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posted by janrinok on Saturday May 26 2018, @02:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the people-who-know-what-they-are-talking-about dept.

On March 27, 2015, astronaut Scott Kelly rode a rocket to the International Space Station. Waving up at him from Earth was Mark Kelly, his mustachioed twin brother. While they were 400 vertical kilometres apart, NASA scientists studied how the human body reacts to the stresses of long-term space travel. Scott was the test subject; Mark served as the control. Over the course of the one-year mission, NASA extensively examined the twins' physiology, gut bacteria and even their genetic code – sure enough, NASA saw the toll of space stress on Scott.

However, NASA's sloppy wording of their findings, followed by reporting from a non-critical media, beamed the research into the realm of science fiction. "Space travel changes our genes" said one news report in March. "NASA astronaut's DNA no longer matches his twin" reported another.

These articles quoted NASA's January 2018 report which stated Scott's genetic code differed from Mark's by 7 per cent. That's not just an improbably claim – it's an impossible one, with identical twins. In anyone, twin or sibling or unrelated human, a 7-per-cent change in genetic code would mutate that person into something not human-like. "What NASA meant by genetic code was, in fact, gene expression," Smith said. "If only the journalists had quoted scientists, this incident of fake science could have been averted."

So what is the difference between genetic code and gene expression? Your genetic code is a blueprint for your body's functioning. The cells in your liver and heart contain the same code. Yet, these cells differ in their functioning because of differences in the deployment – the active expression – of the cell's genetic code. "If every gene in your cells were being actively expressed, your kidneys would be growing eyes," Smith joked.

[...] With manned missions costing taxpayers millions of dollars, the public trusts NASA. That two-way channel of trust is mediated by journalists. Scientists who convey the information in the first place need to make sure their data is sound – and their communication about it, clear.

Phys.org

[Source]: University of Western Ontario

This is an interesting take on "fake news". Do you think that scientists don't do enough to convey news accurately? Or, is the media to blame for bad/sensational reporting?


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @03:20PM (16 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @03:20PM (#684545)

    Every time I come across a mainstream article on a topic in which I'm expert, I find that the journalist is a moron who'd do better to keep quiet.

    Then, I realize that experts of other fields must feel similarly.

    Then, I realize that everything is probably trash.

    Smart people don't aspire to be journalists.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Justin Case on Saturday May 26 2018, @03:35PM (6 children)

    by Justin Case (4239) on Saturday May 26 2018, @03:35PM (#684550) Journal

    Every time I have personally observed a newsworthy event, the reporters get it spectacularly wrong. Not just a little wrong. Not just a bit of "spin". No, they are so far off the mark they must have pulled the whole story out of their asses, probably with malicious intent, or if not, then at least professional incompetence.

    This is not just science illiteracy. I'm talking easily reported stories involving tens of thousands of people, but then they flat out lie about what we all saw.

    This is not an aspect of recent politics. It has been going on as long as I have been able to observe, and I speculate centuries before that.

    It's all lies. Believe nothing.

    • (Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Saturday May 26 2018, @06:20PM (1 child)

      by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Saturday May 26 2018, @06:20PM (#684616)

      I've seen this all four times I've been quoted in the newspapers going back as far as grade school.

      • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday May 26 2018, @09:25PM

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday May 26 2018, @09:25PM (#684668) Journal

        I too have seen this on every story in which I knew the details because I was personally involved. The journalists got it wrong every time.

        What's more, many of the mistakes are trivial and pointless. They don't even add to the drama. These range from typo type stuff like getting someone's name a little wrong, to misstating how many children they have and what line of work they're in. I can understand wanting to fuzz or omit private and personal details, but this is like the journalists just don't care about accuracy, and would rather make shit up even if it's not dramatic, than trouble to do good interviews.

    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday May 26 2018, @07:29PM (1 child)

      by isostatic (365) on Saturday May 26 2018, @07:29PM (#684638) Journal

      Do you have a specific example in mind?

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @07:40PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @07:40PM (#684643)

      During a building evacuation following a (bogus as it later turned out) bomb threat, I got stuck in a Starbucks since my car was parked right next to the police block and it was pouring rain. It was just me, another elderly client and a couple of waitresses when one journalist after another parked their vehicles up the sidewalk, didn't bother speaking to anyone, and proceeded to enter the shop and make their orders. After a few journalists gathered, a creative writing class commenced around such human interest stories as "scared mother and daughter", "angry local shop owner complaining about rising street gang activity" or "local officer reports"...

    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday May 27 2018, @10:43AM

      by driverless (4770) on Sunday May 27 2018, @10:43AM (#684803)

      I don't know about news in general, but for science news a good rule of thumb is that once it hits the mainstream media, whatever the original story was has been mangled into gibberish. Single Eve Hypothesis, Mozart Effect, there's endless, endless examples. The problem is that most science stories aren't that interesting to non-scientists, a new hypothesis on the origins of X that needs further research, a 2% improvement in efficiency when doing Y, etc. That's not news. What is news is a misinterpretation of some universities' press office trying to talk up the research. So it's a catch-22, anything significant enough to become mainstream newsworthy is the original research mangled beyond recognition. That's why, for any new breakthrough or clickbait science story reported in the mainstream media, if I don't just ignore it I'll try and find the original publication that presented the work. Which is often nearly impossible, because few journalists would ever dream of providing any reference to the publication they're busy misinterpreting.

      One general exception to this is the Grauniad. They actually employ science journalists who know science. Wow.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bart on Saturday May 26 2018, @03:39PM

    by bart (2844) on Saturday May 26 2018, @03:39PM (#684554)

    I was going to write almost literally the same! I realized this about 10 years ago, and I've stopped trusting (or even ingesting information from) journalists. Whenever I see something interesting somewhere, I go to the actual data source, and base my opinion on that, and ignore the content of the 'news'. As far as I'm concerned all 'news' should be considered fake.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Saturday May 26 2018, @03:42PM (3 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 26 2018, @03:42PM (#684555) Journal

    Then, I realize that everything is probably trash.

    Only 90% [wikipedia.org] and it's not trash but crap.
    The latter difference noted is essential: while "One man's trash is another man's treasure", crap remains crap for everyone.

    Problem: Journalists aren't that smart.

    Look, that's plain wrong.
    Either:
    - it's indeed a problem, so it may admit a solution. Then the journalists can't be stupid (can't cure stupid, no solution), just uneducated - and the solution is to educate them; or
    - the journalists are actually stupid, then this is not a problem, but a sad reality we need to leave with.

    (large grin)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday May 26 2018, @05:06PM (2 children)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday May 26 2018, @05:06PM (#684589) Journal

      crap remains crap for everyone.

      For some scientists, it's still a treasure. [nationalgeographic.com]

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Saturday May 26 2018, @05:19PM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 26 2018, @05:19PM (#684593) Journal

        As a fertilizer has good value too. It's still crap, though.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday May 26 2018, @10:19PM

        by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday May 26 2018, @10:19PM (#684679) Journal

        Doesn't mean I want it in my news.

        --
        "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @05:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @05:11PM (#684590)

    Journalists lie about the news because their job is not reporting the truth but selling the news. Truth is often boring and may require complicated explanations to understand. Boring and complicated don't sell because people read news for entertainment not enlightenment.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday May 26 2018, @05:42PM (2 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Saturday May 26 2018, @05:42PM (#684606)

    There is a name for this. Dunning-Kruger [infogalactic.com]

    Look at who makes up the vast bulk of the MSM and it is clear thevery best of them are midwits. Expecting them to understand the topics they report on would be foolish. Yet billion dollar industries do exactly that, send people of barely average intellectual capability (or often worse) out to "report" on subjects they have no reasonable expectation of understanding and other billion dollar industries actually depend on that content to make billion dollar decisions. Fascinating.

    But the real "woke" take is journalism is a tactic. Events and raw reports of them are just the feed stock thrown into a grinder daily to spin the Narrative from. If an event is useful to that greater purpose it will be covered to death, if not crickets. But the coverage may or may not bear much correspondence to the actual event and the conclusions drawn almost never make sense in the context of that event, only from the point of view of driving the Narrative.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @06:26PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @06:26PM (#684619)

      Its called the Gell-man amnesia effect. Michael Chrichton (of Jurrassic Park, Westworld, etc fame) popularized it: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?cid=450584&sid=17334 [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday May 26 2018, @06:45PM

        by jmorris (4844) on Saturday May 26 2018, @06:45PM (#684624)

        Look down, I note the error. However both do apply. The media itself suffers Dunning-Kruger in that they convince themselves they are competent. WE suffer Gell-Mann when we notice how subjects we understand get covered incompetently and then listen to the same people bloviate about the problems in the Middle-East or tax policy.