r/badscience

4.5K archived posts · Sep 2010 – Sep 2026

Let's try to help, by correcting.

r/badscience

A forum for the discussion of poorly presented science.

Created Dec 5, 2008

32KMembers (last snapshot)

4.5KArchived posts

RULES

When submitting items, you should post a comment or text post explaining/debunking any bad scientific claims. If a submission is about bad science and so this rule doesn't apply, say so.
No subjects are taboo here as long as submitted and discussed in good faith. If the subject is controversial, you can show your good faith by making a good rule 1 explanation.
Abusive posts or comments of any type might result in a ban. This includes racist or sexist comments, or just rude and unhelpful ones. We are all here to learn and to help out with discussion.
If you link to reddit, please use the No Participation (np) style. Just replace the 'www' in the URL with 'np'. Like so: http://np.reddit.com/r/badscience. No brigading of other subs or of this one.
This is not the place to submit your own scientific ideas. 'Bad Science' to the regular users here doesn't mean science is bad. It refers to articles or other materials which attempt to use or explain some science, but get it wrong.
Following Elon Musk's use of the fascist salute at USA President Trump's inauguration in 2025, we are by consensus banning links to www.twitter.com and x.com. Screencaps have not been explicitly banned and may be used for illustrative purposes, but please use other sources where available.

The sub is for everything concerning the bad presentation of science.

We often see poor science written-up uncritically by news organisations. Cancer has been cured for the umpteenth time, another mechanic has invented free energy, genetically modified foods are deadly poisonous, daddy longlegs are the most poisonous spider, this one weird trick will fix your health problems, and the universe is a hologram. If it's making ridiculous claims about the world and claiming the authority of science, post it here! We especially encourage posting examples of bad science journalism or other forms of poor communication about science.

If you report a post or comment, please message the mods saying why. This one really matters. We don't actively police the reports queue, but we answer all modmail. Our reason is that if a comment is bad enough to need a report, it's bad enough to write a quick message about it. Unfortunately many or most reports are not justified.

[Association of Badcademics] (http://www.reddit.com/r/badsubhub/#/button/c/red)