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I especially liked the points about how often we vary our criticism of journalism based on the topic. Reminded me a lot of Gell Mann amnesia, which I catch mys

I especially liked the points about how often we vary our criticism of journalism based on the topic. Reminded me a lot of Gell Mann amnesia, which I catch myself suffering from a little too often: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect

dmix 7y ago
This is great, we all do this too. Even when you try not to you’re still bombarded with ‘news’ all the time and can only invest so much cognitive effort to each. So we end up deferring so much of common knowledge to news sites. Only a small percentage of those are trained journalists with time and budgets.
- CM30 7y ago
  Honestly, most trained journalists make similar mistakes, simply because they're not people with experience in a field or industry. Even assuming they're 100% honest about their intentions and trying to minimise factual errors overall (which isn't always the case), it's still a person/people at an organisation doing research into something they're not experts in and trying to distill their findings down to a level understandable by their publication's audience. Usually with limited time and a limited budget. By definition they will make mistakes, and probably quite a lot of them too. Just like a software engineer would if they were told to write an article on astrophysics or molecular biology without any real experience in either field.
ajross 7y ago
The Gell-Mann thing is dangerous pseudo science, stay away. It's not even invented by a scientist. It's the excuse people go to to disbelieve something they see in coverage, or to win arguments about "the media" or "fake news". If you want to dismiss something as a falsehood, you have to do it with evidence, not quips. This article is an excellent example.
- dymk 7y ago
  Most fallacies weren’t coined by scientists, they were coined by philosophers. This one was coined by a writer. That makes it intrinsically invalid? Your criticisms of the effect are pretty vague, can you give an example here where it’s been misapplied?
- jdietrich 7y ago
  The Gell-Mann amnesia effect doesn't say "all news is bunkum", it says "the news media consistently make obvious errors when they report on physics, they probably make similar errors when they report on your field of expertise, so take what they say about other things with a pinch of salt". There's a world of difference between cynicism and scepticism.
ishjoh 7y ago
I didn't realize this had a name, thank you for the link!

dmix 7y ago

This is great, we all do this too. Even when you try not to you’re still bombarded with ‘news’ all the time and can only invest so much cognitive effort to each. So we end up deferring so much of common knowledge to news sites. Only a small percentage of those are trained journalists with time and budgets.

CM30 7y ago
Honestly, most trained journalists make similar mistakes, simply because they're not people with experience in a field or industry. Even assuming they're 100% honest about their intentions and trying to minimise factual errors overall (which isn't always the case), it's still a person/people at an organisation doing research into something they're not experts in and trying to distill their findings down to a level understandable by their publication's audience. Usually with limited time and a limited budget. By definition they will make mistakes, and probably quite a lot of them too. Just like a software engineer would if they were told to write an article on astrophysics or molecular biology without any real experience in either field.

ajross 7y ago

The Gell-Mann thing is dangerous pseudo science, stay away. It's not even invented by a scientist. It's the excuse people go to to disbelieve something they see in coverage, or to win arguments about "the media" or "fake news". If you want to dismiss something as a falsehood, you have to do it with evidence, not quips. This article is an excellent example.

dymk 7y ago
Most fallacies weren’t coined by scientists, they were coined by philosophers. This one was coined by a writer. That makes it intrinsically invalid? Your criticisms of the effect are pretty vague, can you give an example here where it’s been misapplied?
jdietrich 7y ago
The Gell-Mann amnesia effect doesn't say "all news is bunkum", it says "the news media consistently make obvious errors when they report on physics, they probably make similar errors when they report on your field of expertise, so take what they say about other things with a pinch of salt". There's a world of difference between cynicism and scepticism.

ishjoh 7y ago

I didn't realize this had a name, thank you for the link!