Come on, journals. What kind of garbage are you stooping to publish now?

This paper in Virology Journal has to be seen to be believed. The entire data set for the “study” is a few brief lines in the Bible, where Jesus heals a sick woman with a fever. From this, the authors conclude that she had influenza. Huzzah! A completely unjustifiable diagnosis from hearsay.

And even more absurdly, the journal editors thought this superficial noise was worthy of publication.

I will say, though, that my favorite parts were the bits where the authors noted that Jesus did not take her temperature because the Fahrenheit scale wasn’t invented until 1724, and the part where they seriously rule out the possibility that the woman’s illness was demonic possession. Another cheer for science!

Never mind me, though, Tara Smith knows more about disease than I do, and she pans the paper too.