One of the biggest tasks, according to Gardner, was tracking information and beliefs back to their roots. This is always important, but especially in a field as rich in hearsay as herbal medicine. One little piece of information, or an unsubstantiated report, can grow and become magnified, quickly becoming an unquestioned truism.
She used as an example the truism that the extracts of the herb Ginkgo Biloba might cause dangerous bleeding. Everyone says it can. The journalists say it. The doctors say it. The herbalists say it. Even I say it! It’s nearly impossible to read a scientific paper on Ginkgo that doesn’t mention this alleged danger.
But why do we say it—where did the information come from? Turns out, there was one case report—of a single person—who couldn’t clot efficiently after taking Ginkgo. Another 178 papers were published that mentioned this danger, citing only this one report. Those 178 papers were cited by over 4,100 other papers. So now we have almost 4-and-a-half thousand references in the scientific literature—not to mention the tens of thousands of references in the popular press—to the dangers of Ginkgo, all traceable back to a single person whose bleeding may or may not have been attributable to the herb.
Upvoted initially because this seemed like a good example of what I’ve taken to calling a “leprechaun” - a fact that spreads in spite of limited empirical backing; however a quick Google search (fact-checking the fact-check, as it were) leads to this article which at the very least suggests that the second-hand story told above is somewhat exaggerated: the evidence for bleeding associated with Gingko Biloba is rather more solid than “one case report—of a single person”. Upvote retracted, I’m afraid...
(ETA: also, the other story at that link makes for… interesting reading for a rationalist.)
-Adam Stark
Upvoted initially because this seemed like a good example of what I’ve taken to calling a “leprechaun” - a fact that spreads in spite of limited empirical backing; however a quick Google search (fact-checking the fact-check, as it were) leads to this article which at the very least suggests that the second-hand story told above is somewhat exaggerated: the evidence for bleeding associated with Gingko Biloba is rather more solid than “one case report—of a single person”. Upvote retracted, I’m afraid...
(ETA: also, the other story at that link makes for… interesting reading for a rationalist.)
Thanks for the fact-check! In retrospect, it probably would have been a good idea for me to fact-check this before I posted it.
And yes, the other story is odd indeed. I actually hadn’t read it before I posted the link.
… And I have no upvoted both of you for the irony of failing to fact-check an anecdote about the importance of proper fact-checking.