed that AIDS could be transmitted to schoolmates through yet undiscovered "vectors". However, five experts testified on behalf of Thomas that AIDS is not transmitted through casual contact, and the court affirmed the "solid science" (as Huber called it) and rejected Armentrout's argument. [12]

In 1999, Paul Ehrlich and others advocated public policies to improve the dissemination of valid environmental scientific knowledge and discourage junk science: [13]

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports offer an antidote to junk science by articulating the current consensus on the prospects for climate change, by outlining the extent of the uncertainties, and by describing the potential benefits and costs of policies to address climate change.

In a 2003 study about changes in environmental activism regarding the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem, Pedynowski noted that junk science can undermine the credibility of science over a much broader scale because misrepresentation by special interests casts doubt on more defensible claims and undermines the credibility of all research. [14]

In his 2006 book Junk Science, [15] [ page needed ] Dan Agin emphasized two main causes of junk science: fraud, and ignorance. In the first case, Agin discussed falsified results in the development of organic transistors: [16]

As far as understanding junk science is concerned, the important aspect is that both Bell Laboratories and the international physics community were fooled until someone noticed that noise records published by Jan Hendrik Schön in several papers were identical—which means physically impossible.

In the second case, he cites an example that demonstrates ignorance of statistical principles in the lay press: [17]

Since no such proof is possible [that genetically modified food is harmless], the article in The New York Times was what is called a "bad rap" against the U.S. Department of Agriculture—a bad rap based on a junk-science belief that it's possible to prove a null hypothesis.

Agin asks the reader to step back from the rhetoric, as "how things are labeled does not make a science junk science." [18] In its place, he offers that junk science is ultimately motivated by the desire to hide undesirable truths from the public.

The rise of open source (free to read) journals has resulted in economic pressure on academic publishers to publish junk science. [19] Even when the journal is peer-reviewed, the authors, rather than the readers, become the customer and the source of funding for the journal, so the publisher is incentivized to publish as many papers as possible, including those that are methodologically unsound. [19]

Misuse in public relations

John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton of PR Watch say the concept of junk science has come to be invoked in attempts to dismiss scientific findings that stand in the way of short-term corporate profits. In their book Trust Us, We're Experts (2001), they write that industries have launched multimillion-dollar campaigns to position certain theories as junk science in the popular mind, often failing to employ the scientific method themselves. For example, the tobacco industry has described research demonstrating the harmful effects of smoking and second-hand smoke as junk science, through the vehicle of various astroturf groups.

Theories more favorable to corporate activities are portrayed in words as "sound science". Past examples where "sound science" was used include the research into the toxicity of Alar, which was heavily criticized by antiregulatory advocates, and Herbert Needleman's research into low dose lead poisoning. Needleman was accused of fraud and personally attacked. [2]

Fox News commentator Steven Milloy often denigrates credible scientific research on topics like global warming, ozone depletion, and passive smoking as "junk science". The credibility of Milloy's website junkscience.com was questioned by Paul D. Thacker, a writer for The New Republic , in the wake of evidence that Milloy had received funding from Philip Morris, RJR Tobacco, and Exxon Mobil. [20] [21] [22] Thacker also noted that Milloy was receiving almost $100,000 a year in consulting fees from Philip Morris while he criticized the evidence regarding the hazards of second-hand smoke as junk science. Following the publication of this article, the Cato Institute, which had hosted the junkscience.com site, ceased its association with the site and removed Milloy from its list of adjunct scholars.

Tobacco industry documents reveal that Philip Morris executives conceived of the "Whitecoat Project" in the 1980s as a response to emerging scientific data on the harmfulness of second-hand smoke. [23] The goal of the Whitecoat Project, as conceived by Philip Morris and other tobacco companies, was to use ostensibly independent "scientific consultants" to spread doubt in the public mind about scientific data through invoking concepts like junk science. [23] According to epidemiologist David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environment, Safety, and Health in the Clinton Administration, the tobacco industry invented the "sound science" movement in the 1980s as part of their campaign against the regulation of second-hand smoke. [24]

David Michaels has argued that, since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. , lay judges have become "gatekeepers" of scientific testimony and, as a result, respected scientists have sometimes been unable to provide testimony so that corporate defendants are "increasingly emboldened" to accuse adversaries of practicing junk science. [25]

Notable cases

American psychologist Paul Cameron has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as an anti-gay extremist and a purveyor of "junk science". [26] Cameron's research has been heavily criticized for unscientific methods and distortions which attempt to link homosexuality with pedophilia. [27] In one instance, Cameron claimed that lesbians are 300 times more likely to get into car accidents. [28] The SPLC states his work has been continually cited in some sections of the media despite being discredited. [28] Cameron was expelled from the American Psychological Association in 1983.

Combatting junk science

In 1995, the Union of Concerned Scientists launched the Sound Science Initiative, a national network of scientists committed to debunking junk science through media outreach, lobbying, and developing joint strategies to participate in town meetings or public hearings. [29] In its newsletter on Science and Technology in Congress, the American Association for the Advancement of Science also recognized the need for increased understanding between scientists and lawmakers: "Although most individuals would agree that sound science is preferable to junk science, fewer recognize what makes a scientific study 'good' or 'bad'." [30] The American Dietetic Association, criticizing marketing claims made for food products, has created a list of "Ten Red Flags of Junk Science".

See also

Related Research Articles

An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as an expert. The judge may consider the witness's specialized opinion about evidence or about facts before the court within the expert's area of expertise, to be referred to as an "expert opinion". Expert witnesses may also deliver "expert evidence" within the area of their expertise. Their testimony may be rebutted by testimony from other experts or by other evidence or facts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pseudoscience</span> Unscientific claims wrongly presented as scientific

Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claims; reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts; absence of systematic practices when developing hypotheses; and continued adherence long after the pseudoscientific hypotheses have been experimentally discredited. It is not the same as junk science.

The Heidelberg Appeal, authored by Michel Salomon, was an appeal directed against the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Heidelberg Appeal's goal was similar to the later published Leipzig Declaration. Before the publication, Fred Singer, who has initiated several petitions like the Heidelberg Appeal, and Michel Salomon, had organized a conference in Heidelberg, which led to that document. It was published on the last day of the 1992 Rio Summit, and warned against basing environmental policies on what the authors described as "pseudoscientific arguments or false and nonrelevant data." It was initiated by the tobacco and asbestos industries, to support the climate-denying Global Climate Coalition. According to SourceWatch the appeal was "a scam perpetrated by the asbestos and tobacco industries in support of the Global Climate Coalition". Both industries had no direct reason to deny global warming, but rather wanted to promote their "sound science" agenda, which basically states that industry-funded science is good science and science contradicting those science is bad science or "junk science".

<i>Voodoo Science</i> 2000 book by Robert L. Park

Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud is a book published in 2000 by physics professor Robert L. Park, critical of research that falls short of adhering to the scientific method. Other people have used the term "voodoo science", but amongst academics it is most closely associated with Park. Park offers no explanation as to why he appropriated the word voodoo to describe the four categories detailed below. The book is critical of, among other things, homeopathy, cold fusion and the International Space Station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Passive smoking</span> Inhalation of tobacco smoke by persons other than the intended active smoker

Passive smoking is the inhalation of tobacco smoke, called passive smoke, secondhand smoke (SHS) or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), by individuals other than the active smoker. It occurs when tobacco smoke diffuses into the surrounding atmosphere as an aerosol pollutant, which leads to its inhalation by nearby bystanders within the same environment. Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes many of the same diseases caused by active tobacco smoking, although to a lower prevalence due to the reduced concentration of smoke that enters the airway. The health risks of secondhand smoke are a matter of scientific consensus, and have been a major motivation for smoking bans in workplaces and indoor venues, including restaurants, bars and night clubs, as well as some open public spaces.

Medical malpractice is professional negligence by act or omission by a health care provider in which the treatment provided falls below the accepted standard of practice in the medical community and causes injury or death to the patient, with most cases involving medical error. Claims of medical malpractice, when pursued in US courts, are processed as civil torts. Sometimes an act of medical malpractice will also constitute a criminal act, as in the case of the death of Michael Jackson.

In United States federal law, the Daubert standard is a rule of evidence regarding the admissibility of expert witness testimony. A party may raise a Daubert motion, a special motion in limine raised before or during trial, to exclude the presentation of unqualified evidence to the jury. The Daubert trilogy are the three United States Supreme Court cases that articulated the Daubert standard:

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), is a United States Supreme Court case determining the standard for admitting expert testimony in federal courts. In Daubert, the Court held that the enactment of the Federal Rules of Evidence implicitly overturned the Frye standard; the standard that the Court articulated is referred to as the Daubert standard.

Steven J. Milloy is a lawyer, lobbyist, author and former Fox News commentator. Milloy is the founder and editor of the blog junkscience.com.

The Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP), based at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., examines the nature of science and the ways in which it is both used and misused in government decision-making and legal proceedings. Through empirical research, conversations among scholars, and publications, SKAPP aims to enhance understanding of how knowledge is generated and interpreted. SKAPP's mission is to promote transparent decision-making based on the best available science in order to promote public safety and health.

The Advancement of Sound Science Center (TASSC), formerly The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, was an industry-funded lobby group and crisis management vehicle, and was created in 1993 by Phillip Morris and APCO in response to a 1992 United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report which identified secondhand smoke as a "confirmed" human carcinogen. TASSC's stated objectives were to (1) discredit the EPA report; (2) fight anti-smoking legislation; and (3) pro-actively pass legislation favourable to the tobacco industry.

In United States law, the Frye standard, Frye test, or general acceptance test is a judicial test used in some U.S. state courts to determine the admissibility of scientific evidence. It provides that expert opinion based on a scientific technique is admissible only when the technique is generally accepted as reliable in the relevant scientific community. In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Federal Rules of Evidence superseded Frye as the standard for admissibility of expert evidence in federal courts. Some states, however, still adhere to the Frye standard.

The Weinberg Group is a Washington, DC-based food and drug regulatory consulting group. Founded in 1983, the firm assists pharmaceutical and biotech companies with the "development and implementation of successful and innovative regulatory strategies" and also helps these companies to "remediate, maintain and improve their regulatory compliance." The Weinberg Group sent a memo to DuPont in 2003 recommending that the company “reshape the debate by identifying the likely known health benefits of PFOA exposure.”

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobacco politics</span> Politics surrounding the use and distribution of tobacco

Tobacco politics refers to the politics surrounding the use and distribution of tobacco.

A manufactured controversy is a contrived disagreement, typically motivated by profit or ideology, designed to create public confusion concerning an issue about which there is no substantial academic dispute. This concept has also been referred to as manufactured uncertainty.

The Center for Indoor Air Research was a tobacco industry front group established by three American tobacco companies—Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and Lorillard—in Linthicum, Maryland, in 1988. The organization funded research on indoor air pollution, some of which pertained to passive smoking and some of which did not. It also funded research pertaining to causes of lung cancer other than passive smoking, such as diet. The organization disbanded in 1998 as a result of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobacco industry playbook</span> Propaganda techniques used by the tobacco industry

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Cheryl Healton is an American public health researcher who is Professor of Public Health Policy and Dean of School of Global Public Health at New York University. Her research considers public health policy surrounding tobacco control.

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References

  1. ↑ LaFee, Scott (2006-10-22). "'Junk' food for thought". San Diego Union Tribune. Retrieved 2016-02-14.[ permanent dead link ]
  2. 1 2 Neff RA, Goldman LR (2005). "Regulatory parallels to Daubert: stakeholder influence, "sound science," and the delayed adoption of health-protective standards". Am J Public Health. 95 (Suppl 1): S81–91. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2004.044818. hdl: 10.2105/AJPH.2004.044818 . PMID   16030344. S2CID   10175577.
  3. ↑ Dariusz Jemielniak; Aleksandra Przegalinska (2020). Collaborative Society. MIT Press. ISBN   978-0262356459.
  4. ↑ Kaufman, Allison B.; Kaufman, James C. (2019-03-12). Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science. MIT Press. p. 471. ISBN   978-0-262-53704-9. Pseudoscience is different from junk science...
  5. 1 2 Fang, Ferric C.; Casadevall, Arturo (2023-10-31). Thinking about Science: Good Science, Bad Science, and How to Make It Better. John Wiley & Sons. p. 172. ISBN   978-1-68367-434-4.
  6. 1 2 3 Garfinkle, David; Garfinkle, Richard (2009-05-15). Three Steps to the Universe: From the Sun to Black Holes to the Mystery of Dark Matter. University of Chicago Press. p. 255. ISBN   978-0-226-28349-4.
  7. 1 2 3 Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Lynn, Steven Jay; Lohr, Jeffrey M. (2014-10-17). Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology. Guilford Publications. p. 282. ISBN   978-1-4625-1759-6.
  8. ↑ "Report of the Tort Policy Working Group on the causes, extent and policy implications of the current crisis in insurance availability and affordability" (Rep. No. 027-000-01251-5). (1986, February). Washington, D.C.: Superintendent of Documents, US Government Printing Office. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED274437) p. 39:
    Another way in which causation often is undermined—also an increasingly serious problem in toxic tort cases—is the reliance by judges and juries on non-credible scientific or medical testimony, studies or opinions. It has become all too common for 'experts' or 'studies' on the fringes of or even well beyond the outer parameters of mainstream scientific or medical views to be presented to juries as valid evidence from which conclusions may be drawn. The use of such invalid scientific evidence (commonly referred to as 'junk science') has resulted in findings of causation which simply cannot be justified or understood from the standpoint of the current state of credible scientific and medical knowledge. Most importantly, this development has led to a deep and growing cynicism about the ability of tort law to deal with difficult scientific and medical concepts in a principled and rational way.
  9. ↑ Roberts, L. (1989). "Global warming: Blaming the sun". Science. 246 (4933): 992–993. Bibcode:1989Sci...246..992R. doi:10.1126/science.246.4933.992. PMID   17806372.
  10. ↑ General Electric Company v. Robert K. Joiner, No. 96–188, slip op. at 4 (U.S. December 15, 1997).
  11. ↑ Huber, P. W. (1991). Galileo's revenge: Junk science in the courtroom (2001 ed.). New York: Basic Books. p.  191.
  12. ↑ Charles H. Sanderson v. Culligan International Company , No. 04-3253, slip op. at 3 (7th Cir. July 11, 2005).
  13. ↑ Ehrlich, P. R.; Wolff, G.; Daily, G. C.; Hughes, J. B.; Daily, S.; Dalton, M.; et al. (1999). "Knowledge and the environment". Ecological Economics. 30 (2): 267–284. doi: 10.1016/s0921-8009(98)00130-x .
  14. ↑ Pedynowski, D (2003). "Toward a more 'Reflexive Environmentalism': Ecological knowledge and advocacy in the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem". Society and Natural Resources. 16 (9): 807–825. doi:10.1080/08941920309168. S2CID   144702458.
  15. ↑ Agin 2006.
  16. ↑ Agin 2006, p. 39.
  17. ↑ Agin 2006, p. 63.
  18. ↑ Agin 2006, p. 249.
  19. 1 2 Kaufman, Allison B.; Kaufman, James C. (2019-03-12). Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science. MIT Press. p. 292. ISBN   978-0-262-53704-9.
  20. ↑ "Smoked Out: Pundit For Hire", published in The New Republic, accessed 24 November 2010.
  21. ↑ Rampton, Sheldon; Stauber, John (2000). "How Big Tobacco Helped Create 'the Junkman'" (PDF). PR Watch. Vol. 7, no. 3. Center for Media and Democracy.
  22. ↑ Activity Report, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., December 1996; describes R.J.R. Tobacco's direct input into Milloy's junk science website. Legacy Tobacco Documents Library at the University of California, San Francisco. Accessed 5 October 2006.
  23. 1 2 Minutes of a meeting in which Philip Morris Tobacco discusses the inception of the "Whitecoat Project" Archived 2007-10-13 at the Wayback Machine . Accessed 5 October 2006.
  24. ↑ Michaels, David (2008). Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. New York: Oxford University Press. p.  3. ISBN   978-0195300673.
  25. ↑ Michaels, David (2005). "Scientific Evidence and Public Policy". American Journal of Public Health. 95 (S1): 5–7. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2005.065599. hdl: 10.2105/AJPH.2005.065599 . PMID   16030339.
  26. ↑ "Paul Cameron". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 2020-04-26.
  27. ↑ Herek, Gregory M. (1997–2007). "Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation". psychology.ucdavis.edu. Retrieved 2020-04-26.
  28. 1 2 "Paul Cameron's Falsehoods Cited By Anti-Gay Sympathizers". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 2020-04-26.
  29. ↑ "Sound science initiative". ASLO Bulletin. 7 (1): 13. Winter 1998.
  30. ↑ "Sound Science for Endangered Species" (PDF). Science and Technology in Congress. September 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 24, 2006. Retrieved November 12, 2006.

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