full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Ben Goldacre: Battling bad science

Unscramble the Blue Letters


And here's another example. This is from Britain's "leading" diet nutritionist in the dilay Mirror, our second-biggest selling newspaper. "An Australian sutdy in 2001 found that olive oil, in combination with fruits, vegetables and pulses, offers mauesalrbe protection against skin wrinklings," and give the advice: "If you eat oilve oil and veeblaetgs, you'll have fewer wrinkles." They helpfully tell you how to find the paper, and what you find is an observational study. Obviously, nobody has been able to go back to 1930, get all the people born in one maternity unit, and half of them eat lots of fiurt and veg and olive oil, half of them eat McDonald's, and then we see how many wrinkles you've got later.

Open Cloze


And here's another example. This is from Britain's "leading" diet nutritionist in the _____ Mirror, our second-biggest selling newspaper. "An Australian _____ in 2001 found that olive oil, in combination with fruits, vegetables and pulses, offers __________ protection against skin wrinklings," and give the advice: "If you eat _____ oil and __________, you'll have fewer wrinkles." They helpfully tell you how to find the paper, and what you find is an observational study. Obviously, nobody has been able to go back to 1930, get all the people born in one maternity unit, and half of them eat lots of _____ and veg and olive oil, half of them eat McDonald's, and then we see how many wrinkles you've got later.

Solution


  1. measurable
  2. fruit
  3. daily
  4. study
  5. olive
  6. vegetables

Original Text


And here's another example. This is from Britain's "leading" diet nutritionist in the Daily Mirror, our second-biggest selling newspaper. "An Australian study in 2001 found that olive oil, in combination with fruits, vegetables and pulses, offers measurable protection against skin wrinklings," and give the advice: "If you eat olive oil and vegetables, you'll have fewer wrinkles." They helpfully tell you how to find the paper, and what you find is an observational study. Obviously, nobody has been able to go back to 1930, get all the people born in one maternity unit, and half of them eat lots of fruit and veg and olive oil, half of them eat McDonald's, and then we see how many wrinkles you've got later.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
olive oil 4
fish oil 3
small negative 3
negative trials 3
eat lots 2
prevent breast 2
breast cancer 2
oil pills 2
exam performance 2
sugar pills 2
effective treatment 2
data showing 2
competing drug 2
side effects 2
antipsychotic drugs 2
independently sponsored 2
sponsored trials 2
funnel plot 2
false positives 2
spurious false 2
publication bias 2
drug called 2
trial data 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
small negative trials 3
fish oil pills 2
independently sponsored trials 2

Important Words


  1. australian
  2. born
  3. combination
  4. daily
  5. diet
  6. eat
  7. find
  8. fruit
  9. fruits
  10. give
  11. helpfully
  12. lots
  13. maternity
  14. measurable
  15. mirror
  16. newspaper
  17. nutritionist
  18. observational
  19. offers
  20. oil
  21. olive
  22. paper
  23. people
  24. protection
  25. pulses
  26. selling
  27. skin
  28. study
  29. unit
  30. veg
  31. vegetables
  32. wrinkles
  33. wrinklings