One thing that really irritates me in the mass media is the shoddy and lazy quality of scientific reporting. There's one phrase in particular that is guaranteed to raise my blood pressure. That phrase is "Scientists say..."
Readers of the risible Daily Mail should be particularly familiar with this expression. In fact a quick google search of the Daily Mail website for the hated phrase returns "about" 1830 hits.
But it's not just the Daily Mail that does this. You see it on everything from the Daily Sport (ha) through to BBC news and so on. And it's invariable linked to some weird or shocking bit of news.
"Scientists say Greenhouse effect not real"
"Scientists say eat your greens to prevent cancer"
"Scientists say lettuce causes cancer"
It's always shit like that.
The all encompassing spirit of "scientists say" makes me smile. It gives the impression that whenever some earth-shattering research is released all the scientists in the world meet in some ivory tower to discuss a strategy on disseminating this New World to the public. And the research that most frequently gets this sort of coverage tends be tenuous. I don't know, single-parent, homosexual, immigrant mothers being the sole cause of suffering in the world (the Daily Mail readership would spontaneously combust if that research were real).
Really, what it says is that the science correspondent probably has a GCSE in biology but doesn't really get it. "Scientists" rarely say anything collectively. It generally takes a long time for any real consensus to be met. What newspapers and news programs really mean when they play the "Scientists say" card, is that a piece of research has been published. That's it, usually. For the scientific community to be in agreement, any research has to be replicated, the data set to increase and the statistical work to be very good. Then, and only then, when the data is as solid as is reasonable, and the conclusions undeniable will true consensus be met (and 100% consensus is never met!).
Science is fairly brutal. If you release research that is not particularly stringent or fatally flawed, there are a hundred research groups more than willing to destroy it. Scientists don't release papers that say "we have definitely proven x, beyond a doubt". We release papers that say "we did this experiment to investigate this idea. Here's what we did, here's how we did it and here are the results of what we did, with a hopefully good-enough statistical work up." After that the author of the paper will discuss their conclusions based on the results and stats. The two things to remember about this are:
1) The conclusions in any individual paper will be based on the personality, experience and quality of the author and their team
2) The conclusions in any individual paper are drawn from the work described in that paper
Point 2 in particular is the key issue here. A conclusion (especially for a controversial or revolutionary study) will only become mainstream if it is demonstrably accurate based on the quality of the initial research and any subsequent testing that might be done by other groups.
So next time you pick up a paper and read "Scientists say", just remember that this probably means "one research group has found evidence to suggest". Be sceptical!
Readers of the risible Daily Mail should be particularly familiar with this expression. In fact a quick google search of the Daily Mail website for the hated phrase returns "about" 1830 hits.
But it's not just the Daily Mail that does this. You see it on everything from the Daily Sport (ha) through to BBC news and so on. And it's invariable linked to some weird or shocking bit of news.
"Scientists say Greenhouse effect not real"
"Scientists say eat your greens to prevent cancer"
"Scientists say lettuce causes cancer"
It's always shit like that.
The all encompassing spirit of "scientists say" makes me smile. It gives the impression that whenever some earth-shattering research is released all the scientists in the world meet in some ivory tower to discuss a strategy on disseminating this New World to the public. And the research that most frequently gets this sort of coverage tends be tenuous. I don't know, single-parent, homosexual, immigrant mothers being the sole cause of suffering in the world (the Daily Mail readership would spontaneously combust if that research were real).
Really, what it says is that the science correspondent probably has a GCSE in biology but doesn't really get it. "Scientists" rarely say anything collectively. It generally takes a long time for any real consensus to be met. What newspapers and news programs really mean when they play the "Scientists say" card, is that a piece of research has been published. That's it, usually. For the scientific community to be in agreement, any research has to be replicated, the data set to increase and the statistical work to be very good. Then, and only then, when the data is as solid as is reasonable, and the conclusions undeniable will true consensus be met (and 100% consensus is never met!).
Science is fairly brutal. If you release research that is not particularly stringent or fatally flawed, there are a hundred research groups more than willing to destroy it. Scientists don't release papers that say "we have definitely proven x, beyond a doubt". We release papers that say "we did this experiment to investigate this idea. Here's what we did, here's how we did it and here are the results of what we did, with a hopefully good-enough statistical work up." After that the author of the paper will discuss their conclusions based on the results and stats. The two things to remember about this are:
1) The conclusions in any individual paper will be based on the personality, experience and quality of the author and their team
2) The conclusions in any individual paper are drawn from the work described in that paper
Point 2 in particular is the key issue here. A conclusion (especially for a controversial or revolutionary study) will only become mainstream if it is demonstrably accurate based on the quality of the initial research and any subsequent testing that might be done by other groups.
So next time you pick up a paper and read "Scientists say", just remember that this probably means "one research group has found evidence to suggest". Be sceptical!
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