‘Exaggerations’ threaten public trust in science

‘Exaggerations’ threaten public trust in science, says leading statistician<br />
David Spiegelhalter, president of Royal Statistical Society, says sloppy attitude to statistics leads to misleading claims and draws parallels to rise of fake news&rsquo;<br />
A sloppy attitude towards statistics has led to exaggerated and unjustified claims becoming commonplace in science, according to one of Britain&rsquo;s most eminent statisticians.<br />
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The hi-tech war on science fraud

One morning last summer, a German psychologist named Mathias Kauff woke up to find that he had been reprimanded by a robot. In an email, a computer program named Statcheck informed him that a 2013 paper he had published on multiculturalism and prejudice appeared to contain a number of incorrect calculations &ndash; which the program had catalogued and then posted on the internet for anyone to see. The problems turned out to be minor &ndash; just a few rounding errors &ndash; but the experience left Kauff feeling rattled. &ldquo;At first I was a bit frightened,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I felt a bit exposed.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Advocates Resist Tobacco Regulation

Smokers’ Rights Advocates Resist Tobacco Regulation in Indonesia<br />
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If you smoke in Indonesia &mdash; and chances are high that you do, as the country is on track to have the world&rsquo;s highest smoking rate within the next decade &mdash; you&rsquo;re likely a fan of kreteks, the clove cigarettes that are omnipresent in the island nation. Named after the crackling sound that cloves make as you smoke them, kreteks account for as much as 90 percent of all cigarette consumption in Indonesia.<br />
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Cigarette sales increase as health campaigns fail

&nbsp;Cigarette sales increase as health campaigns fail to stub out smoking<br />
New figures suggest smoking is becoming more popular in the Netherlands again, ending a five-year downward trend. A total of 10 billion cigarettes were lit up in 2016, 200m more than in the year before, the AD reports. The finding comes from the annual SUN report drawn up by accountancy firm KPMG for the tobacco industry, which looks into illicit cigarette trade in the European Union. It appears to confirm figures from the CBS indicating that smoking, especially among the young, is on the increase.

UN Just Called for Decriminalizing Drug Use

American Media Silent After UN Just Called for Decriminalizing Drug Use Worldwide<br />
A little-noticed public statement issued by the United Nations last week contains a dramatic shift in thinking on the issue of &ldquo;illicit&rdquo; substance use. After recommitting to the failed idea of prohibition just last year, the UN is now calling for the worldwide decriminalization of drug use and possession.&nbsp;

Being anti-smoking damages your mental health

I lit a cigarette in an open-air car park a couple of years ago as I was walking to the exit. I noticed a Nissan Micra heading towards me from the far corner and thought at first it was going to run me over. But it pulled up alongside and a woman put her head out of the window. &lsquo;Do you realise that other people have to breathe in your smoke,&rsquo; she snarled, &lsquo;including people like me, who have cancer.&rsquo; There was nobody within 50 yards of me, apart from this deranged woman who had driven double that distance simply to register her hatred.I wondered for a while about the root of her rage and its curious displacement on to me. &nbsp;