Biomedical Scientist Answers Pseudoscience Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED
🎩 Pseudoscience is fake science.
💩 Flat tummy tea = laxatives; not a healthy way to lose weight; causes dehydration, which is dangerous
🦴 Chiropractors are not real doctors.
📈 Antiscience & pseudoscience are on the rise.
💉 There is no relationship between vaccines and autism.
🧬 GMOs do not change your DNA.
⚠️ Red flags: strong negative emotions, all or none statements, selling you something, obvious conflicts of interest, people speaking well outside their area of expertise
☠️ Homeopathy at best does nothing and has a history of killing babies.
📻 Cell phone towers don’t cause cancer.
🍎 Organic foods can still use pesticides, but not scientifically improved pesticides. Pesticides on produce is not really a big problem, but wash your produce with water if you’re worried.
🧼 Our organ systems constantly cleanse our bodies. Juice (or other kinds of) cleanses can be harmful.
🐜 Lime disease is rare and hard to get.
🚰 Flouride in water and toothpaste is not harmful to humans.
🍞 There’s no reason to avoid gluten if you don’t have a medical condition.
🇪🇺 European gluten is the same as American gluten. So are the pesticides.
🔬 Hierarchy of scientific evidence: case reports, opinion papers, letters < animal trials & in vitro studies < cross sectional studies < case-control studies < cohort studies < randomized controlled trials < meta-analyses & systematic reviews
🍬 Saccharine doesn’t cause cancer in humans.
💊 In the US, supplements aren’t regulated, don’t have to do what they claim, often don’t contain what they claim, and can be dangerous.
💎 Crystals don’t have energetic powers. The placebo effect can be strong.
🍽️ Fasting can be harmful to cancer patients.