Why science lost its cred, and the media are full of lies

“Whenever I hear about provocative research, my default assumption is that it is wrong.”

The media, from journals to social media and everything in between, are filled with lies. Gary Smith, who seems to live to debunk the fraudsters, takes them all on in Distrust. And then he settles in on scientific studies for the abuse they regularly employ to deceive, and achieve fame. Not to put too fine a point on it, but 70% of psychologists themselves don’t trust the psychology studies they read. This is Smith’s chosen world, and he has penetrated it to a remarkable — and most helpful — extent.

The book is great fun. It’s lovely to watch Smith demolish the fraud in every medium. Many of the examples will prove familiar to readers, from Russian bots to ChatGPT, passing through crypto along the way. The chapters all end not with a Conclusion, but with a short section titled The Irony. It’s usually to the effect that people don’t trust this medium, which they enjoy thanks to the tireless work of scientists who they don’t trust. With his career-long history of precision bombing the fraudsters, it is also — ironically — trustworthy. Because he suffers along with us.

The structure is simple, setting up the ease of reading the book. Smith breaks the fraud into three distinct flavors: disinformation, tortured…