Correlation Studies Aren’t "Junk Science," Especially in Food Science
Tuesday, February 22, 2011 10:04What is “junk science?” To me, after five years of reporting on health and diet news, it’s any study backed by a group with an agenda, like dairy farmers saying full-fat milk has no health risks, or PETA insisting that a vegan diet is the only optimal diet for humans.
Those studies are tailor-made so that the results say exactly what the benefactors want them to say. That is junk science, not research which looks at a sample population and finds a certain eating habit (or trend) has a negative or positive effect on health, i.e. a correlation; hence the term “correlation study.”