Do you suffer from "A recent study showed" overload?

[PeteMorris]

Maybe you could read more scientific journals, such as the New Scientists, where the reporting is better quality and less sensationalist?

 

Naaaaa....I'll leave that to others on here....:hihi:

[JFKvsNixon]

Naaaaa....I'll leave that to others on here....:hihi:

 

Ignorance is bliss as they say?

[PeteMorris]

Ignorance is bliss as they say?

 

Now, now.....!!!!

[tinfoilhat]

Ignorance is bliss as they say?

 

Just sticking a load of facts in front of me, no doubt with lots of jargon I don't understand won't suddenly make me understand a study on something. I wouldn't doubt the standards of the new scientist but it's a stretch to suggest by picking it up we'd all "get it." Im thick as two short planks.

 

However this is where the press should, and i use the word should carefully, distill it so Joe Dullard like myself can get it. But too often it's sensationalist headlines which have little to do with an actual study. If I'd believed every daily mail headline over the past 20 years there would be cures for all cancers, arthritis, heart disease and Alzheimer's. There isn't.

[JFKvsNixon]

Just sticking a load of facts in front of me, no doubt with lots of jargon I don't understand won't suddenly make me understand a study on something. I wouldn't doubt the standards of the new scientist but it's a stretch to suggest by picking it up we'd all "get it." Im thick as two short planks.

 

However this is where the press should, and i use the word should carefully, distill it so Joe Dullard like myself can get it. But too often it's sensationalist headlines which have little to do with an actual study. If I'd believed every daily mail headline over the past 20 years there would be cures for all cancers, arthritis, heart disease and Alzheimer's. There isn't.

 

I agree, and what I suggested earlier was that this thread should be about how journalists like to sensationalise research, or that journalists should be better qualified to report on research so they could do a better job of it.

 

I only suggested that reading something like the New Scientist would be a way of keeping abreast of the last scientific news without getting frustrated at the newspapers hyperbole.

[PeteMorris]

Just sticking a load of facts in front of me, no doubt with lots of jargon I don't understand won't suddenly make me understand a study on something. I wouldn't doubt the standards of the new scientist but it's a stretch to suggest by picking it up we'd all "get it." Im thick as two short planks.

 

However this is where the press should, and i use the word should carefully, distill it so Joe Dullard like myself can get it. But too often it's sensationalist headlines which have little to do with an actual study. If I'd believed every daily mail headline over the past 20 years there would be cures for all cancers, arthritis, heart disease and Alzheimer's. There isn't.

 

Excellent post tinfoil.....

[JFKvsNixon]

Excellent post tinfoil.....

 

Have you ever read the New Scientist? It's a pretty lightweight read, and not heavy going.

[PeteMorris]

Have you ever read the New Scientist? It's a pretty lightweight read, and not heavy going.

 

Actually no I haven't...But then again, I don't read papers or magazines...

 

A few month back I bought a copy of 'how it works' and just never seemed to get around to reading it...I'm a bit more a do'er than a reader....

Edited April 1, 2015 by PeteMorris

[tinfoilhat]

Have you ever read the New Scientist? It's a pretty lightweight read, and not heavy going.

 

It might not be to our more learned friends. I'll pick one up if I see one and have a look.

[tzijlstra]

I have to concur that the New Scientist is an excellent 'newspaper' and people with even a slight interest in science and what 'we' are up to should give that a go. Same goes for National Geographic which serves a different area but none-the-less succeeds well in getting valuable information into a very entertaining read.

 

PS: The biggest issue in science and how it is reported is this: Scientists in popular fields, like medicine, have to study incredibly minute details of a larger problem-set. When they achieve a break-through it is one tiny step on the ladder towards full understanding. Think about the discovery of DNA, it took decades and hundreds of thousands of man-hours before we could do something with the realisation that DNA could be physically examined. All those people that contributed to that did so in tiny incremental steps, yet all we know is that some fellas in a pub in Oxford (I believe it was) had a go at the back of a beermat and went Eureka.

 

The general public does not have to understand that process, what it should at least get though is an understanding for the complexity of the process. But that is not easy to report, so we get headlines proclaiming breastfeeding is bad, a few years later, it is good, a few years later again, it is terrible.

Edited April 1, 2015 by tzijlstra