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Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

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Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#81

Post by jfengel »

legitster wrote: post #47
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…

Academia has sold itself and the world that it is only scrutinizable unto itself. But this was not always the case. If you read scientific papers from 50 or 100 years ago, they are surprisingly readable. There also used to be much more involvement from "lay-scientists" and hobbyists.

That was easier to do 50 or 100 years ago. The longer we do science, the more we already know. Finding something novel gets harder and harder. It becomes less and less likely that you can find it without having spent a long time learning what's already known.

Academics certainly could be better writers and communicators now, but non-scientists cannot expect to understand most work that required years of education before they could perform it. The public can be given a rapid education in it when it matters, but that rapid education isn't going to put them in a position to critique the work. And when the public mistakes that rapid education for a superior grasp of the topic, it becomes a huge drain on the academics' time to correct the misconceptions.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#82

Post by timr »

mike_hearn wrote: post #65
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…

They don't have to shoot for perfection. The bar has sunk so low even very basic techniques can yield huge improvements in trust: 1. Report the fact that disagreement exists. Phrased differently, stop taking academics at their word when they claim there's a consensus. Do some basic web searches to find people who disagree. Get quotes from them. Stress on the word people ; not just other academics but literally anyone…

Great comment.

One thing I'll add: if you don't have specific training in the field in question, just ignore any use of "scientific consensus" to justify an argument.

The "scientific consensus" trope is just dressed-up appeal to authority, and even if there is such a "consensus", it's almost never broad enough to be applicable to whatever pop-science journalism thing you're reading.

Also, even within the hallowed halls of academic science, most scientists are just repeating things they've heard other people say. Unless the "consensus" is amongst scientists who have spent their entire career studying the specific question (and by "specific", I mean...hyper specific, not just "in the same field", and certainly not something meaningless like "epidemiology"), this kind of thing just devolves into a popularity contest. You'd be shocked by how many PhDs just confidently repeat whatever silly thing they saw that morning in the New York Times.

Also, since I'm already seeing the meme appear...people are waaaaay too worried about "amplifying fringe voices" these days. News flash: if you don't know what you're talking about, then you can't possibly know what you should or should not be "amplifying". Stick to what you know, be modest about what you don't know (which is most things), and let the facts sort themselves out over time. Science only works if contrarians get a voice.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#84

Post by rossdavidh »

mapt wrote: post #8

The biggest error a considered, good-faith journalist typically makes is "Presenting both sides" without comment when one of them is an established consensus with abundant supporting evidence. If you go looking for a fringe outside perspective on an issue, or the motivated reasoning of somebody who stands to gain by a bit of sophistry, you will probably eventually be able to find one presented by a PhD. That is not h…

Certainly you are correct that there are several different "lab" theory versions, and they vary by orders of magnitude in how plausible they are. However:

"I think the main thing still in my mind is that the lab escape version of this is so friggin' likely to have happened because they were already doing this type of work and the molecular data is fully consistent with that scenario."

This, is damning evidence regardless of any of that. Nothing remotely like this was being presented by mainstream newsmedia, perhaps because nothing remotely like it was being presented to them by the scientists they talked to. There was no version of a lab origin theory that was being presented as worthy of consideration.

Which is important, not least because "our propensity to pay China to do our research at the lowest cost has resulted in a virus leaking out of the lab" is very different in its implications than "China was researching bioweapons and released one". How is an ordinary person supposed to know which of those theories are remotely plausible, and which implausible?

If only there were a profession, between scientists and the general public, whose job was to help the latter understand the work of the former...

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#85

Post by andreygrehov »

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…

> Big question: HOW?

Independent, transparent and publicly available journalism (open to critics) simplifies things a lot.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#86

Post by coolliquidcode »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #49
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…

Most journalists aren't experts on the law, either. How do they report on court cases? They aren't experts on aviation safety. How do they report on airplane crashes? They aren't experts on economics. How do they report financial news? They're supposed to be experts at reporting , which works out to mean experts at finding out about topics that they don't already know about .

They do it very incompetently. The quality of reporting anymore is ridiculously low.

It's not about being an expert in the subject but having a fundamental understanding and being logically minded enough to perform fact based and critically thought out reporting.

Now everything is so trashy, economics is how they can bash their least favorite company or billionaire, law reporting is one-sided story telling for bashing or cheerleading someone in court, same with politics. It's mostly story telling anymore geared for entertainment or outrage.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#87

Post by grammers »

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…

Exactly. In addition, how would you gather any information at all if there's no one to trust. Yes, fake news are a huge problem, but we need reliable sources to gather information.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#88

Post by rossdavidh »

ctrlp wrote: post #79

Nate Silver fundamentally misunderstands his own role in the information ecosystem. He and other journalists are primarily votaries to the mainline political myths of our time. This idea that they should be skeptical is laughable on its face. They can't do that, not meaningfully. Mostly, they can't actually think outside the religion, but even if they could they can't write skeptically without losing their careers. T…

While there are some (many) like that, I don't believe that Nate Silver is one of them.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#89

Post by xkbarkar »

mapt wrote: post #8

The biggest error a considered, good-faith journalist typically makes is "Presenting both sides" without comment when one of them is an established consensus with abundant supporting evidence. If you go looking for a fringe outside perspective on an issue, or the motivated reasoning of somebody who stands to gain by a bit of sophistry, you will probably eventually be able to find one presented by a PhD. That is not h…

You forgot to mention the lefts position. They usually used the lab-leak theory to ridicule, mock and even have careers ended for those who dared to propose it as plausible.

As so many of our media outlets lean to the left, the mocking and ridiculing was clearly ubiquitous.

And when it started to look like lab leak theory had some merit, media just went silent on the matter. SO I disagree hard with that it's a right or far right tool to sell hero worship.

Journalism has turned to absolute shit and anything that comes from the perceived "other" side must be instantly mocked without any investigation or partisan integrity. And should the "other" side show merit there will either be silence or continued mockery along the lines of "even a broken clock is right twice a day" . Left and right equally guilty.

Journalism is a joke. Maybe it always was and it's just these past 3 years that made so many of us realise exactly what a sh**show it actually is.

Several polls have shown that trust in news media is at a historical low https://news.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-med...

and even expert opinion https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2022/02/15/americans-tru... has lost all merit as it is just, for the lack of a better word, raped to haul in clicks.

This is especially true for the medical scientists who could not get their shit together during the crisis and seemed to have a pissingcompetition of who could recommend the most intrusive, obnoxious guideline that conflicted the most with what any other "expert" scientist recommended.

Masking toddlers, banning sitting on public park benches, banning children from playgrounds. Banning walking outdoors in company. Masking while standing up in a restaurant to take it off while sitting down. Banning sports, isolating the elderly to the point of driving them to insanity and severe cognitive decline. DENYING AEROSOL SPREAD. That one is my personal pet peeve with the scientific community. The embarrassing list is endless.

My own trust in medical expertise, that is, the one I see in the news. Is at an all time low. I ofc listen to my personal MD. But if she'd proclaim something in the media I'd probably never listen to her again and switch doctors.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#90

Post by nradov »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #49
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…

Most journalists aren't experts on the law, either. How do they report on court cases? They aren't experts on aviation safety. How do they report on airplane crashes? They aren't experts on economics. How do they report financial news? They're supposed to be experts at reporting , which works out to mean experts at finding out about topics that they don't already know about .

Well that explains why most reporting on aviation and financial issues in the mainstream media is such garbage. I mean I'm hardly an expert in those areas but even I can tell that the stories are crap in terms of missing key facts, not asking relevant questions, drawing bad conclusions, and pushing biased narratives. Fortunately there are some YouTube channels where I can get good information on those topics, although they aren't typically labeled as journalists and don't work for media companies.
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