Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Better Science And Medical Reporting In Main Street News Media

One of the failings of main street news media science reporting is that the news often just repeats a press release. The media often fails to look at the underlying science to see if it is good science. Too often, the research does not support the broad conclusions in the press release, the sample size is too small and not statistically valid or the research did not follow accepted, valid scientific methods, such as randomized, blind trials, etc.

An article in today's Wall St. Journal by Jeremy Singer-Vine is a welcome exception to the above observation.

After each brief description of research, The Journal added a caveat section and included valid scientific reasons as to why upon further testing the conclusions may not be replicated and verified.

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