I recently came across the site Science-Based Medicine, devoted to "exploring issues and controversies in science and medicine." It include current reports, debunkings, reviews, and other interesting stuff.
For example, here is a comment on Siddhartha Mukherjee's recent New Yorker article on computer assisted diagnoses. Here is an article on the prospects for medical research in the Trump administration. Here is an article on the regulation of dietary supplements in Canada.
And here is an article on the PACE trial and ME/CFS, which of course is what led me to the site.
So far, I have found everything on the site thoughtful and insightful, and I would be interested in others' reactions.
UPDATE: Slate has a fascinating story about a Twitter exchange between William Shatner and the founder of Science Based Medicine. Here is the opening paragraph:
You can learn a lot on the internet, and on Wednesday, a Twitter spat between a doctor and William Shatner—of Star Trek fame, with 2.5 million followers—taught us just how easily cranks and charlatans can manipulate the information out there. This isn’t a surprise, really—misinformation is everywhere, particularly online—but the exchange was such a perfect embodiment of the larger issues of the unavoidable desire to self-validate and the spread of quackery that it’s worth breaking down.
You can read the whole article here.
Speaking of science, in this case forensic science, from the Washington Post yesterday: "Sessions orders Justice Dept. to end forensic science commission, suspend review policy." This can't be good:
"Attorney General Jeff Sessions will end a Justice Department partnership with independent scientists to raise forensic science standards and has suspended an expanded review of FBI testimony across several techniques that have come under question, saying a new strategy will be set by an in-house team of law enforcement advisers.
In a statement Monday, Sessions said he would not renew the National Commission on Forensic Science, a roughly 30-member advisory panel of scientists, judges, crime lab leaders, prosecutors and defense lawyers chartered by the Obama administration in 2013. A path to meet needs of overburdened crime labs will be set by a yet-to-be-named senior forensic adviser and an internal department crime task force, Sessions’s statement said.
The announcement came as the commission began its last, two-day meeting before its term ends April 23, and as some of its most far-reaching final recommendations remained hanging before the department." [….]
Science? Enlightenment ended 1-20-17, 12:01 pm EDT.