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Yes, believing false knowledge is unsettling. But it's unlikely the results in question were that momentous that they stayed with people outside the field. If t
by Misdicorl 7y ago
Yes, believing false knowledge is unsettling. But it's unlikely the results in question were that momentous that they stayed with people outside the field. If the results were that, impactful the refuting article would belong in Science.
- jtbayly 7y agoArticles from BBC, CNN blogs, “featured on an episode of NPR’s Hidden Brain podcast,” a video on YouTube from National Geographic (11m subscribers), all since 2012. Lots and lots of people outside the field continue read about this and remember it. Many millions of people. I remember when I first heard about it. I’m not in the field. A notice in Science is at least noteworthy to that same public, even if it still won’t get a fraction of the same coverage. At least people who tried to track down the original research would find the follow up study as well.
- Misdicorl 7y agoThe public and scientific discourses are different and Science/Nature/etc have a target audience firmly in the scientific discourse. Most of the arguments here (and in the slate article) have been talking about Science shirking their scientific duty. They are not. Perhaps you can argue that they owe it to the quality of public discourse to print this article, but they certainly don't owe it to the scientific discourse.