Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth

by Stuart Ritchie

if you want to convince reviewers and the world of your case, it helps first to have convinced yourself.

The fact that small effects are so much more common and, collectively, so much more influential than big ones makes underpowered studies, which portray a world full of large effects, all the more misleading.

Fads like microbiome mania wax and wane, but there’s one field of research that consistently generates more hype, inspires more media interest and suffers more from the deficiencies outlined in this book than any other. It is, of course, nutrition.