eclipperton:

medschoolmanic:

jtotheizzoe:

That “new scientific breakthrough discovery” you just read about on that news site/blog/Facebook page? It’s almost certainly wrong. This article from Vox is a seriously important thing that, if you care about science, you really need to read, like right now. 

My take: The tendency of the media to report on what is *NEW* in science is indicative of what I think is the largest perspective gap between scientists and nonscientists. 

The general public (<- apologies, I hate how homogenous that word is, because there is no single “general public”, but I have to use it here) seems to crave novelty and has a tendency to view every scientific finding as forwardprogress and individually meaningful, but science is a an ongoing process of self-correction and repetition. It doesn’t have an “end” and any single study is almost certainly wrong, or at the very least doesn’t tell the full story.

This is why I have tried to steer clear of reporting on “breaking” science news in my own efforts here on OKTBS. Science communicators and journalists, we need to make a commitment to covering science as a process and not as a series of breakthroughs. When science IS reported that way, we run the risk of losing people’s trust when science later must later correct or contradict itself, which is something that will absolutely happen, because that’s what science does. We must also make people comfortable with the idea uncertainty and science-as-a-process is a good thing!

I’ll shut up now. Go read this.

If only more people were scientifically literate (aka why is congress allowed to make decisions based on science they don’t understand?)

This is why meta-analyses are the gold standard, although they still aren’t perfect. Meta-analyses can suffer from many types of bias but are prone to publication bias in particular. Publication bias results from the fact that studies indicating null relationships tend not to be published. Typically null results don’t get published until trolls like Wakefield need to be vanquished.

(Source: itsokaytobesmart)