Every week, Ed Yong, who authors the Not Exactly Rocket Science blog for Discover Magazine, posts a collection of interesting links from the week before in a series he calls "I've Got Your Missing Links Right Here (date)." In the August 25 edition (yesterday), he offered up this gem of a summary:
Behold this cascade of crap science. Last year, a paper said that countries w/ more Toxoplamsa gondii infection (a brain parasite transmitted through cat faeces) have more brain cancer, which is a completely useless result for the reasons I outlined here. Now, a 2nd team refutes it by saying brain cancer rates are same in cat owners and non-cat owners. Which it itself pointless, since cat ownership doesn’t actually correlate well with T.gondii infection – eating contaminated meat is more important. So this is a case of refuting a useless study with an irrelevant study. Everyone punches themselves in the face. I facepalm.Brilliant.
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