The Washington Post reports on a video from the television series Last Week Tonight with John Oliver regarding flaws in science and in reporting about science.
Topics touched upon by Mr. Oliver include p-hacking, exploratory studies vs. confirmational studies, press releases, the "telephone" effect, animal testing, oversimplification, industry funding, sample sizes, and TED talks.
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John Oliver on "Bullshit Masquerading as Science"
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(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @04:58PM
warming
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday May 11 2016, @07:35PM
And it’s double-precision real.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @07:40PM
Proof it's from carbon? How about some proof a global carbon tax will reduce the warming? The globe warms and cools all the time, that's fact. What is still up in the air is that it's warming from carbon, and that it will keep warming from carbon. My Geology teacher in college spent a whole class debunking the carbon to warming correlation, but I am not a professional like she is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @10:06PM
will slow down carbon emissions?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @10:14PM
You realize this tax will hurt the poor, right? No one is going to be discouraged from using energy if they can afford it. People need energy to survive. You can't just live off the land in urban areas. So how would this reduce emissions other than forcing the poor to use less fuel because they cannot afford it anymore? Should we reduce carbon emissions even though it means we have blood on our hands? Last time I checked global warming hasn't killed anyone, but not having heating in your home home, or a means to get food and water, or a means to cook and preserve food, does kill people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @10:20PM
Also taxation is theft and the initiation of force.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @08:07PM
No one wants to discuss a global carbon tax?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @04:59PM
I dunno man, that seems dangerously intelligent for the Oliver crowd, who seems to mostly just want something that "pretends to be a smarter Family Guy" to feel smug about.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @05:07PM
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @05:10PM
John Oliver is actually a moron though who appeals to lowest common denominator college freshmen and the like
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @05:33PM
John Oliver is actually a moron though who appeals to lowest common denominator college freshmen and the like
Have you watched the show in question? While presented in a humorous way, each episode covers a complex issue in good detail, with a decent helping of objectivity. My opinion is that it represents some of the most important journalism in the media today.
I mean, really, go through the list of shows, and find an episode which doesn't tackle reporting on an important issue of our times. If you've watched any of these episodes, do you feel you can find better reporting on each issue in any mainstream media outlet?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Last_Week_Tonight_with_John_Oliver_episodes [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @05:37PM
I came to say the same thing. His jokes are definitely not why one would watch his show, they simply add an entertaining aspect to real journalism. If he was just serious and critical about the issues of today people would nod, then go watch something else. Its like teaching, engage the students and they listen, but just lecture and provide facts and they tune out.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @05:59PM
His interview with Snowden shows just how stupid the audience is, or how stupid he thinks they are. Needing to tie the NSA's surveillance to how they might see a picture of your dick doesn't exactly strike me as an intelligent objection. Maybe it's necessary to get the audience to care, but that is not good.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @06:46PM
Needing to tie the NSA's surveillance to how they might see a picture of your dick doesn't exactly strike me as an intelligent objection. Maybe it's necessary to get the audience to care, but that is not good.
Brought to you by the because-I-said-so dept.?
Care to explain why it's not good if it gets the audience to care? /me thinks you missed the metaphorical aspect of the dick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @07:56PM
The tactic may be necessary, but it's not good that that's all that people care about.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday May 12 2016, @07:59AM
So... Mr Oliver is to blame for the understanding and education of his audience, before he has had a chance to engage, educate and inform them?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @07:10PM
Sigh the Snowden interview is probably one of the best things to happen for Snowden. If he did not learn that the way to get the general public to care about something is by hitting them in the junk he is way too nerdy to fulfill his mission of opening dialogue.
John Oliver is an idiot though you don't seem to be smart enough to identify the real problem. Frequently he drags out facts that are flat out incorrect and uses them to justify things erroneously. He gets a pass because he is funny.
I like the topics he covers but he is a comedy show. At least 10% of the stuff he says I notice is wrong in detail. Thats pretty bad the actual rate must be much worse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @08:01PM
Sigh the Snowden interview is probably one of the best things to happen for Snowden. If he did not learn that the way to get the general public to care about something is by hitting them in the junk he is way too nerdy to fulfill his mission of opening dialogue.
It seems you didn't understand my point. Maybe using that tactic for the Snowden interview was an effective way to get the audience to care, but that does not bode well for the audience's intelligence. It's truly sad that that is about the only way to get people to care about something that threatens democracy itself.
John Oliver is an idiot though you don't seem to be smart enough to identify the real problem. Frequently he drags out facts that are flat out incorrect and uses them to justify things erroneously. He gets a pass because he is funny.
Yeah, because it takes a real genius to figure out that he sometimes believes things that are incorrect and reaches faulty conclusions. Good work!
I am not talking about Oliver, but his audience.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Thursday May 12 2016, @12:49AM
Maybe using that tactic for the Snowden interview was an effective way to get the audience to care, but that does not bode well for the audience's intelligence.
And that is democracy for you.
In a democracy - in order that anything changes - a small number of smart people need to either convince or cajole a much larger number of considerably-less-smart people that something is worth doing or caring about. So whilst you bemoan "the audience's intelligence" - this is par-on-course for any topic involving more nuance than "a chicken in every pot".
If a message is important enough to communicate, then it is likely it will have to be communicated in different ways to different people. Some people have an ability to immediately grasp implication - these are the kind of people that inherently understand why Snowden is important. For everybody else, different tactics are required.
A favourite sales tactic involves gently steering your client to tell you (the putative salesman) exactly what is causing them an issue and why. In short: arrange that the customer tells you why he actively wants you to sell a product that will solve a problem.
Sometimes a communicator is simply fighting for space to get their message across. People are being bombarded with information and a lot of it gets lost in the noise. If your filters aren't top-notch, it's far easier to go "ah, yeah, like whatever" because you can simply tune out the 99% of junk: the unimportant, the lies, and the misinformation - at the cost of occasionally missing that all-important 1%.
So sometimes low-brow humour is a useful tool in a communicator's arsenal. It buys a tiny bit of head-space in the audience. If you crack a joke about three letter agencies salivating over "your wife's junk" what you are really doing is getting people to stop and think: hmmm, I don't like the sound of that..., gee heck, I'd really get some curry from my wife over that..., hang on a second, why are people staring at pictures of my wife anyway?..., I wonder what else they can do?..., I really don't like the sound of that..., Now I'm mad as hell... And thus the battle gains another fighter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 12 2016, @07:59AM
I like the topics he covers but he is a comedy show. At least 10% of the stuff he says I notice is wrong in detail. Thats pretty bad the actual rate must be much worse.
So... there are entire "news" channels dedicated to pushing a (mostly fictional) narrative. CNN fired it's entire investigative journalism department [cc.com] (a segment done by... John Oliver, when he was at the Daily Show). There is no more news, only "infotainment".
... and you have a problem with what is primarily a comedy program having "only" 80-90% accuracy rating. I long for the days when serious news shows had such high standards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 12 2016, @04:05PM
Not just infotainment, but sponsored infotainment imagine yourself in a BMW that is indistinguishable Emirates cares from actual the American beer content.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday May 12 2016, @04:24PM
Not just infotainment, but sponsored infotainment imagine yourself in a BMW that is indistinguishable Emirates cares from actual the American beer content.
It may be that I am only similar in capability to the slow members of Oliver's audience, but I have no idea what the above means.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @06:39PM
I've seen John Oliver around for years, I used to like him. I won't watch anything he does after watching his smear campaign against Donald Trump. If you don't like his ideas, explain why, have a meaningful discussion. Instead he spent 50 minutes calling him various ad hominem, but that seems to be how everyone debates issues in the media as of lately. I don't like Liberal brits coming over the the USA telling us to be more like them, albeit John doesn't do it very much. He certainly isn't a Peirs Morgan.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @06:48PM
Instead he spent 50 minutes calling him various ad hominem, but that seems to be how everyone debates issues in the media as of lately.
He (Trump) started it! [youtu.be]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @07:03PM
Trump fights fire with fire, and it works for him.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @07:42PM
I agree with you on the Trump thing. If he would do the same with Sanders and Hillary that would make him at least somewhat less subjective about it. He seemed too emotionally involved to make a proper discussion about it. It is one of the things I do not like about these sorts of shows. They have *very* good points. But they all suddenly take on this 'THE DNC IS GODS GIFT TO THE WORLD YOU MUST DO WHATEVER THEY SAY' vibe. The other side is just as ridiculous and sanctimonious yet they leave them alone. Rush Limbaugh has made a career out of it doing the exact same thing they do but just for 'the other team'. It is why I find his show just as screechy and awful.
I have found most of his opinions to be very thought provoking and usually fairly well informed even if I do not agree with him on everything.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Wednesday May 11 2016, @07:44PM
Pretty sure John did that because Trump was poking fun at him first. It's actually in John Oliver's best interest to poke "important" people with thin skin because it increases his viewership when the thin skinned person inevitably gets outraged. He pokes fun at nearly everyone though, even his viewers.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @07:51PM
I understand that it was a good business decision and it drew him a lot of attention and he probably sold a lot of hats, but it by no way showed any integrity and made me lose all respect for him. He could have just responded to the issue, but he decided to do a 50 minute hit piece that left every person listening more misinformed than they were an hour before.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @09:51PM
No, you're just butthurt. First you complain about Oliver because he was picking on poor Donald. Then, after it was pointed out to you that he was in fact responding to worse treatment dished out by Trump, you now criticize him for not ignoring him.
Look, if you want your butt-buddy Donnie to be President, you need to realize that he can't go around shooting his mouth off like that without taking some back on himself.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @10:34PM
Stopped reading at "butt hurt". Learn to form an argument without ad hominem if you want anyone to actually listen to you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 12 2016, @02:08AM
I listened to him and totally agree with what he said.
You just seem butt hurt that facts got in the way of you Donald love.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 12 2016, @05:02AM
Argumentative fallacies aren't fallacies because they are wrong, they're fallacies because they don't create compelling arguments. At the same time, accusing the poster you're debating with of using a fallacy is not some kind of instant win, and you don't get to ignore his or her points just because you can't address them.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Tork on Thursday May 12 2016, @07:02AM
Learn to form an argument without ad hominem if you want anyone to actually listen to you.
Now that is an unexpected position for a Trump supporter to take.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Friday May 13 2016, @10:13AM
Did I just miss or publicly shaming people for being not politically-correct was something conservatives started?
Or liberals just can't take the medicine they give others?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday May 13 2016, @04:45PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @07:51PM
I've seen John Oliver around for years, I used to like him. I won't watch anything he does after watching his smear campaign against Donald Trump. If you don't like his ideas, explain why, have a meaningful discussion.
Well played, AC! Challenge your opposition to an impossible task! Explain why you don't like Trump's ideas? Ha ha ha! "Trump's ideas"!! Oh, that's a good one! Very funny! Ideas and "Trump" in the same sentence! Ha ha ah ha!!!
Almost as good as saying that before you pass through these woods, you must chop down the tallest tree in the forest, . . . with a herring!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 13 2016, @06:51AM
> calling him various ad hominem
If you don't know how to correctly use an expression, please don't use it incorrectly, you display nothing but ignorance so doing.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @07:00PM
I like him, I enjoy his show, and I agree that he often works harder and does more research than other "journalists". At the same time, about half of his shows try to defend a political stance as if it were hard fact, and he uses a lot of manipulative tactics. In particular, his piece about refugees was hard to watch. His position seems to be that there are no downsides to accepting every single Syrian refugee into the US that makes it through the current regime of background checks, and that anyone who disagrees is motivated by racism. To back his position up, if I recall, he used a purely anecdotal example of a handicapped girl who was having a hard time getting into the US.
That's like citing one crisp crouton to prove that everything in the buffet is safe to eat. Is most of it delicious and safe to eat? Probably. Does the crispiness of one crouton have any bearing on the safety of shrimp heap? No, not particularly. But it sure -feels- damning, the way he sets it up.
When he does bother to address possible objections to his point of view, he often cherry picks the worst-possible representative (often a literal Representative) of the position, then dismisses the objection with an epithet, or an out of context and unrelated clip of them saying something terrible or embarrassing.
Samantha Bee's Full Frontal is a similarly great show, similarly hampered by ad hominem attacks and strawman arguments. I agree a lot with both of them on most things, but they sacrifice a lot on the altar of comedy.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Friday May 13 2016, @10:10AM
No one who calls Anita Sarkeesian an expert is not to be trusted for anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @05:15PM
Not about him. He seems like a pretty smart guy who seems to be an effective entertainer, though his jokes are pretty formulaic. A cursory glance at the internet shows that I'm not the only one who thinks so.
No, what I'm doing is making dismissive comments about his general viewers.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Wednesday May 11 2016, @05:09PM
an impressive presentation, but if you see him interviewed, he points out he has a huge staff!!
The point raised remains - with publish or perish being the mantra of so many depts, how can we raise the signal/noise?
And it's not just the media - the journals (even Nature, Science etc..) publish utter garbage because the authors are well known.
you often here this at conferences in the bars, but we need a journal of "not very interesting stuff happened", instead of the wildly inaccurate "cool stuff here!!" we have now.
It's not as if we aren't going to have to peer review it for free, ANYWAY....!!!!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday May 11 2016, @05:50PM
> People trying to make money or grab attention publish utter garbage because the authors are well known.
FTFY
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Thursday May 12 2016, @06:07PM
Most scientific researchers have staff too (or grad students). The point is not whether it's a one-man-band vs. an editor/publisher with staff; the point is that Oliver tackles some meaningful subjects and manages to get enough serious information into an amusing presentation that people might learn why the subject matters, and even have some keywords to do their own further research.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 11 2016, @05:15PM
Topics touched upon by Mr. Oliver
... but not mentioned, at least by name, in the Post article, include TED talks. I don't like them very much so I'm mildly interested to know what he said, but not motivated enough to sit thru a 20 minute video for a very small amount of lite content. Which, self referentially, is part of why I don't like TED talks very much.
(Side question, I seem to recall the Post used to be a real newspaper/journalism site, but look at the links on the article page, its gone full on clickbait... when did that happen?)
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Wednesday May 11 2016, @05:43PM
His stance is that lots of ted talks are great, but there is a significant amount of garbage / advertising science that gets air time. Personally I've stopped checking out ted talks, then later read some articles which nicely outlined the reasons. Wish I had those links handy...
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Wednesday May 11 2016, @05:47PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#Jeff_Bezos_period [wikipedia.org]
was it not the old Marx who said, eventually all ends up in the hands of a few?
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 12 2016, @01:10AM
Marxism was a horrible idea. Don't quote that man. But yes, it's correct, and it is not going to change. You have extraordinary people who create amazing things that everyone wants to give them their money in a capitalistic system. Then you have people who work for the government who steal a portion of that money from the makers. You have makers and you have takers.
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Thursday May 12 2016, @08:54AM
get treatment, dude...
during the course of evolution, a group need different types pf persons, and even some nonpersons.
it is not a valid point, that you can find a specific slice of time, where you can call some useless...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday May 11 2016, @07:28PM
This thread sourced the actual content, instead of some clickbait adware blog.
*Slow Clap*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @08:47PM
That being said, the general rule of thumb remains: "It's only bullshit when it goes against my deepest convictions."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 12 2016, @01:18AM
TED talks? I remember Michael Mann did that. You should watch it. it is 100% full of science (political science, he is a climotologist but seems to talk nothing but politics...)
P-Hacking? I remember Michael Mann did that with his hockey stick graphs.
Small sample sizes? Mann's 2000 hockey stick uses 13 trees to summarise the previous 40 years, does that count too?
Press releases? Mann did that too. Has anyone outside of his university seen his working out? No, but there are smarter people than him out there who have trained students and know what mistakes they make.
Nobel peace prize pls! And where do I apply for a few billion from the 83 trillion dollar man made global warming fund... because, you know, they need more money than cancer or heart researchers, because their rethoric will save our unbord great, great grand children from 1 degrees of warming (or cooling as the latest non-UNIPCC science has been saying for a while now).
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Wootery on Thursday May 12 2016, @11:18AM
I enjoyed this episode. Very much in line with the writings of Ben Goldacre.
John Oliver's show certainly does a better job than Trevor Noah's, which is at times just flagrantly biased garbage. [youtube.com]