3 ms·

The layman abstract is basically what cable news has turned into their business. "Forget trying to understand this issue, let us explain how you should feel ab

• bumholio 8y ago
  > "Forget trying to understand this issue, let us explain how you should feel about it!" Well... yeah. Because you stand no chance of understanding the issue, and there is a very high risk that you will develop irrational feelings that will lead you to do dangerous things. Take for example the flu effectiveness in elders study. The biased journalists summarized it as "flu vaccine is killing elders". It would have been harder to misrepresent it to such a degree if the abstract contained something like this: "Public health notice: the authors believe existing vaccines are safe and effective and strongly recommend people of all ages to undergo vaccination. This study is a scientific inquiry with the purpose of increasing that effectiveness for elder patients, and our current findings have no imediate clinical application. More specifically, we report no evidence that flu vaccination is a net health risk for the elderly."