4 ms·

Online comments hurt science understanding, study finds

19 points by molf 13y ago

mnsc 13y ago
Oh the comments here from readers commenting the comments on the linked description of scientific research that has researched how comments on description of scientific research influences the readers understanding of the sciende in question is gon b gud.
36er 13y ago
Interesting. The fact that people get (strongly) influenced by comments by non-experts is not new and definitely not limited to science. The same holds true (though to a smaller extent) with TV. Here in France, news shows will typically interview random people on the street on whatever subject they are discussing (politics, science, culture...) and air the 15-20 sec answers to millions of viewers. These people have no particular knowledge but their reaction/opinion is shown at the same level as that of a field expert. Thus conveying far too much weight to their opinion and hurting viewers' understanding.
- mooism2 13y ago
  Not only in France. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI (2min English language satire)
  - TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
    I remember him saying on the same programme (NewsWipe) that people on the street used to be more serious in their responses, perhaps because they thought the News should be serious and factual.
- mhaymo 13y ago
  This is called Vox Populi, and I think it's done throughout the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_populi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_populi
cpa 13y ago
And yet, here I am on the comments page.
oyvindeh 13y ago
I wonder how this translates to peoples understanding of medicine, and alternative medicine in particular. Those discussions tend to get very heated.
- VLM 13y ago
  Diet specifically, even on HN.
benbataille 13y ago
Does someone have read the original article ? I am curious about how the reader evaluation of potential risk was assessed. Was there a control group which didn't see any comment to compare variance amongst this group to the other groups variances ? How was the sampling done ? Were people with knowledge of science equitably balanced amongst groups ? How many of them was there ? At which level is the variance difference amongst groups significant ? 2000 subjects can lead to average results depending of the sampling. The jsonline article does quite a lousy job with details.
- twentysix 13y ago
  The title of the original article is "Science, new media, and the public" published in the Science Magazine. https://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6115/40 https://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6115/40. If you google the title you can find the full text. Here is a detailed article on the same topic > http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/2013/01/28/commenting-threads-good-bad-or-not-at-all/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/...
mhaymo 13y ago
Not much worse than being influenced by the articles themselves. Science reporting is just awful, universally as far as I can tell.
- cup 13y ago
  Youre absolutely right and its not helped by the fact that many scientists are incredibly poor communicators. Its a shame because there is some really interesting work happening in the scientific world which lay people are missing out on. I just think about the laboratory I work in and professors above me who fail to recognise that non scientific people arnt stupid, they just havent undergone 12 years of tertiary education training to allow them to understand the language of science without a translator.
  - anu7df 13y ago
    What you say is true. However the often overlooked issue with science reporting is that it is watered down to a point that even basic facts are conveyed wrong
sdfjkl 13y ago
I stopped reading comments a long time ago. There's a slim chance they add something to an article, but it's not worth wading through all that garbage to find the one nugget of wisdom. Perhaps they contain some feedback useful to the original author, although personally I've turned them off on my blog long ago. Edit: Of course HN is special :)
VLM 13y ago
"read a balanced news report about nanotechnology" I would enjoy being able to read the article. If its any good, it would not accurately reflect typical journalist science reporting where viewers are better off reading the comments. If the article is garbage, then it would not accurately reflect nanotechnology, in which case viewers are better off reading the comments. I think this is a pretty big hole in the study, unless the conclusion was determined before the study, in which case they did a pretty good job of manufacturing the selected result.
patatino 13y ago
I often find myself in the comments looking for sources indicate some mistakes in the article. Can be quite helpful sometimes.

19 points by molf 13y ago

mnsc 13y ago

Oh the comments here from readers commenting the comments on the linked description of scientific research that has researched how comments on description of scientific research influences the readers understanding of the sciende in question is gon b gud.

36er 13y ago

Interesting. The fact that people get (strongly) influenced by comments by non-experts is not new and definitely not limited to science. The same holds true (though to a smaller extent) with TV. Here in France, news shows will typically interview random people on the street on whatever subject they are discussing (politics, science, culture...) and air the 15-20 sec answers to millions of viewers. These people have no particular knowledge but their reaction/opinion is shown at the same level as that of a field expert. Thus conveying far too much weight to their opinion and hurting viewers' understanding.

mooism2 13y ago
Not only in France. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI (2min English language satire)
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y ago
  I remember him saying on the same programme (NewsWipe) that people on the street used to be more serious in their responses, perhaps because they thought the News should be serious and factual.
mhaymo 13y ago
This is called Vox Populi, and I think it's done throughout the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_populi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_populi

cpa 13y ago

And yet, here I am on the comments page.

oyvindeh 13y ago

I wonder how this translates to peoples understanding of medicine, and alternative medicine in particular. Those discussions tend to get very heated.

VLM 13y ago
Diet specifically, even on HN.

benbataille 13y ago

Does someone have read the original article ? I am curious about how the reader evaluation of potential risk was assessed. Was there a control group which didn't see any comment to compare variance amongst this group to the other groups variances ? How was the sampling done ? Were people with knowledge of science equitably balanced amongst groups ? How many of them was there ? At which level is the variance difference amongst groups significant ? 2000 subjects can lead to average results depending of the sampling. The jsonline article does quite a lousy job with details.

twentysix 13y ago
The title of the original article is "Science, new media, and the public" published in the Science Magazine. https://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6115/40 https://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6115/40. If you google the title you can find the full text. Here is a detailed article on the same topic > http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/2013/01/28/commenting-threads-good-bad-or-not-at-all/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/...

mhaymo 13y ago

Not much worse than being influenced by the articles themselves. Science reporting is just awful, universally as far as I can tell.

cup 13y ago
Youre absolutely right and its not helped by the fact that many scientists are incredibly poor communicators. Its a shame because there is some really interesting work happening in the scientific world which lay people are missing out on. I just think about the laboratory I work in and professors above me who fail to recognise that non scientific people arnt stupid, they just havent undergone 12 years of tertiary education training to allow them to understand the language of science without a translator.
- anu7df 13y ago
  What you say is true. However the often overlooked issue with science reporting is that it is watered down to a point that even basic facts are conveyed wrong

sdfjkl 13y ago

I stopped reading comments a long time ago. There's a slim chance they add something to an article, but it's not worth wading through all that garbage to find the one nugget of wisdom. Perhaps they contain some feedback useful to the original author, although personally I've turned them off on my blog long ago. Edit: Of course HN is special :)

VLM 13y ago

"read a balanced news report about nanotechnology" I would enjoy being able to read the article. If its any good, it would not accurately reflect typical journalist science reporting where viewers are better off reading the comments. If the article is garbage, then it would not accurately reflect nanotechnology, in which case viewers are better off reading the comments. I think this is a pretty big hole in the study, unless the conclusion was determined before the study, in which case they did a pretty good job of manufacturing the selected result.

patatino 13y ago

I often find myself in the comments looking for sources indicate some mistakes in the article. Can be quite helpful sometimes.