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My alma matter is doing groundbreaking research on sexting. Never thought I'd see the day. In all seriousness, it is a twofold problem. Yes, the media is partl

My alma matter is doing groundbreaking research on sexting. Never thought I'd see the day. In all seriousness, it is a twofold problem. Yes, the media is partly responsible, but there is also a huge internal problem with the scientific and academic community (actually the article rightly brings this problem up): positive results are what net you publication; no one wants to hear negative results. However, if we actually want to progress scientifically, experiments that yield negative results are just as important, if not more important, than any positive ones. Unfortunately negative results and failed experiments just aren't sexy. They don't sell. They don't get people excited. As a result publishers don't want them and leave us with an overabundance of positive results, some of which are even gamed, which both skew the overall picture of scientific progress, as well as feed into promoting the sort of behavior on the media side this article calls out. Another problem is, and again, the article does a good job by bringing this up, the major barrier of entry preventing the average joe from reading publications directly rather than reading the digestible media summary of their findings. I think it stems back to an education problem. In an ideal world we'd be able to educate everyone to a certain level of scientific literacy which would at least enable the everyman to decipher some of the more arcane jargon of respective scientific fields, but I'm not entirely sure an educational program that might achieve this is even possible. Luckily, I do know, that as of at least about a year ago, this very problem was at the forefront of work in the philosophy of science, and many philosophers and practicing scientists alike are (or perhaps were) doing what they can to try and devise ways to clean up the system a bit, improve peer review practices, etc. It's not an easy problem. The scientific community in all its aspects is quite a mangy beast.

whiddershins 10y ago
>In an ideal world we'd be able to educate everyone to a certain level of scientific literacy which would at least enable the everyman to decipher some of the more arcane jargon of respective scientific field Is it ever accurate to say "hey, many of these papers are written in an excessively jargon-filled way, because the intended audience is very narrow?"
- stan_rogers 10y ago
  Steven Pinker doesn't think so (see any of his talks or articles relating to his book The Sense of Style and the curse of knowledge). It would be much closer to the truth to say that many of these papers are nearly opaque to other specialists in the same field. There is, of course, the jargon of precision, which is at least in a sense unavoidable, but most of the problem actually stems from failing to understand that most people, even in your own narrow field, haven't been recently immersed in the same small body of highly-specific literature, etc., that you've been swimming in for the past several weeks, months or years.
therein 10y ago
It might be helpful to mandate every submission to an academic journal to be accompanied with a maximum 800-word "layman's summary" that will be directed at the media and the public. Something more comprehensive than the Abstract/Preface without any terms that wouldn't be known to the general public.
- sachkris 10y ago
  This sounds like a good idea. But, it may not be possible in most of the hard sciences. Imagine writing an 800-word layman's summary for some results in string theory.
  - vacri 10y ago
    By 'most of the hard sciences', you seem to have chosen a sliver of one of the hard sciences, which plenty of people in that science think is just smoke and mirrors. If a 'general audience abstract' is a good idea, it shouldn't be balked at because of a single theoretical field which is quite controversial. Let other journals handle those papers :)
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Unless string theory all of a sudden gained everyday applications i think i would aim for fields like biology, chemistry and similar first.
    - collyw 10y ago
      Yes, biology makes the most sense, as thats usually what gets "translated" to clickbait style headlines like "Quinoa cures cancer".
      - digi_owl 10y ago
        This week i read a headline that could be interpreted as saying green tea would prevent zika infections. In reality it was a chemical of some sort found in green tea (and elsewhere) that seemed to counteract zika. But it required concentrations that you would never find in nature.
sp3000 10y ago
Maybe there should be a major journal published with purely the best studies done that had negative results.

whiddershins 10y ago

>In an ideal world we'd be able to educate everyone to a certain level of scientific literacy which would at least enable the everyman to decipher some of the more arcane jargon of respective scientific field Is it ever accurate to say "hey, many of these papers are written in an excessively jargon-filled way, because the intended audience is very narrow?"

stan_rogers 10y ago
Steven Pinker doesn't think so (see any of his talks or articles relating to his book The Sense of Style and the curse of knowledge). It would be much closer to the truth to say that many of these papers are nearly opaque to other specialists in the same field. There is, of course, the jargon of precision, which is at least in a sense unavoidable, but most of the problem actually stems from failing to understand that most people, even in your own narrow field, haven't been recently immersed in the same small body of highly-specific literature, etc., that you've been swimming in for the past several weeks, months or years.

therein 10y ago

It might be helpful to mandate every submission to an academic journal to be accompanied with a maximum 800-word "layman's summary" that will be directed at the media and the public. Something more comprehensive than the Abstract/Preface without any terms that wouldn't be known to the general public.

sachkris 10y ago
This sounds like a good idea. But, it may not be possible in most of the hard sciences. Imagine writing an 800-word layman's summary for some results in string theory.
- vacri 10y ago
  By 'most of the hard sciences', you seem to have chosen a sliver of one of the hard sciences, which plenty of people in that science think is just smoke and mirrors. If a 'general audience abstract' is a good idea, it shouldn't be balked at because of a single theoretical field which is quite controversial. Let other journals handle those papers :)
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Unless string theory all of a sudden gained everyday applications i think i would aim for fields like biology, chemistry and similar first.
  - collyw 10y ago
    Yes, biology makes the most sense, as thats usually what gets "translated" to clickbait style headlines like "Quinoa cures cancer".
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      This week i read a headline that could be interpreted as saying green tea would prevent zika infections. In reality it was a chemical of some sort found in green tea (and elsewhere) that seemed to counteract zika. But it required concentrations that you would never find in nature.

sp3000 10y ago

Maybe there should be a major journal published with purely the best studies done that had negative results.