Weird Science and Why it Spreads

September 29, 2011

Weird Science and Why it Spreads

Speaking (fast) in Edinburgh, Ben Goldacre offers an excellent TED talk on not only bad science, but the popularization and pseudo-reporting of bad science. Goldacre, who is a doctor and an epidemiologist, is particularly attuned to the bastardization of health science in popular media -- from nutrition advice to pharmaceutical ads.

This talk also echoed the fascinating graphic novel I'm reading, The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media. After diminishing the seeming demons of political bias in the news, Gladstone points to the biases we really should be worried about, one of them being narrative bias, or the itch for stories that feel like stories. Cartoon Brooke calls it her favorite bias.

Who doesn't love a good story? But stories have beginnings, middles, and ends. Some news stories, science stories for instance, never really end. They're all middle. It's a narrative nightmare.

Try to fix the problem by tacking on a provisional ending and the reports appear more conclusive than they really are. So we see strings of stories like this ... "Fat makes you fat!" "Fat makes you thin!" "Chocolate gives you acne! "Chocolate won't give you acne!" "Chocolate helps your heart!" "Only the expensive kinds!"

Posted at 11:37 PM in Health, Media, Science | Permalink

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