SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
John Oliver on "Bullshit Masquerading as Science"
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 52 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
-- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet"
(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.