Bad Linguistics ... and Good Linguistics

One of the things I have learned from several years of reading Language Log is just how absent the science of linguistics is from the radar of your average intellectual. Otherwise highly educated people spout nonsense about language that has long since been utterly discredited by serious scholarly study of language.

So I should not have been surprised to read a tweet by Ben Goldacre that addressed the use of the passive voice: "dear everyone, when i read your passive sentence constructions i sort of have to convert them into active ones in my head because i'm thick." I was not surprised, but I was disappointed, since I love Goldacre's ongoing critique of "Bad Science" on his blog and in his Guardian column and his book with that title. He is unrelenting, for example, on the nonsense that is "alternative medicine," while also being highly critical of "bad science" when he finds it in more mainstream scientific settings.

His critique of the passive voice as a supposed "stylistic problem," however, is first-order bad science — perhaps not quite on the order of homeopathy, but still utterly unfounded. If you, like Goldacre, think that "passive voice should be avoided," then you should read some good science by Geoffrey Pullum from Language Log: "The Passive in English." I hope that Goldacre, too, will follow my tip and recognize the Language Log linguists as his fellow campaigners against "bad science."

Homeopathy

One thing that drives me nuts is when someone says, "All I know is, I get better with homeopathy."

If that drives you nuts to, you need this: Ben Goldacre's "Bad Science" post about homeopathy.

The extra twist to the article is that Goldacre provides a clear, concise introduction to the contemporary medical application of the scientific method.

There's also a short version of the same thing here (which Goldacre published in Lancet this week).

Here's the beginning of the Lancet piece:

"Five large meta-analyses of homoeopathy trials have been done. All have had the same result: after excluding methodologically inadequate trials and accounting for publication bias, homoeopathy produced no statistically significant benefit over placebo.[1–5] And yet homoeopathy can still be clinically useful."

("[1-5]": that is a footnote in the original.)

Bad Science

I have been riveted recently by Ben Goldacre's "Bad Science" site. Today's object of deflation is a machine that supposedly provides more energy than it uses. As Goldacre so wonderfully puts it as he goes about dissecting the claim: "Stick with me, science is fun when you’re making people look stupid."