You know what really grinds my gears?

[Majingir]

Quote: Originally Posted by Skyboxer

Commercials/Ads that start with "A new study shows"....

Forget commercials and ads, what about actual "news".

I heard a news story today where they were like "A new study from ____ shows that in 2020, online sales have skyrocketed. This comes after a recent survey of over X people who have said that....."

Like do you really need to do a study and conduct surveys and all that to find it out? How much did people get paid to conduct the obvious research?

[NinerFan1983]

Quote: Originally Posted by Skyboxer

Commercials/Ads that start with "A new study shows"....

Could have stopped after the "commercials/ads" part.

[Majingir]

Quote: Originally Posted by NinerFan1983

Could have stopped after the "commercials/ads" part.

Such as commercials and ads which pass off their new product as being a better version than their old product, which was once billed as THE product. Tired of vacuums from the leading brands in 2020 only cleaning up 50% of the dust? How about paper towels which break apart when you touch it? Deodorant which only works for 20 minutes?

Dont worry, the next version has up to 99.9% efficiency.

[Hammerhunker]

Quote: Originally Posted by Majingir

Forget commercials and ads, what about actual "news". I heard a news story today where they were like "A new study from ____ shows that in 2020, online sales have skyrocketed. This comes after a recent survey of over X people who have said that....." Like do you really need to do a study and conduct surveys and all that to find it out? How much did people get paid to conduct the obvious research?

Along this line, "Studies show..." gets my ire up immediately. It is lazy and condescending in my opinion.

[pietasterp]

Quote: Originally Posted by Hammerhunker

Along this line, "Studies show..." gets my ire up immediately. It is lazy and condescending in my opinion.

I was going to mention this but you hit the nail right on the head.

The questions that ought to be answered before that phrase ever gets uttered is "Which studies?" and "Where?".

I have a broader gear-grinder which is the media's reporting of science in general. First of all, "study" is not an accurate word for anything, especially if they're reporting something as fact. Was it a modeling publication? Because modeling outputs are not data. Was it a well done randomized controlled trial run at reputable places? OK, now you've got my attention.

But "study" can range from 'total BS' to 'potentially landscape changing', and everything in between. And no one ever reads the primary literature themselves, least of all the reporters or news organizations that report on this stuff. You can't just take the authors' conclusions and run with it; you're supposed to read the data yourself and make your own conclusion, which may or may not agree with the authors' conclusions (it's surprising how often you will not agree).

This is why you get media people (and people in general) saying my most recent gear-grinder (I've got a lot 'em stored up, I guess!), which is "I believe in science". If you are blindly saying you believe in the very vague and ill-defined notion of "science", then you probably actually don't know much about science. Science is not a religion. The whole point of it is that it doesn't require "belief", rather it is a set of provable or data-based conclusions that each of us are free to analyze and critique and arrive at our own conclusions about what the data do or do not imply. Blind belief in what an "expert" says is more accurately described as "religion'.

I suppose this is all asking too much, though, because if media people were better at critically reading and interpreting scientific data, they probably wouldn't be media people.

[/end rant]

[Blzer]

I always wondered if, say, a movie was reviewed by Rolling Stone as "This is anything but the best movie of the year," could a commercial then spin it and say: "Rolling Stone calls it 'the best movie of the year'?" Obviously the answer is no, but this wouldn't be the first time somebody took a direct quote completely out of context to spin it in their favor.

Also, the funny thing about stats is if you ever hear somebody say: "He has completed 16 of his last 18 passes," that also means he's completed 16 of his last 19 passes. They're always going to stretch it as far as they can to spin it in a way that helps their statistic. I'm fine with those, but that's always a thing to keep in mind.

What I don't like is when somebody is trying to defend something with statistics, and they are not independent items. This is exaggerated and stupid, but something like: "He has 30 doubles, 40 home runs, and 72 extra base hits!" I can't think of a better example right now, so I just stuck with that haha.

[dubcity]

Quote: Originally Posted by pietasterp

Was it a modeling publication? Because modeling outputs are not data.

The media are really good at NOT reminding you of that as often as possible. To the point that I wonder how many of these anchors/writers know one way or the other. It's math so therefore facts and conclusions and stuff.

[Hammerhunker]

Quote: Originally Posted by pietasterp

I was going to mention this but you hit the nail right on the head. The questions that ought to be answered before that phrase ever gets uttered is "Which studies?" and "Where?". I have a broader gear-grinder which is the media's reporting of science in general. First of all, "study" is not an accurate word for anything, especially if they're reporting something as fact. Was it a modeling publication? Because modeling outputs are not data. Was it a well done randomized controlled trial run at reputable places? OK, now you've got my attention. But "study" can range from 'total BS' to 'potentially landscape changing', and everything in between. And no one ever reads the primary literature themselves, least of all the reporters or news organizations that report on this stuff. You can't just take the authors' conclusions and run with it; you're supposed to read the data yourself and make your own conclusion, which may or may not agree with the authors' conclusions (it's surprising how often you will not agree). This is why you get media people (and people in general) saying my most recent gear-grinder (I've got a lot 'em stored up, I guess!), which is "I believe in science". If you are blindly saying you believe in the very vague and ill-defined notion of "science", then you probably actually don't know much about science. Science is not a religion. The whole point of it is that it doesn't require "belief", rather it is a set of provable or data-based conclusions that each of us are free to analyze and critique and arrive at our own conclusions about what the data do or do not imply. Blind belief in what an "expert" says is more accurately described as "religion'. I suppose this is all asking too much, though, because if media people were better at critically reading and interpreting scientific data, they probably wouldn't be media people. [/end rant]

Love it! I just about started to go, "Newman! Newman!"