Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

natesilver.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 385 posts

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#51

Post by nonameiguess »

ke88y wrote: post #10

Big question: HOW? Most journalists in the USA receive basically zero scientific education. At university I majored in two STEM subjects but also took 10 courses in Philosophy, Art, History, Journalism, and Economics. Almost no one majoring in any of those fields except Econ took more than 2-3 STEM courses, and even then there a dedicated watered down courses to ensure those people could graduate (Algebra instead of…

Even if you get a STEM education, at least at the undergrad level, it tends not to include anywhere near enough hands on research to learn much about experimental methods that would help you assess the validity of study designs when reporting on a new paper that just got published. And even when you have that, experimental methods tend to be extremely specific to the field of study.

I almost think it would be better if virtually everyone, even if you're not a STEM major, taking at least a course on hierarchy of evidence and how particular study designs attempt to demonstrate causation, along with some basic statistical literacy. But I was listening to a very good breakdown of the aspartame history this morning and the host was going on about criticisms of some of the early studies showing cancer in rats dealing with exactly how randomization works when you're dealing with multiple litters from the same gene line and why they usually terminate the rats early instead of waiting for natural death, and these are things you could never possibly know unless you specifically have a background in rodent studies. I was a biology major and still didn't know any of this stuff.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#52

Post by taeric »

ke88y wrote: post #29
taeric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often the best way to be productively skeptical is to ask questions and get more sources? It can be frustrating for some scientific figureheads, but the adage of "no dumb questions" came to be for a reason. And don't get led astray by looking for "productivity." So much advancement is lost on the alter of efficiency and productivity. Yes, if you know the correct next move to make, do it. But don't discount exploratio…

But who? And what questions do you ask? Without a baseline, you're poking around in the dark. Or knocking on the same 20 doors at the same 20 universities, and all those people talk to each other and they and their students all sit on each others' grant review committees. Etc. And when two scientists disagree about the evidence, how do you determine whether one of them is a total quack? Or do you just report everythi…

Sorry, I meant to be more explicit there. I don't believe in "full productivity" in the search for things. You will, by necessity, waste some time.

Do try and make sure you aren't completely poking around in the dark. But also don't feel bad if you find out you were.

I do hate that I'm posting this in this thread. At large, I get the impression that the "coverup" is being blown out of proportion. I also can't deny that a lot of the dismissals earlier were heavy handed. Such that some topics and inquiries have somehow become toxic.

But, at large, most "quack" theories don't have to be fully dismissed by other scientists. They are more easily explained with other ideas. It can be frustrating for some of them, as I'm sure many are tired of hearing about "UFOs" and such. But for a lot of crazier ideas, the "dismissal" can quite literally be "that necessarily leads to enough other things that we are not seeing, that I just can't bring myself to believe it right now."

This does require, though, that asking the questions is not done in such a way to paint a contest. Try to build the questions in such a way to expand ideas.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#53

Post by incangold »

swexbe wrote: post #43
ke88y wrote: post #10

Big question: HOW? Most journalists in the USA receive basically zero scientific education. At university I majored in two STEM subjects but also took 10 courses in Philosophy, Art, History, Journalism, and Economics. Almost no one majoring in any of those fields except Econ took more than 2-3 STEM courses, and even then there a dedicated watered down courses to ensure those people could graduate (Algebra instead of…

The answer is more people with a background in STEM should go into journalism. Sadly, that sort of specialization is expensive and the public's willingness to spend on news seems to have gone down.

YouTube and Medium are awash with scientists doing journalism- there’s plenty of supply.

Maybe the answer is that people without a STEM background should get out of science journalism?

The question mark is genuine- would this be a bad thing for some reason?

Not that scientist journalists don’t also make mistakes of course- I’ve seen plenty, usually due to covering topics outside their own specialty.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#54

Post by powera »

It is astonishing how many people are saying that Nate Silver must be wrong here, because he is going "against the experts".

The damning comments are those made by the experts! But, because the disliked Nate Silver is involved, clearly the only fault is in the reporting of the comments.

This hagiography of anyone who claims to be a credentialed expert is contrary to everything Hacker News believed in a decade ago. Apparently the bozos are winning here.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#56

Post by guilhas »

Clearly the media stakeholders had the narrative decided, and the journalists were forced to find the scientists that supported it and ignore or attack the scientists who opposed it

Same for politics reporting

The best way to stay informed is to read a book about something currently not on the news

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#57

Post by bell-cot »

Cynical reaction: With how over-worked and under-resourced most journalists are these days, we're lucky when they have sources who might maybe actually know something or other about the subject at hand.

Bigger picture: In the specific case of COVID, what might have helped most would be some really mature meta-journalism. A calm Walter Cronkite telling us that, for the most part, nobody was really sure of anything. Loads of "1mm wide, 1km deep" scientists were scrambling to do stuff outside of their usual niches, usually in a fraction of the time they'd normally need, and under all sorts of emotional and political pressures - which they had no experience whatever dealing with. The vast majority of 'em had zero experience whatever in communicating scientific results to the general public. And a small minority of 'em suddenly found that they loved the limelight - about the same way that some teenagers suddenly develop a taste for hard liquor - and would certainly not be sources of reasonable nor sober information.

...but with umpteen million people stuck at home during COVID, and consuming any & all available news about it - what incentive did the big (for-profit) media corporations have, to deliver any sort of sober, mature coverage?

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#58

Post by RyanAdamas »

legitster wrote: post #40

I respect this position on principal, but I also forget like we are equally glossing over the context in this specific case. In 2020, the lab-leak theory was specifically being promoted by people who were advancing the idea that Covid was a) an engineered bio-weapon b) required a national security response in lieu of a medical one. But if we really want to look back at 2020-2021, there were MUCH more egregious exampl…

Incorrect, the lab-leak theory was specifically disregarded using the well-poisoning methods you described as the blame would be shifted to a wild-goose chase. Considering China went through SARS 10 years previous with hundreds of millions of patients to examine, combined with the influx of viral research into the country after that period, it is by no means a stretch to assume duplicity was at hand. A for-profit medical response is a conflation of the kind you are suggesting should have taken place.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#59

Post by huffmsa »

MostlyStable wrote: post #17
ke88y wrote: post #10

Big question: HOW? Most journalists in the USA receive basically zero scientific education. At university I majored in two STEM subjects but also took 10 courses in Philosophy, Art, History, Journalism, and Economics. Almost no one majoring in any of those fields except Econ took more than 2-3 STEM courses, and even then there a dedicated watered down courses to ensure those people could graduate (Algebra instead of…

In the past, wasn't it normal for journalists to have a particular specialization (even if that's not the _only_ thing they did), like "science reporter" or something? It is obviously impossible for every reporter to become an expert on every single topic that they might ever cover, but it is not unreasonable at all to get enough of a background on a topic that you cover regularly to be able to ask intelligent questi…

For some. My mother had a pretty solid biology and medical background before covering medical news.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#60

Post by ctrlp »

ke88y wrote: post #10

Big question: HOW? Most journalists in the USA receive basically zero scientific education. At university I majored in two STEM subjects but also took 10 courses in Philosophy, Art, History, Journalism, and Economics. Almost no one majoring in any of those fields except Econ took more than 2-3 STEM courses, and even then there a dedicated watered down courses to ensure those people could graduate (Algebra instead of…

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
Post reply on HN