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Why Is So Much Reported Science Wrong (berkeley.edu)
An anonymous reader writes: An article from Berkeley's California Magazine explains some of the reasons science reporting is often at odds with actual science. Quoting: "Where journalism favors neat story arcs, science progresses jerkily, with false starts and misdirections in a long, uneven path to the truth—or at least to scientific consensus. The types of stories that reporters choose to pursue can also be a problem, says Peter Aldhous, [lecturer and reporter]. 'As journalists, we tend to gravitate to the counterintuitive, the surprising, the man-bites-dog story,' he explains. 'In science, that can lead us into highlighting stuff that's less likely to be correct.' If a finding is surprising or anomalous, in other words, there's a good chance that it's wrong.
On the flip side, when good findings do get published, they're often not as earth shattering as a writer might hope. ... So journalists and their editors might spice up a study's findings a bit, stick the caveats at the end, and write an eye-catching, snappy headline—not necessarily with the intent to mislead, but making it that much more likely for readers to misinterpret the results." The article also makes suggestions for both journalists and the scientific community to keep science reporting interesting while being more accurate.
On the flip side, when good findings do get published, they're often not as earth shattering as a writer might hope. ... So journalists and their editors might spice up a study's findings a bit, stick the caveats at the end, and write an eye-catching, snappy headline—not necessarily with the intent to mislead, but making it that much more likely for readers to misinterpret the results." The article also makes suggestions for both journalists and the scientific community to keep science reporting interesting while being more accurate.
...our generation has largely given up on science. We all reap the benefits but I find the level of science education to be abysmal. People can't distinguish between fact and fiction in news reporting and our wonderful government (many of them) don't want to believe *actual data* about things like global warming, etc. - because it's not "convenient" for their economic or religious beliefs. And of course some of those people become the reporters that report on these things, and they are ignorant, too.
It's really quite sad. We got to #1 in this world because of science, but we are turning into a society of cultish freaks who don't wan't to believe anything they don't like, regardless of the actual evidence.
Also, journalists have become corrupt little trolls, trolls matching exactly the "throw something out there and see if anyone will bite" definition.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Science reporting is bad because reporters are lazy and rewrite press releases.
If they did simple things, like looked at absolute numbers instead of percentages, or understood absolute and relative risks, or even understood statistics they might do a better job. But that requires math and statistical knowledge, both of which are hard for reporters. If they could do those they wouldn't have been reporters.
Maybe they could apply some critical thinking skills too? Although a reporter with no credentials probably wouldn't get real far down that path.
When you chase any story for "ratings", you're doing it wrong. Just report the facts and stop trying to write fiction. All we have today are a bunch of short story writers who base their story on some truth but try to sensationalize the story to sell more papers, commercials, etc.
You write entertainment, not news, which is not the way it used to be. Unfortunately the true news journalists are either dead or retired.
And if you think scientific consensus is an oxymoron, then you don't understand how science works at all. This idea that science is nothing more than a pack of edifice-building conspirators being toppled by a few brave sacred cow tippers is absurd and demonstrates a complete ignorance of how science works, and how scientists interact. Providing all concerned understand that a well supported and accepted theory still remains a theory, and it's "truth" is provisional, there is absolutely nothing wrong with consensus.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It is unfortunate that in this day and age, it is necessary to explain how science works, and why it is different from other belief systems.
First science is a belief system. The fundamental axiom of science is that an objective reality exists, is independent of the observer, and that by investigation, truths about that reality can be discovered.
What makes it work is that progress in science depends critically on getting it wrong. A couple hundred years ago, people were looking at fire (Fire's Cool), and wondering how it works. Deep thinkers thought deeply about it, and came up with a hypothesis: There was this stuff, phlogiston, that escaped into the air and that was why fire burned, and why stuff that burned mostly disappeared. Good theory.
Then some pesky scientists - who were trying to put numbers to how much phlogiston was in different things - discovered that if you sealed up stuff, so air couldn't get in or out, and burned something, the weight was exactly the same. Hmm. The scientists first concluded that they had captured phlogiston. Great, let's figure ot what it is. Except that burning different things, led to different kinds of phlogiston. The science was a little wrong.
New experiments brought new results. Burning magnesium led to a weight gain, not a loss, so maybe it captured phlogiston. If that were true, then the ash (calx) should burn, right? More phlogiston! Except that it would not. More problems.
To shorten what could be a very long story, in 1774 or thereabouts, two scientists separately and independently came up with a more correct explanation, something to do with oxygen. In 200 years, their explanation has not yet been found to be fundamentally wrong.
Science moves forward by being wrong. A theory is presented, scientists test it's limits, and if there are things that are wrong, they are made better. The process repeats. Every time a mistake is found, every time science is wrong, it gets better. It's like a fine wine, it improves with age. Also, like a fine wine, it is not democratic. The fact that a whole lot of people seem to prefer that Thunder-stuff wine, does not make it a fine wine. The fact that a lot of people disagree with a scientific principle does not make it wrong, just unpopular.
Why is so much science wrong? Well, Homer, that's how it works.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
I use to have a job editing and translating news pieces from a well-known American newspaper into an Asian language for the local readers. Due to my science background, I was frequently assigned the science news. I didn't need to deal with the journalists directly but I worked with the editors.
Those guys were good and intelligent people to work with, but most of them lacked a science background. I had to do rounds of push and pull with the scientific bits. Translating the English word "space" as in relativistic space-time was not the same as translating it in the context of flying to the earth orbit, and I needed to tell them about it. And while I sometimes added my tiny clarifications to the originally unclear message (read: journalist crap), I had to write much longer notes for them.
Also, they were more concerned with the readers' psychological response than scientific rigor. I might have preferred a technically correct way of saying things, but they pointed out that it didn't fit very nicely into the general tone and style of the whole website (not just the article's, but their "overall" style). Very good points, but at first both of us were surprised by each other. We learned to work it out, taking compromises, and I tried to influence them, with limited success.
The moral was that journalists have vastly different priorities compared with a science/tech writer. They may do a good job of notifying the public, but informing, not so much. They paint an image of what it looks and feels like, in a kinda impressionist way, but reading it for education is like studying Monet's lilyponds for botany. The good ones will provide link to sources so the interested reader can dig deeper and judge by himself. The poor ones sell clickbaits.
Part of the problem is that most scientists are not journalists, and most journalists are not scientists. If a journalist takes enough time to become an expert in the scientific field he is reporting on, it isn't likely that he will ever come to market with his product, the reports, in a timely enough fashion to actually make a living on it.
Part of the problem is that many scientists lack the literary skill to communicate effectively with laypeople, and have to rely too much on journalists who don't have the competence needed to report on the subject material.
Another problem is that the proletariat crave the truth... the conclusions. As a mathematician, I reject the notion that empirical science determines truth. Yes, you can craft an experiment with reproducible results, but your results will still be just empirical observations. If you do a study, and find out that there is approximately a 78% correlation between wearing blue sweaters and getting hives, and that this result was reproduced three times given blah blah , then report that. Don't report that blue sweaters cause hives. Oh wait, the only thing the public cares about is what caused the hives... they have no appreciation for the results being what they are. The public wants to extrapolate conclusions only.
I like mathematics. Assuming a few axioms, prove something. What you then have is truth.
Why is so much reported _anything_ wrong? The media wants to come across as the trusted expert on everything, but the truth is they don't know squat about anything.
If my post were a car, this sig would be its bumper-sticker.
Short Answer: Obligatory PHD Comics: The Science New Cycle
Longer Answer: Reporters know "Scientists have found that X is weakly correlated with an increase in Y. More studies will clarify whether this is correlation, causation, or whether the first study was incorrect." won't generate views (or sell papers for the old school newspaper folks in the house). Instead "X found to cause Y" is a much better headline for generating more views. Even better is clickbait like "You won't believe the horrible things X has been found to cause!" So reporters go for the most sensational spin on the scientific study in order to get more views.
The side effect of this is a mistrust of scientists who "can't make up their minds." After all, today it's being reported that "X directly leads to Y, scientists 100% sure." Tomorrow, though, the reporting says "X shown to have no effect on Y!" The actual details of the studies don't matter. It doesn't matter that this is how science works (someone tests a theory, proves or disproves it, and then others try to replicate it). It doesn't matter that science "changing its mind" isn't a weakness, but a strength of science. All that matters is that the headlines changed so scientists must not know what they're doing. Luckily, the local creationist/anti-vax proponent/homeopath/etc says they know what's what and they insist that they would never change their story.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
As to Creationists, well, they are the prototypical pseudoscientists, and much of the anti-science strategy used by the tobacco and fossil fuel industries to attack science is largely lifted from the hard work Creationists put into attacking biology.
Cite please?
The most comprehensive citation would be the book The Merchants of Doubt: http://www.amazon.com/Merchant...
But you could start here: http://scienceblogs.com/denial...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
...is that journalists generally don't know what they are talking about when it comes to science. They live in a world of politics and history, and they often even screw those up. It is generally accepted that, as a journalist, you don't really need to know the details of something, since an expert can explain it to you.
That said, science journalism, as bad as it is now, is still a lot better than in the 1970s. Then, they really didn't know anything. That's why you get stupid articles in Time and Newsweek about "global cooling" and the "coming ice age", even though actual scientists like Carl Sagan are rolling their eyes at the stupidity of journalists.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
"consensus" is a summarizing word.
What it means is that science does not actually consist of one scientist doing something and announcing a result.
It's science when that scientist convinces other scientists using evidence and clear, step by step reasoning that their theory is right.
Any nut can announce a theory, and tell the world how groundbreaking it is-- and many do. The hard part of science is filling in the details, so that you can show your work to other scientists and have them understand it and believe it. That's science.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Fact checking and editing used to be the core of journalism.
Now editorial staffing is pretty much non-existent in most publications. Even if it does exist, the disproportionate power of the "star" journalist has any rendered editorial oversight limp at best (e.g., Dan Rathers, Jayson Blair).
Journalists used to cut their teeth with fact checking. Fact checkers were the checks-and-balances built into the historical journalism structure. Now with a publication paths that doesn't require them learning how to fact check (e.g., web publishing), budding journalists simultaneously are both inexperienced with fact checking and do not see any value in fact checking. Thus the facts that are reported suffer. That is the crux of the problem.
We are probably simply reliving the days of yellow journalism (from the late 19th century). Some speculated the original outbreak had to do with circulation wars at the time. The more things change, the more they remain the same...
Let's just hope a Pulitzer-Hearst war doesn't lead to a modern day Spanish-American War (if I can dabble in a little yellow journalism myself ;^)
Actually history shows scientists being part of the church for many centuries. Members of the clergy proposed and advanced heliocentrism, genetics, the big bang theory, the scientific method, etc. As another poster pointed out don't get confused by those who were persecuted mainly for political reasons, for mocking the pope. Also keep in mind that the fact that people within the church rejected various scientific discoveries at first is not something unique to religion. Many scientists are political in that they defend their turf, their field, their pet theories, their friends who have a stake in a competing theory. When many of the leading men of science rejected the Big Bang Theory they did so because it "smelled of creationism", the theory was put forward by a catholic priest at a catholic university, it didn't matter that this man was a world class physicist and astronomer trained at some of the most prestigious universities.
At one time young PhD candidates were being told not to follow their interest and study string theory. That the consensus was against it and you will potentially damage your career.
Men of science have their biases and politics, both men of science who are religious and men of science who are not religious.
without education of course...
I see this "Not Educated" meme all the time. Mostly by nitwits (not accusing you of being one BTW) who think because they are "Well Read/Literate" that means that their "Education" is complete and anyone who is not has "No Education". Nothing could be further from the truth. People who are illiterate are not "Uneducated" for the most part (especially in the past). They had more practical education. Most of the so-called modern, literate, educated populace would quickly starve to death if nearly everything they needed to survive weren't provided to them by seemingly less educated peers. The idea that somehow "Literate Education" is the only meaningful/useful educate is complete nonsense.
Actually history shows scientists being part of the church for many centuries.
History shows scientists being a subgroup of the people who are literate and have free time. In the past, that meant the clergy, rich people, and people sponsored by rich people. Now, everyone is literate and almost everyone has enough free time to do science if they so wished, and can even get jobs doing science. If your implication is that religion is what was good for science, pray tell what is the current correlation between members of the clergy and scientific advance, and how it compares to non-clergy?
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