Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study • Hacker News Board

Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study

#61

Post by sigdoubt » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 1:39 AM UTC

Was anyone able to parse this paragraph? I keep getting stuck on the contradiction. Which is mildly hilarious in an article about articles being misinterpreted.

> She goes on, however, to knock back links suggesting that drinking may lower a person's risks of cardiovascular disease (CVD), noting that people who drink moderately also tend to have other lifestyle factors that lower their disease risk. Or, put another way, she noted that “in a large US survey in 2005, 27 of 30 CVD risk factors were shown to be more prevalent in abstainers than moderate drinkers.”

Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study

#62

Post by conception » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 1:48 AM UTC

1ris wrote: post #39

chestervonwinch wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 3 drinks per day puts you from 1.5 to 3 times more likely to develop various cancers, according to: http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/al...

Yes, this is what I'm referring to. This information is completly meaningless to me. How does a 1.5 to 3 times higher cancer risk affect my mortality? A 100 times elevated risk in extreme uncommon diseases is absoluty irrelevant, but a 10 percent increase to get something very common is quite important. Likewise is the age when these disease typically break out. If it's typically not before 85, I wouldn't mind. If it…

It's sorta hard to say because most of your risk just depends on your genetics. You could be in a happy genetic lottery of 1 : 1,000,000,000 of getting cancer before 50 or you could have terrible genes and be in the 1:100,000 lotto of getting cancer before your 50. If you drink in excess, you're buying three tickets for whichever lotto your in instead of the single ticket you get when you're born. And you collect these tickets all through your life - flying in airplanes a lot, staying in the sun a lot, smoking, etc. You just never know which lotto you're in so it's hard to say, with today's technology, how it will affect you. That's why some people smoke till their 90 without a problem and others get lung cancer much younger. Different lottos.

Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study

#63

Post by deadhand » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 1:48 AM UTC

sigdoubt wrote: post #61

Was anyone able to parse this paragraph? I keep getting stuck on the contradiction. Which is mildly hilarious in an article about articles being misinterpreted. > She goes on, however, to knock back links suggesting that drinking may lower a person's risks of cardiovascular disease (CVD), noting that people who drink moderately also tend to have other lifestyle factors that lower their disease risk. Or, put another w…

Do you mean in reference to "knock back"? I think its supposed to be knock back like one would with a beer - as in, consume readily - rather than knock back as in knock away or disregard.

Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study

#64

Post by lern_too_spel » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 1:58 AM UTC

J_Darnley wrote: post #59

nchelluri wrote: post #29

I think modern journalism is like application development at a startup, except with even less QA. "Get it out!!! Get it out!!!" And since people will forget about the article in a few days anyway, as long as nobody who knows better and knows how to make the right noise about it and has enough energy, time, and incentive to actually do so reads it and starts the correction ball rolling, it's just, kinda... there. Arch…

Block all ads and (try to) burn the whole fetid industry to the ground.

I specifically block ads on clickbait news sites. It would be great if somebody maintained a blocklist that awarded good reporting.

Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study

#65

Post by lern_too_spel » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 2:06 AM UTC

tshtf wrote: post #30

1ris wrote: post #24

I'd like to know how my drinking behaviour affects my mortality. And how that effect is compared to the consumption of tobacco, marijuana, participating in road traffic, jogging and overwight. While it's clear that alcohol is not particular healthy, I feel the risk is negligible compared to other common behaviours. I like alcohol very much and I'd like to make a informed decision about it. But i dearly miss the curia…

"Light-to-moderate alcohol consumption has been shown in several prospective studies to reduce the risk of all-cause mortality and several cardiac outcomes, including cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality in men " https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3140194/

See the articles that cited that one, and a different picture emerges.

"Beneficial associations between low intensity alcohol consumption and all cause mortality may in part be attributable to inappropriate selection of a referent group and weak adjustment for confounders."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4353285/

Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study

#66

Post by joshyeager » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 2:06 AM UTC

icegreentea wrote: post #40

joshyeager wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do East Asians have a higher likelihood of types of cancer that could be linked to alcohol use? I've never seen that claim, but it would be interesting if it were true.

You can give this a shot. http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...

Very interesting, thanks!

Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study

#67

Post by jdietrich » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 3:45 AM UTC

elgabogringo wrote: post #5

Science and economic journalism are both pretty bad. My favorite thing (ok, one of my favorite things) about blogging/internet is that I can read real-time thoughts/opinions from actual scientists and economists now instead of having to rely on professional writers and media.

All journalism is pretty bad. Non-experts are producing content under severe time constraints. Most newspapers barely have a budget for copy editing, let alone fact checking. Take journalism for what it is - disposable content written in a hurry.

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gel...

Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study

#68

Post by eggy » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 4:00 AM UTC

J_Darnley wrote: post #59

nchelluri wrote: post #29

I think modern journalism is like application development at a startup, except with even less QA. "Get it out!!! Get it out!!!" And since people will forget about the article in a few days anyway, as long as nobody who knows better and knows how to make the right noise about it and has enough energy, time, and incentive to actually do so reads it and starts the correction ball rolling, it's just, kinda... there. Arch…

Block all ads and (try to) burn the whole fetid industry to the ground.

Not an ad-lover or marketer here, but even in the pre-internet days, ads were how you found out about things you might be interested in buying, an information source, sure, to be taken with a grain of salt. But still I bet if you really trace a purchase, even if a friend told you, he most likely saw an ad or a product-based article for selling.

In some cases the ads have been put into the articles themselves, like all of the wooing over the latest Apple products release every 6 months or so. It is driven by the techno-lust for the product. It seems to be, since I have many colleagues who own two or more systems, not including phones and tablets, when one would do. Just look at some sigs in game or tech developer forums where people list their arsenal.

Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study

#69

Post by greatingale » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 4:16 AM UTC

quantumhobbit wrote: post #42

nchelluri wrote: post #29

I think modern journalism is like application development at a startup, except with even less QA. "Get it out!!! Get it out!!!" And since people will forget about the article in a few days anyway, as long as nobody who knows better and knows how to make the right noise about it and has enough energy, time, and incentive to actually do so reads it and starts the correction ball rolling, it's just, kinda... there. Arch…

It is a race to the bottom as long as we value speed over quality. It is a shame too because I think consumers would really prefer quality over speed for software and news, I know I would. But consumption of these things isn't a rational deliberation by the consumer, but a reflex click or don't click. Hence the proliferation of click bait headlines and bs startup promises. I think the key is reputation and branding.…

> No one says to themselves "That looks like a good story, but I'll just wait a few days and read about it in the New York Times."

I absolutely do. NYT isn't perfect, but all my other feeds are so full of junk I do wait to see what the NYT will write about it. You don't even have to wait a few days. The NYT is very good at covering developing stories online with reasonable accuracy.

Re: Journalists confused an opinion piece for an alcohol-cancer study

#70

Post by superuser2 » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 4:20 AM UTC

nchelluri wrote: post #29

I think modern journalism is like application development at a startup, except with even less QA. "Get it out!!! Get it out!!!" And since people will forget about the article in a few days anyway, as long as nobody who knows better and knows how to make the right noise about it and has enough energy, time, and incentive to actually do so reads it and starts the correction ball rolling, it's just, kinda... there. Arch…

Newspapers used to have a robust QA mechanism: the profession of copy editing. Wasn't perfect, but they knew generally what they were doing. (My dad used to be one).

Guess who goes first in the layoffs.

Any discussion of the state of modern journalism has to acknowledge that newspapers are hemorrhaging cash and lashing out with desperate, short-term plays to try to keep breathing until next quarter.

In your software development analogy - they are perpetually out of runway and trying to cut the burn rate to make it just a little further before they have to send the rest of the staff home for the last time.

Look at what headcount at your local paper has done since the mid-90s. It's really not surprising QA has gone out the window.