The Ethics of Sarcastic Science by Rose Eveleth.
From the post:
Every holiday season, the British Medical Journal puts out a special Christmas issue. It’s full of papers, as usual, but they’re all a little bit different. They’re jokes. Not fake—the data presented in these BMJ articles aren’t made up—but the premises of the papers are all a bit off-kilter. This year, for example, they showed that men die earlier than women because they’re stupid.
The BMJ has been loosening its ties every Christmas now for 30 years. In that time it has amassed a fair amount of odd little bits of science. But a recent paper on the subject of joke papers, by Lawrence Souder and his co-author Maryam Ronagh, questions whether these wacky studies are all in good fun, or whether there’s a darker side here. Ultimately, they argue that once the laughs have worn off, spoof papers can actually do damage to science.
Souder’s paper focuses on one case in particular. In 2001, Leonardo Leibovici published a paper titled “Effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients with bloodstream infection: Randomised controlled trial.” The study purported to show “whether remote, retroactive intercessory prayer, said for a group of patients with a bloodstream infection, has an effect on outcomes.” The study was farcical—the prayers they said for these patients were delivered between four and 10 years after their hospitalization. In some cases these prayers were said for them after they had already died. The reasoning for this, Leibovici explained, was that “we cannot assume a priori that time is linear, as we perceive it, or that God is limited by a linear time, as we are.”
Leibovici’s paper was one of many of BMJ’s Christmas spoofs, appearing in the journal alongside other joke articles. But eight years later the paper was cited, unironically, in a review paper from a well-respected organization.
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In the Leibovici case, the authors critical of the humor issue are reaching to find an ethical issue. In fact, the article that cited Leibovici concludes:
These findings are equivocal and, although some of the results of individual studies suggest a positive effect of intercessory prayer, the majority do not and the evidence does not support a recommendation either in favour or against the use of intercessory prayer. We are not convinced that further trials of this intervention should be undertaken and would prefer to see any resources available for such a trial used to investigate other questions in health care.
Another “ethical” objection was that “insider” jokes exclude some people. No doubt, but the people excluded by the post-illness prayers example are unlikely to benefit from a clearer explanation. Or find the original article humorous.
I appreciate the posting because I was unaware of the BMJ‘s annual Christmas issue. I shall now enter on my calendar as a recurring annual event.
thebmj, you have to see this, it is a real hoot!
Enjoy!