{"id":4243,"date":"2009-11-11T11:34:33","date_gmt":"2009-11-11T11:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2009\/11\/11\/how-to-generate-scientific-con\/"},"modified":"2009-11-11T11:34:33","modified_gmt":"2009-11-11T11:34:33","slug":"how-to-generate-scientific-con","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2009\/11\/11\/how-to-generate-scientific-con\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Generate Scientific Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some years ago, I heard <a href=\"http:\/\/bobpark.physics.umd.edu\/\">Bob Park<\/a> give a talk about pseudoscience, using &#8220;How to get rich and famous abusing your science knowledge&#8221; as a framing device. He ran through the deceptions involved in a bunch of high-profile &#8220;science&#8221; based scams and scares&#8211; homeopathy, free energy, power lines causing cancer, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Over at Live Granades, there&#8217;s a <a href=\"http:\/\/granades.com\/2009\/11\/11\/how-to-generate-scientific-controversy\/\">four-step guide to creating a scientific controversy<\/a> that gives you something close to Park&#8217;s template:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>1. Pick something that is regarded as true by the vast majority of scientists in the field and claim that it causes something bad.<\/p>\n<p>2. Demand that scientists prove a negative by showing that the good thing doesn&#8217;t actually have bad results.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>(You&#8217;ll have to click through for the other two steps and an example.)<\/p>\n<p>Really, all that&#8217;s missing is an explanation of how to monetize this. But really, that&#8217;s the easy part&#8211; once you&#8217;ve generated controversy, you can easily turn that into cash. The tricky part is overcoming your conscience and sense of shame&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some years ago, I heard Bob Park give a talk about pseudoscience, using &#8220;How to get rich and famous abusing your science knowledge&#8221; as a framing device. He ran through the deceptions involved in a bunch of high-profile &#8220;science&#8221; based scams and scares&#8211; homeopathy, free energy, power lines causing cancer, etc. Over at Live Granades,&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2009\/11\/11\/how-to-generate-scientific-con\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How to Generate Scientific Controversy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,75,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-society","category-war_on_science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}