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Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

natesilver.substack.com

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Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#131

Post by kzz102 »

It seems to me that the authors of the paper, in anticipation that writing scientifically (that they don't believe the lab leak hypothesis, but it cannot be disproven) will be misinterpreted by journalists and the public, resorted to write in more certain terms.

I disagree with the authors. Scientists should not try to control the reaction to their publication.

I also don't think this cast a good lights on the journalists at all. The nature of the issue is that even if the scientists had been precise in what they wrote, what they wrote would have been distorted and misrepresented.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#132

Post by jimbokun »

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…

But isn't that a journalist's job description?

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#133

Post by cbeach »

The answer is plurality within the scientific community.

During the Covid authoritarian period, scientists like Dr Robert Malone were evicted from society because they didn’t toe the government line on support for mRNA vaccination.

I’m not saying Malone and co were right, necessarily, but the way they were shut down and demonised suggested to me that we stopped doing real scientific enquiry for a couple of years and succumbed to corporate lobbying and government over-reach.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#134

Post by newsclues »

SoftTalker wrote: post #128
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…

> How are journalists supposed to be productively skeptical when the vast majority of them don't receive anything remotely approaching a truly well-rounded education? Ask questions. Ask "why" a lot, don't take things at face value. Assume you're being bullshitted. You don't need to deeply undestand a subject to make someone back up what they are saying.

multiple sources as well. present contrasting viewpoints

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#135

Post by jimbokun »

pessimizer wrote: post #113

Journalists these days are generally not hired for their incredulity. They're hired based on a track record of not deviating from their employer's political and financial priorities, regardless of the evidence. These are businesses, not public services. They owe their existence to dishonest and manipulative presentations of the qualities of third-party products that they sandwich between their own content. Lets go ba…

The Republicans absolutely have their own media organizations, just as likely to get the facts wrong in a way that's biased towards Republican interests.

It's just that the expectations are so low for them no one is surprised when they report things with an obvious slant or just factually wrong.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#136

Post by pessimizer »

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…

> When a non-affiliated journalist does this, it's a high-stakes professional failure, a display of carelessness that plausibly has a body-count.

I haven't seen any non-affiliated journalists doing this. I've seen right-wing journalists doing it, fitting whatever they can find into their ten times stepped-on John Birch worldview. What I've seem far more of is administration-connected journalists characterizing whatever position that they support censorship of in its most extremist, unhinged, obviously factually-incorrect form. Radical right-wingers insist that they're the only option other than current Democratic party orthodoxy, and Democrats agree with them 100%.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#137

Post by wk_end »

stevenAthompson wrote: post #63
wk_end wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silver isn't arguing for-or-against the lab leak hypothesis here. > To be clear, I’m not sure how COVID originated either. I’d “buy” the lab leak at a 50 percent likelihood [...] and sell it at 80 percent, which still leaves a lot of wiggle room for me to be persuaded one way or the other. This post is his commentary on leaked communications demonstrating that the authors of the paper themselves didn't believe the co…

His citations for those claims about the authors are 3 substack blogs and something called "usrtk.org" which seems to exist largely to spread covid origin rumors. I'm going to go out on a limb a suggest that he's already made up his mind and much like Fox Mulder, he just wants to believe.

> We know this because of a series of leaked and FOIAed emails and Slack messages that have been reported on by Public, Racket News, The Intercept and The Nation along with other small, independent media outlets. You can find a detailed summary of the claims and a copy of the emails and messages here at Public.

None of Public, Racket News, The Intercept, or The Nation are Substack blogs, nor are they publications that exist largely to spread COVID origin rumours.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#138

Post by Natsu »

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? Most journalists in the USA receive basically zero scientific education.

This right here is why I've mostly stopped listening to journalists and try to find primary sources regarding thee scientific papers, scientists, legal rulings, etc. in question instead of playing a game of telephone where people reinterpret everything to fit whatever story they're tying to tell me.

It's also why I have been finding Wikipedia less useful these days, since they have an explicit policy of citing secondary sources instead of primary sources and I find those far less useful.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#139

Post by SoftTalker »

thorncorona wrote: post #71
mike_hearn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 disagreeing on scientific grounds eliminates the claim of consensus. Bloggers are fine. This is how you get journalists to repor…

You can still look at credentials.

If there is disagreement among people with appropriate background, experience, and education, it can be reported as a legitimate disagreement. The journalist should be evaluating the credentials of sources, but not what they say, and not on the basis of whether the journalist personally agrees with them.

Re: Journalists should be skeptical of all sources including scientists

#140

Post by dang »

Marazan wrote: post #124

[flagged]

Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

You may not owe Nate Silver better but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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