Re:Neuroscience: Under Attack
by tokenadult on Friday November 23, 2012 @06:43PM
(#4824058)
As another comment notes, the strength of science is that if something is true, it will still be true even if a report about the fact is initially exaggerated or initially ignored. Over the long haul, people who commit themselves to finding out about replicated results that are consistent with the previous established principles of science will gradually gain a better understanding of reality. Someday, we have hope of understanding our brains and how we think better than we understand that now. The discussion here on HN often helps clarify issues that are not well reported in the popular press. There are several working neuroscientists who regularly post here, and I enjoy the stories they post and the comments they make and learn from them.
From the article: "A team of British scientists recently analyzed nearly 3,000 neuroscientific articles published in the British press between 2000 and 2010 and found that the media regularly distorts and embellishes the findings of scientific studies."
We certainly observe submissions to HN regularly that are based on press coverage of scientific findings that has gone through the "Science News Cycle"
such that a preliminary research finding gets hyped up in a press release, and then the press release is sensationalized by a blogger or by a lazy journalist who doesn't check other sources. This is one good reason not to submit to HN at all any "story" that comes straight from a press release aggregation service, as other participants on HN have been suggesting for years. ScienceDaily is just a press release recycling service, nothing more. Users here on HN think there are better sites to submit from.
"Everything I've ever seen on HN -- I don't know about Reddit -- from ScienceDaily has been a cut-and-paste copy of something else available from nearer the original source. In some cases ScienceDaily's copy is distinctly worse than the original because it lacks relevant links, enlightening pictures, etc.
" . . . . if you find something there and feel like sharing it, it's pretty much always best to take ten seconds to find the original source and submit that instead of ScienceDaily."
Comments about both ScienceDaily and PhysOrg, another press release aggregator:
"What ScienceDaily has added to this: (1) They've removed one of the figures. (2) They've removed links to the Hinode and SOHO websites. (3) They've added lots of largely irrelevant links of their own, all of course to their own site(s).
"Please, everyone: stop linking to ScienceDaily and PhysOrg."
"Please, everyone, stop submitting links from PhysOrg and ScienceDaily. I have never ever ever seen anything on those sites that isn't either (1) bullshit or (2) a recycled press release with zero (or often negative) added value. (Sometimes it's both at once.) It only takes ten seconds' googling to find the original source."
From the article: "A team of British scientists recently analyzed nearly 3,000 neuroscientific articles published in the British press between 2000 and 2010 and found that the media regularly distorts and embellishes the findings of scientific studies."
We certainly observe submissions to HN regularly that are based on press coverage of scientific findings that has gone through the "Science News Cycle"
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174
such that a preliminary research finding gets hyped up in a press release, and then the press release is sensationalized by a blogger or by a lazy journalist who doesn't check other sources. This is one good reason not to submit to HN at all any "story" that comes straight from a press release aggregation service, as other participants on HN have been suggesting for years. ScienceDaily is just a press release recycling service, nothing more. Users here on HN think there are better sites to submit from.
Comments about ScienceDaily:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3992206
"Blogspam.
"Original article (to which ScienceDaily has added precisely nothing):
http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/abundance-of-rare-dn...
"Underlying paper in Science (paywalled):
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/05/16/science.1...
"Brief writeup from Nature discussing this paper and a couple of others on similar topics:
http://www.nature.com/news/humans-riddled-with-rare-genetic-...
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108603
"Everything I've ever seen on HN -- I don't know about Reddit -- from ScienceDaily has been a cut-and-paste copy of something else available from nearer the original source. In some cases ScienceDaily's copy is distinctly worse than the original because it lacks relevant links, enlightening pictures, etc.
" . . . . if you find something there and feel like sharing it, it's pretty much always best to take ten seconds to find the original source and submit that instead of ScienceDaily."
Comments about both ScienceDaily and PhysOrg, another press release aggregator:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3689185
"Why hasn't sciencedaily.com or physorg been banned from HN yet?"
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3875529
"Original source:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/news/pole-asymmetry...
"What ScienceDaily has added to this: (1) They've removed one of the figures. (2) They've removed links to the Hinode and SOHO websites. (3) They've added lots of largely irrelevant links of their own, all of course to their own site(s).
"Please, everyone: stop linking to ScienceDaily and PhysOrg."
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3867361
"Those sources don't have RSS feeds, and ScienceDaily and PhysOrg have a bad habit of not linking to such things."
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4083766
"Added value in PhysOrg article: zero.
"Please, everyone, stop submitting links from PhysOrg and ScienceDaily. I have never ever ever seen anything on those sites that isn't either (1) bullshit or (2) a recycled press release with zero (or often negative) added value. (Sometimes it's both at once.) It only takes ten seconds' googling to find the original source."