This is referring to Harry Frankfurt’s excellent monograph on bullshit.
Frankfurt concluded that the difference between the liar and the bullshitter was that the liar cared about the truth — cared so much that he wanted to obscure it — while the bullshitter did not. The bullshitter, said Frankfurt, was indifferent to whether the statements he uttered were true or not. “He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.” Statistical bullshit is a special case of bullshit in general, and it appears to be on the rise.
And there is plenty to go around — even in medicine.
[or as one FT commentator christened it:“taurine waste” a euphemistic reformulation of “bullshit”]