misplaced decimal point – A Medical Education

I am aware of the irony of posting based on the slides here alone and not on the context of the presentation as a whole! This from Christian Bokhove from the University of Southampton is excellent on the various myths that can arise in science, education and technology … but also their at times equally mythical rebuttals! For instance, the persistent belief that spinach is an excellent source of iron is a myth… but so is the persistent claim that the myth arose because of a misplaced decimal point. There is also a slide on the claim that papers/articles featuring neuroimages are judged more favourably than those without… a myth (or rather selective selection of it-seems-true evidence?) I am afraid I may have helped perpetuate :

In 2007, Colorado State University’s McCabe and Castel published research indicating that undergraduates, presented with brief articles summarising fictional neuroscience research (and which made claims unsupported by the fictional evidence presented) rated articles that were illustrated by brain imaging as more scientifically credible than those illustrated by bar graphs, a topographical map of brain activation, or no image at all. Taken with the Bennett paper, this illustrates one of the perils of neuroimaging research, especially when it enters the wider media; the social credibility is high, despite the methodological challenges.

From experience to meaning...