The credibility of science is being undermined by researchers themselves, claims a new book by Gary Smith. | Image: zVg

Science is its own worst enemy. This is the idea behind a book entitled ‘Distrust’ by the US economist Gary Smith, which has recently been given a positive review in the journal Nature. His ideas are as follows: “Disinformation is spread by the Internet that scientists created. Data torturing is driven by scientists’ insistence on empirical evidence. Data mining is fuelled by the big data and powerful computers that scientists created”. But Nature also offered criticism about the book’s regrettable lack of scholarly references. “A book on disinformation ought to religiously cite its sources for any claim that it makes”.