The Tricks Behind Pseudo-Science in the News

[Gary C]

The incentive structure of Web 2.0 and social media incentivize low quality reporting and reporting on science is no exception.

There is a clear, straightforward path to making such an impact, and having your mediocre, contrarian research (whether legitimate research or pseudoscience) going completely viral. All you have to do is follow this simple formula.

• First, you publish a paper — or, even better, a series of papers — that challenges or attempts to undermine the scientific consensus about any topic at all.
• Next, you submit your work to someone who works in public/media relations for your home University, research institute, or parent organization, and ask them to craft and disseminate a press release. (Or, if you're a self-promoter, to just do it yourself.)
• After that, the press release goes out, making even more sensationalistic claims than the original paper did, frequently overselling the results and rarely sourcing mainstream, appropriately skeptical voices, painting this as a Galileo-type revolutionary against the oppressive scientific establishment.
• And finally, you just wait for the unmerited attention to arrive as various journalists — journalists who are either untrained in how science works or who mainly care about maximizing engagement despite knowing full well how science works — report uncritically (or insufficiently critically) on the work.

Source - https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/devious-trick-sensational-science-headlines/

 

[jdog]

The incentive structure of Web 2.0 and social media incentivize low quality reporting and reporting on science is no exception.

There is a clear, straightforward path to making such an impact, and having your mediocre, contrarian research (whether legitimate research or pseudoscience) going completely viral. All you have to do is follow this simple formula.

• First, you publish a paper — or, even better, a series of papers — that challenges or attempts to undermine the scientific consensus about any topic at all.
• Next, you submit your work to someone who works in public/media relations for your home University, research institute, or parent organization, and ask them to craft and disseminate a press release. (Or, if you're a self-promoter, to just do it yourself.)
• After that, the press release goes out, making even more sensationalistic claims than the original paper did, frequently overselling the results and rarely sourcing mainstream, appropriately skeptical voices, painting this as a Galileo-type revolutionary against the oppressive scientific establishment.
• And finally, you just wait for the unmerited attention to arrive as various journalists — journalists who are either untrained in how science works or who mainly care about maximizing engagement despite knowing full well how science works — report uncritically (or insufficiently critically) on the work.

Source - https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/devious-trick-sensational-science-headlines/

Ironically, the formula is a claim that itself is not supported by any evidence in the story.

 

[Mendel]

In reality, the ideas that gain the greatest traction in our popular science landscape often have the least scientific merit behind them.

You've probably seen many just over the past month, including:
• claims that classical gravity produces quantum entanglement,
• claims that interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is likely evidence for aliens,
• and claims that the supernova data has been misinterpreted and the Universe is slowing down, not accelerating.

But unless you're a scientist yourself — and, in particular, a scientist well-versed in these aspects of physics and astronomy — it's not readily apparent where these claims have gone wrong.

Overthrowing the scientific consensus isn't an easy task, and requires that all three of these key hurdles be cleared:
• Can your new theory achieve and reproduce every one of the successes that the old, prior consensus theory achieved?
• Can the new theory adequately and comprehensively explain a phenomenon that the old, prevailing theory cannot?
• And can your new theory and the old theory be compared against each other, with differing predictions for an observable or measurable phenomenon teased out of them, and can we then go and measure that phenomenon to determine which one better represents reality?

I think the main problem is that "dog bites man" is not news, while "man bites dog" is.

 

[Trailblazer]

I think the main problem is that "dog bites man" is not news, while "man bites dog" is.

But not as much as "TOP SCIENTIST EXPLAINS WHY ALIENS/COVID VACCINES/CHEMTRAILS CAUSED MAN TO BITE DOG!"

 

[Scaramanga]

The incentive structure of Web 2.0 and social media incentivize low quality reporting and reporting on science is no exception.

The trouble is, most people don't get their 'science' from science journals. They get it from videos with titles like ' Brian Cox Reveals TERRIFYING Interdimensional Breakthrough At CERN'.

Last week on Facebook there were also loads of links to a claim that scientists had found a particle physics link to another dimension. Yet when I tried to check the veracity of it all...I could find no such claim in any reputable source.

 

[Smythe Bacchus]

The trouble is, most people don't get their 'science' from science journals. They get it from videos with titles like ' Brian Cox Reveals TERRIFYING Interdimensional Breakthrough At CERN'.

Scientific writing in journal articles can often be unintelligible to a general audience. This is why science communication is a very important discipline to combat mis/dis information.

This is why requirements like these were created for scientific writing, e.g. by the American Geophysical Union (AGU):

Article:

Summarizing Your Science

It's important to be able to explain your scientific research and its relevance in short and simple terms...

While these elements are the shortest part of your article, they are in some ways the most important: they are often the first thing that people read when browsing journal content and influence whether they want to read more...

• The Abstract should introduce the topic, explain the gap in scientific knowledge that your study is addressing, briefly describe the methods or data used, and outline the key results and what's new about them. It should be written primarily for other scientists in your discipline but should also be accessible to readers outside of your subfield who may be interested in your results and conclusions...
  
  
• The Plain Language Summary (PLS) should convey the same information as the Abstract but in a completely different language and tone. It should summarize your scientific study, its results, and their broader relevance without using jargon so that it is understandable by scientists from outside of your discipline, as well as science journalists and science educators...
  
  
• The Key Points highlight the main elements of your article. Each point should be a short, clear, self-standing statement containing no special characters or acronyms that is understandable by people both within and beyond your scientific field...

Source: https://www.agu.org/publications/authors/journals/plain-language-summary

Economics of social media, and traditional mass media before it. is eyeballs = cash. This encourages the pumping out of cheap content as quickly as possible with click-bait focus (i.e. weak fact checking or even fraudulent content).

This will continue as long as there is an audience for it. So it is also an issue of social science education. Thankfully there are also efforts to address this:

Article:

Lesson summary

Students will learn about how clickbait is a tool used to distract Internet users and aid in the spread of misinformation and the consequences of spreading misinformation in a video from the NOVA digital series Misinformation Nation.

Source: https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nvnss-sci-unit1-lp7/fact-or-cap-how-to-deal-with-clickbait/

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZM1c7EHVNI

 

[Scaramanga]

Scientific writing in journal articles can often be unintelligible to a general audience. This is why science communication is a very important discipline to combat mis/dis information.

This is why requirements like these were created for scientific writing, e.g. by the American Geophysical Union (AGU):

But I also think its important that even science minded people don't jump on the 'latest' findings but give the dust time to settle. Science is such that all the wrinkles get ironed out in the end.....much to the chagrin of cold fusion, life bearing meteors from Mars, and a host of other 'news'.

 

[Smythe Bacchus]

But I also think its important that even science minded people don't jump on the 'latest' findings but give the dust time to settle.

Yes the old skeptical adage should always apply: "if something appears too good to be true, then it is probably not true"