Hofstadter's response is quite to the point.
I also liked "No Sacred Mantle" - I believe we should promote more widely some basic techniques for critical reading of science-related claims. I recently pushed out an essay on "Fact and folklore in software engineering" that went ridiculously viral thanks to HN, even though I'll be the first to admit it's not my clearest writing.
I think there's a lot of pent-up demand for things like "how to read a popular article reporting on a science fact", "how to read a scientific paper in a field you don't know", etc. No surprise there - after all, in terms of built-in preferences rationality is primarily about defending yourself from "facts" that you shouldn't accept.
I think there's a lot of pent-up demand for things like "how to read a popular article reporting on a science fact", "how to read a scientific paper in a field you don't know", etc.
I'd like to see that. Or, rather than a how-to synthesis, how about some relatively raw data? A series of postings linking to scientific articles which got some initial positive play in the popular press, but later were convincingly critiques/debunked in the blogosphere.
Good science is all alike. Each example of bad science may be bad in its own individual way. (HT to LT).
A major psychology journal is planning to publish a study that claims to present strong evidence for precognition. Naturally, this immediately stirred up a firestorm. There are a lot of scientific-process and philosophy-of-science issues involved, including replicability, peer review, Bayesian statistics, and degrees of scrutiny. The Flying Spaghetti Monster makes a guest appearance.
Original New York Times article on the study here.
And the Times asked a number of academics (including Douglas Hofstadter) to comment on the controversy. The discussion is here.
I, for one, defy the data.