We aren’t becoming more cynical, we’re becoming more dependent on authority and simplistic views of the truth

Ben Goldacre, writing about a week ago in “Comment is Free,” the blog network of the British newspaper The Guardian, mentioned an interesting study into the way the media handle science stories (“Why reading should not be believing”).

The researchers found that 65% of stories didn’t correctly deal with “the study methodology and the quality of the evidence.” Obsessed with giving out eye-catching ‘truths’ from authority figures in white lab-coats, these reporters skidded over any drawbacks or uncertainties and reduced the numerical information in the studies to simple headlines, preferably with big numbers in them.

Nor are they alone in doing this. I can’t count the number of times I’ve become angry with TV adverts for pharmaceuticals which trumpet claims like, “cuts the incidence of Jaggold-Cranmar’s Disease by 50%.”

“Fifty percent of what?” I yell at the TV. After all, if only one person in ten million ever contracts said disease (which I’ve invented, by the way, just as many of the same advertisements do with this or that ’syndrome’), cutting the incidence by fifty percent means that only 1 person in 15 million now contracts it. Great for the extra ten people or so in the 300 million US population now freed from the clutches of JCD, but hardly world-shattering news that should send you rushing to see your doctor and demanding a lifetime’s supply of the pill, whatever it costs.

If that sounds over the top, here’s what Goldacre writes:

A systematic review from the Cochrane Collaboration found five studies looking at the use of specific health interventions before and after media coverage of specific stories, and each found that favourable publicity was associated with greater use, and unfavourable with lower.

It’s no different in other areas of ‘difficult’ human knowledge, such as economics. Amidst all the difficulties stemming from the current financial crisis, the media fasten on the symptoms (banks in trouble, stock markets plunging, the price of crude oil) and op-ed pieces claiming to identify the causes. Where are the discussions of the evidence? The investigations into the major players? The analyses of the available information, so readers can form their own views?

Does it matter?

I think it does. Without clear and complete information, and rational discussion of causes and potential solutions, we have only two options: to trust the experts (whether they have white coats or not) or fall back on political dogma and slogans.

Science may have produced marvels, but it’s not magic. Before we act on what we read or hear, we should stop being so credulous and ask the questions that might tell us whether the story is important or not.

Technorati Tags: reporting science, bad science reporting, public ignorance, health scares