Sources Contact Advanced Search Tutorials

An Interest In:

Web News this Week

Search Archive

Some of Our Sources

View All Sources

Help Webnuz

Referal links:

December 21, 2015 06:00 pm

Why Is So Much Reported Science Wrong

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.

Slashdot

Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. Today it is owned by Geeknet, Inc..

More About this Source Visit Slashdot