Showing posts with label fake science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fake science. Show all posts

Monday, May 29, 2017

Fake Science and Aluminum Foil

When I saw a link to a story with the ominous headline below, I clicked through.
DOCTORS ARE NOW WARNING: IF YOU USE ALUMINUM FOIL, STOP IT OR FACE DEADLY CONSEQUENCES
How could I resist taking a look? I don’t want to die. Like many people, I have used aluminum foil with some frequency and I have some readily available in my kitchen.
In the blog post, I saw a couple of red flags immediately. First, there’s no named author. One would think that an article about a serious health issue might be by a doctor of some kind. However, since readers have no way to know who the author is, there’s really no way to discern whether he or she is even qualified to write authoritatively on the topic of the post.