"Science is how we understand the world. Yet critical flaws in peer review, statistical methods, and publication procedures have rendered a shocking number of scientific studies useless-or worse, badly misleading. Drawing on surprising new data from "meta-science" (the science of how science works), Science Fictions documents the errors that have distorted our knowledge on issues as varied as cancer biology, nutrition, genetics, immigration, education,...

"Covering how science is done, why some people want to trick others, and why false information can be dangerous, this book empowers readers to know which sources to trust and which to dismiss as deceit"--

A study of a nineteenth-century journalistic hoax describes how a series of articles appearing in the "New York Sun" in 1835 purported to reveal lunar discoveries made by a noted British astronomer concerning life on the moon.