It Ain't Neccessaraly so. The Things that you read . . .

[Gord_in_Toronto]

A very insightful article into how medical research gets translated and, more importantly mistranslated, into the popular press and culture.

Columbia Journalism Review

Survival of the Wrongest

How personal-health journalism ignores the fundamental pitfalls baked into all scientific research and serves up a daily diet of unreliable information

By David H. Freedman

http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/survival_of_the_wrongest.php?page=all

When science journalism goes astray, the usual suspect is a failure to report accurately and thoroughly on research published in peer-reviewed journals. In other words, science journalists are supposed to stick to what well-credentialed scientists are actually saying in or about their published findings—the journalists merely need to find a way to express this information in terms that are understandable and interesting to readers and viewers.

But some of the most damagingly misleading articles don’t stem from the reporter’s failure to do this. Rather, science reporters—along with most everyone else—tend to confuse the findings of published science research with the closest thing we have to the truth. But as is widely acknowledged among scientists themselves, and especially within medical science, the findings of published studies are beset by a number of problems that tend to make them untrustworthy, or at least render them exaggerated or oversimplified.

 

[slow lurker]

Thanks,

It is an interesting article. (I think Bob001 also mentioned this in an earlier post).

Something did not ring true for me in the analysis, but I cannot yet figure out what in particular set off my "possible BS" detector. It not infrequently misfires.

The comments are well worth a read, too.

 

[Halfcentaur]

I rarely have confidence in anything I ever read regarding health and diet anymore beyond what seems mostly basic or common sense, and even then one wonders sometimes. Every week it's something different about salt or sugar or fats, and usually all that seems consistent is moderation and exercise.

It will be awesome when human health and metabolism is as easy to diagnose and manipulate consistently as a car or computer.