- Ants inhabit ‘world without sex’ – An Amazonian ant species reproduces completely asexually: “The ants reproduce via cloning – the queen ants copy themselves to produce genetically identical daughters.” From Steve.
- What “hardcore Christian” really means – This comic made me snarf, congrats Matt.
- MSM misses the point on chimpanzee meat sharing behavior – It was reported as an “Ooh, look at the prosti-monkeys” story when really, the female monkeys’ behaviors were much more complex than that. From Blake Stacey.
- Haunting a house in southeast Michigan – Orac on a completely credulous local news report of a “haunted” house.Â
Never thought I’d have so much in common with an ant :(
Who has spare time and can build a website? I’ve got a project for you: start tracking poor reporting by reporter.
Here’s the basic scheme. Every reporter starts out with 100 points and is recognized as a “Reporter”.
– Everytime a reporter uses “many people”, “some people”, or “few people” as a source of information, they lose a point.
– Everytime a reporter draws a conclusion from scientific research that is directly opposed to the conclusion that the researcher drew, they lose a point.
– If a reporter assembles information from various sources and reveals new, previously unknown, verifiable conclusions, they earn a point.
We rank them as follows:
125+ points: investigative journalist
101-124 points: journalist
75-99 points: reporter
50-74 points: copy writer
25-49 points: hack
0-24 points: shill
@durnett: such an open ended system leaves the possibility for negative points and I can’t think of a snappy label for such übershills who dip below zer0. any thoughts?
not that I have the time to make such a site, but I’m obsessive about details like that… =\
@movingshadow: You can clone yourself? Cool!
@durnett: I can see this being adapted into a Skepchick drinking game.
@JakeL: I guess we can simply label anyone with negative points as “illiterate”. I know that comparng illiterate people to bad reporters is insulting to people who can’t read, but I can’t come upw ith a better idea.
@Amanda: I would be concerned that a Skepchick drinking game that allowed people to drink when reporters were incompetent would lead to alcohol poisoning. If we did the opposite – and we drank when reporters did something good – I’m afraid that we would be in real danger of sobriety.
As a denizen of Southeastern Michigan, I feel it is my responsibility to apologize to the world for the stupidity of our local news sources, the general gullibility of the local population, and the globally understood uselessness of our professional football team. Oh! And the Ford Pinto. Sorry about that.
@SkepLit:
The Ford Pinto?
You bastards!
Aggg.. I was going to submit the link to that ‘Basic Instructions’! I hurt myself I laughed so hard.
@SkepLit & durnett: Hey, I love the Ford Pinto! I mean really, what isn’t to love about a car that will burst into flame, hollywood style, when you rear end it.