except https://www.sciencenews.org/ doesn't suck. They're just not on YouTube
Why does science news suck so much?
111–120 of 285 posts
Re: Why does science news suck so much?
#112It's not that science (or tech) news is bad, it's that all news is that bad. We just don't notice it outside our area of expertise. The next time you're reading an article about some field you're not an expert in, try to remember that it is just as bad as the news in your area of expertise.
> We just don't notice it outside our area of expertise. This is a common trope - and has a name - "gell-man amnesia", that people raise again and again, but I don't think it's the whole story. There are different incentives at play. Journalists are sometimes investigators, sometimes storytellers, and other times just mediators. The article mentions the exagerations and unique incentives at play in the research domai…
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Re: Why does science news suck so much?
#113It's not that science (or tech) news is bad, it's that all news is that bad. We just don't notice it outside our area of expertise. The next time you're reading an article about some field you're not an expert in, try to remember that it is just as bad as the news in your area of expertise.
> We just don't notice it outside our area of expertise. This is a common trope - and has a name - "gell-man amnesia", that people raise again and again, but I don't think it's the whole story. There are different incentives at play. Journalists are sometimes investigators, sometimes storytellers, and other times just mediators. The article mentions the exagerations and unique incentives at play in the research domai…
I think the operative trope is more Sturgeon's Law than Gell-Mann Amnesia. I had a period where I was reading obsessively about Covid, including reading papers and listing to TWiV (which is very informative but requires a massive time commitment). What I found is that the best of the science journalists (Helen Branswell, Jon Cohen, Kai Kupferschmidt, Amy Maxmen, Ed Jong) were excellent, writing with a deep understanding of the subject material and providing useful context. The median news story was just awful, and the WSJ and NYT opinion pages were for the most part a dumpster fire ("There Isn't a Coronavirus 'Second Wave'" is a masterpiece, chef's kiss).
I've generally found the same thing is true in other domains. Seek out writers who know their stuff. They exist, they're just not consistently the most popular.
Re: Why does science news suck so much?
#114A friend of mine worked for a mainstream European science news website. Most journalists had no science background, and were pressured into writing 4 articles a day. The result of course, was low quality articles and hastily copied press releases with no critical thinking. They believed everything corporations said, because they had no time to check. I don't blame the journalists, but the work conditions and economic…
Exactly this. It is all about click bait to drive digital advertising. It is largely our own fault. We (by and large) don't want to pay good journalism. We want it to be free which means ads. NPR/PBS tends to have better and more balanced news but it is largely because of their donor/patron model. But to be clear, they are surely not immune. They are still run by people who are judged by views and reach and other eye…
I agree except for the implication that it used to be different.
Re: Why does science news suck so much?
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
How can you tell what has impact, though? What's the point in paying for school lunches for kids who have no interest in learning?
The impact is they aren’t malnourished? Seems like a good goal. Edit: we prioritize feeding people over giving them educational science articles; seems appropriate
Something that should be noted here is that our brains won't work properly without adequate nutrition. Our neurons require plenty of potassium to operate and other minerals such as magnesium and zinc. On top of that essential fatty acids and amino acids are super important for making neurotransmitters
All of this gets ignored because the poors deserve it or some stupid nonsense thrown around by the people with money and power
Re: Why does science news suck so much?
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe reporters just shouldn't be reporting on every little paper but rather universities should have a media department with scientists that handles press releases so they don't suck ass
Having seen the PR disasters from CERN, I'd say we need less PR releases.
Yea because those were undoubtedly worse than your average scientific reporting from whatever Times? Honestly, come on
Re: Why does science news suck so much?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe reporters just shouldn't be reporting on every little paper but rather universities should have a media department with scientists that handles press releases so they don't suck ass
I'm sure that would go down well, I mean what better way to make enemies at your university than by publishing critical reviews of your colleagues work in a public press release. A better idea would be to have the anonymous peer reviews published as an addendum to each paper, that would be fun. Also highlight whether or not the work was published in a 'private club' journal with lax standards or not. Maybe interview…
I agree with essentially everything you say, although I would hope we could figure out a way to structure our research organizations to prevent that sort of bias but having a dedicated scientific reporting organization of some kind that does serious due diligence I think could definitely work
Re: Why does science news suck so much?
#118There is a saying: “those who can do, do, and those who can’t do, teach.” Maybe it would be fair to augment that with, “those who don’t understand a subject well enough to do or teach, report.”
The problem is particularly bad in science journalism, but exists across the board. Financial journalism is really the only area I’ve seen where the journalists tend to have real backgrounds in the subject. And unsurprisingly financial journalism stands head and shoulders above other journalistic fields.
Re: Why does science news suck so much?
#119*edit:* Recalled the quote, thanks raphlinus This reminds me of the "Gell-mann amnesia effect": http://www.sfu.ca/~easton/Econ220W/WhySpeculate.pdf Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I refer to it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater…
If you're not able to remember, it seems like you're suffering from some form of amnesia. You know who wrote about amnesia in this context? Murray Gell-Mann, that's who!
Re: Why does science news suck so much?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel differently about her work. I think she is doing the less popular and therefore less lucrative work of summarising what is just not correct out there. She spends time deflating amazing claims. The medium of YouTube is not conducive to lengthy expositions and is definitely not academic grade but it shouldn’t be! She is making pithy responses to headline grabbing sensational mainstream hype reporting. There is a…
The issue for me with her videos is that she mixes two very different kinds of criticism. The first is criticism of things that are clearly wrong, such as the aforementioned science journalism. This is a good public service, I agree. The second is criticism of other physicists’ ideas. i.e. her personal opinions and professional disagreements with other physicists. She doesn’t delineate the two clearly enough to her a…
On top of that, in her more recent videos I get a weird feeling of her leaving some things purposefully ambiguous for that audience.
For example in the video to this article she was using a lot of climate science examples, which will be interpreted in a certain way by the "science is a scam" crowd. I'm not sure she is doing this on purpose (I have the impression she strongly believes in climate change), accidentally or if I'm just oversensitive to some things.