The Chocolate Diet was based on a study about the supposed benefits of eating chocolate. Who wouldn’t love a diet like that? It was publicized with a slick marketing campaign and a catchy tune on the web, as a singer crooned the lyrics, “A scientist in Germanyyyyyyyy recommends choc-o-late treats . . .” But it turns out the whole Chocolate Diet was a hoax perpetrated by a journalist named John Bohannon to show how easy it is to get shoddy research published. When the scheme was exposed, Bohannon told reporters, “I already knew that there were fake journals who would publish this stuff, but [I
...more
