… by hyped claims that the data do not support. From Scientific American:
This kind of academic spin is common in abstracts: in a past study, she [Isabelle Bouton] and her colleagues found spin somewhere in the abstracts of 40% of trials. And it follows through into about half of press releases and subsequent media coverage.
Today she told us about a trial they did to see whether readers get caught out by the spin. They re-wrote abstracts to take out the spin and randomized 300 people to get either the spun or cleaned-up version. Not surprisingly, they found that the spin was successful in leading readers to believe the intervention was more beneficial than it was.
You’ll be glad to learn that this concerns medical science. );