Here’s how your science news sausage gets made: research is done, journalist reports the opposite, other journalists reprint without checking the facts.
Here’s how your science news sausage gets made: research is done, journalist reports the opposite, other journalists reprint without checking the facts.
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“Are you ugly, plain, pretty,very pretty, extremely pretty?”
“I see would that be mildly very pretty, very very pretty, or extremely very pretty?”
“Are you sure? Look at this picture of a supermodel and give me a point-by-point comparison.”
“And how about tits? Ass? Bush? Do you have nipple confidence?”
Note: subject became angry. More confirmation for hypothesis.
Isn’t it great how science always confirms our preconceived notions? With science journalism, even when it doesn’t, it does!
This is because the media critters make up their mind how the story will “slant” before they gather the facts and find out what the story actually is.
How often do you see retractions or corrections when they aren’t called out by someone? No follow-up unless the story “gets better” no fact-checking beyond a simple logic test.
All it takes to realize this is to listen (see, read) a story about something you are very familiar with, where you already know the facts. The leading questions to witnesses, the misleading statements, the omissions, the flat out lies are all over the place. These are the people we trust to tell us what is going on in the world? what our leaders are doing? You’re going to trust that?
*Hugs Rebecca* Don’t be angry
Why shouldn’t she be angry? This is a real problem. The press is distorting scientific research and pushing a misogynist agenda. Anyone who values truth should be angry.
Complacent people rarely change the world.
Don’t make Rebecca angry, BBC. She lives on your side of the pond now, and is known to have murdered people in the face WITH A BEAR when they make her angry…
I think the obvious answer to the titular question is: no, they just get to be the sexually ambiguous sidekicks.
@Baroncognito:
I believe we should be outspoken about these things, I also well we should have a certain amount of expressed outrage, however I feel that “being angry” is more of a personal emotion and we shouldn’t let assholes get to us. And I don’t want to see Rebecca angry
I’ve been expressing the same frustration about this Times article, which claims that high fructose corn syrup is responsible for childhood diabetes. The only problem is that the study compared plain fructose (not HFCS) to glucose in adult men (not children). Would it kill you to just read the damn study before reporting on it?
What’s even worse is that it only takes one magazine or newspaper to misrepresent the findings of a study. Then, a whole bunch of other media outlets pick up the story from that newspaper, don’t bother to look into the research, and just parrot what some other idiot reporter said.
@magicdude20:
Then how do we know if Rebecca is a real blonde or not?
@Elyse: …
@Elyse: Then how do we know if Rebecca is a real blonde or not?
Judging by the podcasts I figured one of y’all had to know by now.
@mikerattlesnake:
Sid doesn’t let us do that anymore
Regarding the question: “Are Blondes ‘Warrior Princesses’?”
Xena was clearly a brunette. I’m just sayin’.
~David D.G.
@Wordplayer: Don’t you think that Lucy Lawless would be the best actor to cast in a big budget Wonder Woman movie? Hell she has already voiced Wonder Woman in a kick ass animated flick.
@magicdude20: “And I don’t want to see Rebecca angry”
No you don’t, my friend. remember: WITH A BEAR.
We shouldn’t let assholes cause us to behave irrationally, but there are times when anger is a perfectly rational response.
@magicdude20: Aw, I appreciate the thought but I was only being angry for the sake of the funny!
@Wordplayer: maybe my Xena joke was just too subtle.
@mikerattlesnake: Hehe, you said “titular”.
Between the science reporting in the mainstream media and the depression the news sent me into in 2001-2009, I gave up following newspapers and other mainstream news outlets. I may not be a “good citizen” as a result since I don’t know what I’m supposed to know about issues, but at least for the moment, I don’t care. I hear about things happening in science by listening to SGU and following other such sources online, and if a topic interests me enough to follow up on, I try to get accurate details on it (a perk of being a student is that I have access to journal articles through the university library’s catalog).
@Wordplayer: Perhaps ironically, she’s blond IRL (or at least I think she is).