Tuesday links

I'm skeptical about that science-reporting study. First of all, the guy only looked at stories based directly on peer-reviewed research papers. That's an opportunity sample, and it doesn't reflect the full range of science journalism. The data which is easiest to collect is seldom the data which should be collected. In addition, as a commenter said at Bora's place,

Skimming the article... they actually found that 11% had "moderate to highly" exaggerated claims and another 26% had "slightly" exaggerated claims — for a total of 37% having some sort of exaggerated claims.

Not so rosy.

Blake; I hear you. I didn't want to turn a link into a whole post, though, although I might address science communication again in the near future.

Even within genetics the sample seems to be too small and not representative of science reporting as a whole. One of my biggest gripes about science reporting (particularly involving peer-reviewed literature) is that new research is seldom put into context. We're told what a new study says but we're not told how it fits into the larger debate or how it might be connected to (or even conflict) other research.

Funnily enough, I just found a neat example of that yesterday afternoon. In 2005, it was reported that supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies could promote the formation of new stars. Matter caught in the black hole's gravity falls inwards, gets squeezed and heats up, sometimes spewing out as a highly energetic jet. If the jet slams into a cloud of interstellar gas, the shock might make the cloud implode, triggering new stars' creation.

Cue the woo crowd saying that black holes are now a "creative principle", that chakras in our bodies are in fact small black holes, and so forth. I couldn't make this up if I tried; see the 16:10 point and after in The Enemies of Reason part 2.

But the Great Bird of the Galaxy has a sense of humor: later research showed that black holes can actually inhibit stellar formation. Correlations were observed, although the causal factors remain unknown. Perhaps their high-energy jets can clear gas clouds out of their host galaxies, dispersing the raw stellar material, or perhaps the jet energy keeps nebulae too warm to settle down and condense into protostars. There might be a turning point: once a black hole gets too supermassive, its inhibitory effects may outweigh its stimulatory ones. No doubt this is an argument for keeping our chakras on a modest diet.

As you might expect, none of the reports on the later research referenced the earlier work. Among all the news stories — many of which were clones of press releases — I couldn't find a remark like, "This contradicts earlier expectations, namely that. . ."

Finally getting down to the bottom of my post-China back-blog, belated thanks on the props Brian!