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Re:The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bri... by mjevans on Monday March 18, 2019 @04:51PM (#19425144)
Oversimplification for sound bytes (and headlines/click-bait) is the primary cause for this.

News outlets are eager to 'report first' and don't bother correctly framing the science in a proper context of one study //which suggests more research and confirmation is necessary//.

Publish or perish, along with the lack of replication rather than trying to find something exciting to publish, or even enshrining the effort of replicating results (repudiating or confirming) to more strongly establish fact and carefully observe to see if there may be other causes/effects; is ruining the integrity of the scientific methods.

Finally, a lack of stable funding for maintaining and improving what should be public domain (established facts about nature) and the work of students of all ages to re-study and double check as they learn, is nearly the ultimate root cause. The true root cause being greed and the increasing likelihood that as we as a species approach 'abundance' that capitalism ceases to be a good means for wisely allocating resources. Surely that is the case when we are to the point of automated micro-transaction harvesting HFT and fractions of a second of advantage translating to profits in a financial sector that is a vastly over-sized portion of the GDP.

Re:The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bri... by chiefalchemist on Monday March 18, 2019 @08:59PM (#19427068)
Most of the time the news outlets / pulishers don't understand the difference between correlation and causation. Frankly, I'm not even sure if many scientists understand the difference.

Get some data. Beat it up until you get something attention grabbing. Publish. Get paid. Worry about any fallout later.