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How The Press Misinterprets Scientific Studies
from the dream-recording-machines dept
There's an absolutely awesome comic by Jorge Cham of PhDComics (which you should read whether or not you're a PhD student) about the science news cycle, in which a nuanced scientific result showing a slight correlation is turned into a causal relationship by the press, leading to a flat out frenzy of others in the press who don't even bother to understand what the original research was about.
Click image to see full version
I'm reminded of this particular comic as the folks at On the Media point us to a story, told by Moran Cerf at The Moth (my favorite storytelling operation), about how, as a grad student, he got some research accepted for publication in Nature, the top of the top in terms of scientific journal prestige. His rather interesting research was about sticking electrodes in patients brains during brain surgery, having them think of certain things, and being able to have a projector project an image of what they were thinking. Cool, right? You can watch the video to see what happened once the press got hold of the story.
In case you can't watch the video, the short version is that Cerf had put together a short video about the research, and at the very, very, very end, when talking to a colleague about how this kind of research might advance in the future, the research mentions something about studying and recording dreams. Now, nothing in the actual research is about studying or recording dreams, but... the BBC picked up on this part of the story, and then everyone picked up on this part of the story, and things only got worse from there. And no matter what Cerf did, everyone was just focused on these claims about dream recording -- even to the point that director Chris Nolan asked him to come on tour in a discussion about the movie Inception.
You can see the original Nature story here, followed by the BBC piece that focuses on dreams, even though that's not in the actual research. At least it admits that such things are far, far away. Others in the press weren't so careful. There are plenty of other such reports, but my favorite may be Metro in the UK that claims we're on the "brink" of recording people's dreams, despite that not being even close to true. For what it's worth, it appears some sources, such as Reuters did not parrot the dream recording angle, but plenty did.
It's a pretty good reminder that, especially when it comes to scientific research, you really shouldn't believe everything you read.
Oh, and as a random aside, while this story from Moran is entertaining, it does not come close in entertainment value to this other story that Cerf told at a different Moth event about his life as a bank robber. Seriously. No matter what you're doing today, find ten minutes to watch this next video:
Click image to see full version
You can see the original Nature story here, followed by the BBC piece that focuses on dreams, even though that's not in the actual research. At least it admits that such things are far, far away. Others in the press weren't so careful. There are plenty of other such reports, but my favorite may be Metro in the UK that claims we're on the "brink" of recording people's dreams, despite that not being even close to true. For what it's worth, it appears some sources, such as Reuters did not parrot the dream recording angle, but plenty did.
It's a pretty good reminder that, especially when it comes to scientific research, you really shouldn't believe everything you read.
Oh, and as a random aside, while this story from Moran is entertaining, it does not come close in entertainment value to this other story that Cerf told at a different Moth event about his life as a bank robber. Seriously. No matter what you're doing today, find ten minutes to watch this next video:
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MSM policy
This my policy when reading MSM (which is rare, but sometimes necessary. I assume that what I am reading or watching is:
1 - completely false, or else
2 - some kind of political propaganda (lies mixed with some facts)or,
3 - some kind of commercial/public relations effort (wishful thinking coupled with some lies)or;
4 - a fluff piece or a provocative piece intended solely for getting attention.
In any case I assume that the item:
5 - has not been fact-checked by anybody (since the media believes that there is no difference between truth and lies, what's the point of wasting time and money checking so-called "facts"?)
This policy has saved me a lot of time and energy, not to mention increased my mental health tenfold. I also save a lot of money by not buying newspapers.
This news-viewing policy is published under a CC license and may be used freely by the discerning public.
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Wowser.
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conclusion is erroneous and obviously shill-like, but this one's actually Logical in how it gets there, and shows basic reading comprehension.
do we have some sort of prize for that? 'cause we totally should.
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Re: MSM policy
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I won't hold my breath
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2) get accused of being biased
3) provide additional facts in support of conclusions
4) get accused of being a shill
5) ?????
6) profit !!!
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It's not press, it's entertainment
If you want unvarnished science news, then you need to go to publications such as Nature, which as a rule, require a higher intelligence level to grasp.
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Re: It's not press, it's entertainment
Or foobies(not safe for wok)
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Here's the latest example
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/27/teen-pot-use-iq_n_1834392.html
http://content.usatoday .com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/08/study-pot-use-before-age-18-harms-iq-attention-memory/1
ht tp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19372456
Typical mistaken, correlation==causation reporting.
Kudos to the BBC for adding the following sentence at the bottom, "She also cautioned that there may be another explanation, such as depression, which could result in lower IQ and cannabis use", but I can't find any other site that has realized the issue.
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Re: It's not press, it's entertainment
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Re: It's not press, it's entertainment
The press routinely misinterprets scientific studies, precisely to make them more entertaining.
From my years working in a research lab, I can't overstate how hated journalism was amongst the scientists. Even the best-intentioned reporters got the stories wrong in ways that totally distorted the meaning of the research. As a result of that experience, I simply do not believe news reports of scientific studies. They are wrong.
You can suss out the truth, though, form knowing that the majority of the time the stories are wrong in one (or both) of two ways: either by leaving out or underplaying important qualifiers such as "might," "suggests," etc., or by failing to put percentages into context. "x increases your chance of cancer by 300%!!" is scary, unless you know that your chance of the cancer actually raised from 0.000001% to 0.000003%
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That's Show Biz, Folks!
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Re: Re: MSM policy
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Re: Re: It's not press, it's entertainment
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