[mjburgess]

It's based off the last 200 I've read.

This just is a crystallization all the pseudoscience trends of the last (> decade): associative statistical analysis; assuming linearity; reification fallacy; failure to construct relevant hypotheses to test; no counterfactual analysis; no series attempt at falsification; trivial sample sizes; profound failure to provide a plausible mechanism; profound failure to understand the basic theory in the relevant domains; "AI"; "Neural"; "fMRI"; etc.; paper participates in a system of financial incentives largely benefitting industrial companies with investment in relevant tech; paper is designed to be a press release for those companies.

If I were to design and teach a lecture series on contemporary pseudoscience, I'd be half-inclined to spend it all on this paper alone. It's a spectacular confluence of these trends.

[feet]

I work in neuroscience and pharmacology. My impression of my own field is far different than what you state here. You made a statement about all scientific exploration but you seem to only read about a few limited areas

[mjburgess]

I happen to be BS-facing, it must be said. I ought calm myself with the vast amount of "normal science".

But likewise, we're in an era when "the man on the street" feels easy appealing to "the latest paper" delivered to him via an aside in a newspaper.

And at the same time, the "scientific" industry which produces this papers seems to have not merely taken the on-trend funding, but scarified its own methods to capture it.

In otherwords, "the man on the street" seems to have become the target demographic for a vast amount of science. From pop-psych to this, all designed to dazzle the lay reader.

Once only on popsci book shelves, now, everywhere in Nature!