Top 10 scientific blunders of 2008

Volkskrant science reporter Hans van Maanen came up with a list of the 10 biggest blunders of 2008 in both science and reporting or talking about science (Dutch).

#5, on the news that drinking coffee is not bad for you:

Of the healthy men who drank more than five cups a day, 20% less died than of the healthy men who never drank coffee.

Twenty percent! But healthy men—the phrase gives it away—rarely die, and 20% of nothing is still nothing.

Link:Eamelje.net (Dutch). Photo by Madeleine Price Ball, some rights reserved.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 at 9:34 am and is filed under Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: blunders, popular science, science writing