I think the biggest thing I’ve learned from this class is
just to be skeptical of mostly anything that is reported to me. The studies and
statistics headlines that I glance at on my Yahoo! homepage every day are all
chosen by people trained in marketing, written by people trained in
communications or journalism, about studies done by scientists that did not
conduct infallible research. Even if the original study is sound, it’s still
like a game of telephone—the conclusion goes through several people, each with
different objectives, before the information finally reaches the masses, to be
received by people of vastly different educational and belief backgrounds.
A
complaint that I’m sure you’ve heard before is that wine/chocolate/coffee/ is
good for you, but it was bad for you three months ago, and good for you again six
months ago, and so on. This complaint is made because people often don’t
realize that every research study is just that—research, and not a claim to be
the absolute truth. I doubt that people consciously think that, but when a
study is reported on the news that a group of scientists with PhD’s conducted,
it seems as though enough people trust it to be true for it to really be true.
So unfortunately, the effect of
the constantly “changing” reports that recommend or discourage this food or
that activity has not been “OK, so none of the studies I hear about are the
Answer, but they’re still good investigations,” but instead, “I don’t know
about those scientists, they can’t agree on anything, I better Google it
instead.” There’s a difference between being skeptical consumer of statistics,
and being suspicious of scientists, which is a line that many people still have
yet to cross.
I love your telephone analogy. I am thinking about our presentations next week and hoping that this "last relay" will be clear enough and interpreting the correct viewpoints...
ReplyDeleteEmma,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your statement that people often become suspicious of scientists rather than being skeptical consumers. I think this is a very important distinction to be aware of given that most scientists do not intentionally do bad science. While it is important to be skeptical, it is unfair to assume the worst in every scientist.
I completely agree Emma. It often seems like people are more willing to believe things they see on YouTube rather than peer reviewed results from scientific studies. One BAD study is seen as much worse than a fallacious video or blog online. Of course this stems mostly from the amount of trust the public invests in scientists. People appear to be much less forgiving of mistakes made by claimed experts than by that random guy on the web. Many scientists abuse the appeal to authority, sometimes it comes back to haunt them. That said, it is important for us to maintain reasonable expectations and allow a little (not a lot) of slack for small non-repeated mistakes. We are all humans here.
ReplyDelete