JUNK SCIENCE IS DRIVING US CRAZY
Student
A spermicide used with most barrier contraceptives causes birth defects; the whooping cough vaccine causes brain damage; incompetence by obstetricians is a leading cause of cerebral palsy; the morning sickness drug Debendox caused an epidemic of birth defects; environmental pollutants cause chemically-induced AIDS. All of these stories have been reported and all are false. But, as Peter Huber wrote in Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Court Room, they were not reported only in the gutter press and on the TV mid-day quasi documentaries; they were reported in the annals of U.S. and U.K. jurisprudence. One amazing case was a successful $1 million award to a soothsayer who, with expert testimony supporting her, claimed that a CAT scan had removed her psychic powers. Imagine that epidemiological study we would need to do to prove that one! Imagine the debate over the outcome measures!
