3 ms·
Nearly all popular science journalism is either vastly oversimplified or outright trash. If you want the real story you have to study the actual science, which
by api 6y ago
Nearly all popular science journalism is either vastly oversimplified or outright trash. If you want the real story you have to study the actual science, which means reading papers or at least reading articles like this one written by actual practicing scientists or other professionals (doctors, engineers) very familiar with the science. Even then you should cross-reference and gather multiple opinions from the field.
Same goes for pop understandings of science. My favorite is "survival of the fittest" for Darwinian evolutionary theory, which is basically wrong as it's vastly oversimplified and prone to enormous misunderstandings. A more accurate and modern version would be "differential rates of reproduction of patterns of genetic information that influence the formation of phenotypes in proportion to those phenotypes' performance of said reproduction." Not as catchy, and much harder to use to rationalize popular cultural and political fads.