In the final installment of their series on the sleights of hand that skew scientific research, Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades turn a critical eye toward examples of outright fraud. They place studies that stray from the scientific method, such as those published under the supervision of Dr. Brian Wansink, under the rubric of fraud; Wansink encouraged his students to torture data and retroactively create hypotheses to produce publishable papers. The Drs. Eades also cite examples of fraud from the realm of stem-cell research and ultimately ask whether, when published research findings are tainted, it’s possible for physicians to practice evidence-based medicine.

Our reliance on functional movements, including many presumed too complex or technical for mass application, has returned skill to PT. Over the past 60 years, traditional PT has been flensed of nearly all skill elements that train for coordination, accuracy, agility, and balance. The costs here are enormous and extend to losses in speed and power as well as producing an athlete generally less capable of dealing with variances and vagaries of opponents, movement, and terrain.