Doctors and patients need as much data as possible to make an informed decision about what treatment is best.

I'd like to submit to Bad Science my teacher who gave us a handout which says that 'Water is best absorbed by the body when provided in frequent small amounts.' What I want to know is this. If I drink too much in one go, will it leak out off my arsehole instead? Thank you. Anton.

Doctors and patients need as much data as possible to make an informed decision about what treatment is best.

Transparency and detail are everything in science.

Most bloggers have no institutional credibility, and so they must build it, by linking transparently, and allowing you to easily double check their work. But more than anything, because linking sources is such an easy thing to do, and the motivations for avoiding links are so dubious, I've detected myself using a new rule of thumb: if you don't link to primary sources, I just don't trust you.

Data is the fabric of the modern world: just like we walk down pavements, so we trace routes through data, and build knowledge and products out of it.

Homeopathy pills are, after all, empty little sugar pills which seem to work, and so they embody [..] how we can be misled into thinking that any intervention is more effective than it really is.