4 ms·

I'm no expert, but that seems to be a report by a probably biased organisation, rather than a scientific metastudy looking at sufficient sample sizes and elimin

I'm no expert, but that seems to be a report by a probably biased organisation, rather than a scientific metastudy looking at sufficient sample sizes and eliminating confounding factors. Please correct me if the report is of equivalent quality. I'd be amazed if there was actual evidence that violence in the media actually contributed to real world violence even in children, as I thought this had already been covered at length with the various computer game scares.

hahainternet 13y ago
Why didn't you just read the report instead of jumping to conclusions? In fact the evidence portion of this is based off over 100 different sources and appears to have been produced by 3 universities.
- singular 13y ago
  It seems like you didn't read my comment... > Please correct me if the report is of equivalent quality. Like I said, I'm no expert, so even if I had time to read the report (I don't) it isn't a scientific metastudy. It's a report, by a quite possibly (probably) biased organisation. So unless I had some special knowledge about the area (I don't) or time to review it in detail (nope) I don't know whether to trust it or not vs. a scentific metastudy. A weary aside (I am not interested in arguing on the internet cf. http://xkcd.com/386/ http://xkcd.com/386/) Your rudeness is totally uncalled for. If you excise that rude first sentence your post loses no value (in fact gains some.) I have a healthy skepticism when it comes to politically useful 'facts' like these and thus don't take government-commissioned reports even with many citations on face value. That doesn't deserve condescension.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    When someone says "why don't you read XXX instead of jumping to conclusions", and it turns out you not only haven't read XXX but refuse to, the claim that their statement is rude becomes a little hollow.
    - anon1385 13y ago
      He pointed out that the study did not appear to be a peer reviewed scientific study, and asked if this was really the case. He was told to read it himself, but reading the report yourself doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the review/publishing process for the report. (Of course since it's not in a scientific journal the chance it received peer review is pretty low.) Telling somebody to read something themselves may or may not be rude, but it certainly wasn't an answer to the question. I know everybody on HN likes to think they are an expert in everything, but reading 'reports' by think tanks or other political institutions, even ones that cite scientific studies, is a good way to confirm your own biases, but not a necessarily a good way to educate yourself about contentious issues. If you are not familiar with the area of research you won't know what has been missed or ignored or proven unrepeatable or flawed. A peer reviewed meta-study would be much more likely to include the full cross section of available research.
      - tptacek 13y ago
        You're probably right, but I think your point is orthogonal to mine. Being told to read something is insulting and rude if the presumption should be that you'd already read it before commenting, but that presumption vanishes when you militantly declaim that you shouldn't have to read things. I'm biased because I sympathize with the "rude" commenter, in that I think discussions would be better on HN if people took more time to read linked sources and spent less time promoting their own preconceptions. Also, if this community is as smart as it likes to think it is (no comment), it should be able to extract credible content from think-tank reports without succumbing to their intended conclusions.
        singular 13y ago
        You assume the rudeness is in being told to read it, rather than the tone of that. Actually it was the way he went about it, like I said, without that preface to his comment it loses no content and gains civility. There was no need, and my point stood as the kind parent suggests without my having read it. So I disagree, your point is not orthogonal. I'm not as smart as many in this community think they are (the majority are also almost certainly actually much smarter than me), so I don't trust my ability to assess the scientific quality of the report. I'm happy to have my preconceptions changed by the way, but I want to have some certainty - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the claim that pornography harms children in any significant way seems to me to be quite extraordinary, and very clearly full of confounding factors, so I want to see an extensive metastudy. Surely it's sensible for somebody to be able to critique very strong scientific claims that come not from a scientific journal but a government sponsored report by a committee which might reasonably be suspected of bias? Or do I have to read all the literature every time to be able to question that?

hahainternet 13y ago

Why didn't you just read the report instead of jumping to conclusions? In fact the evidence portion of this is based off over 100 different sources and appears to have been produced by 3 universities.

singular 13y ago
It seems like you didn't read my comment... > Please correct me if the report is of equivalent quality. Like I said, I'm no expert, so even if I had time to read the report (I don't) it isn't a scientific metastudy. It's a report, by a quite possibly (probably) biased organisation. So unless I had some special knowledge about the area (I don't) or time to review it in detail (nope) I don't know whether to trust it or not vs. a scentific metastudy. A weary aside (I am not interested in arguing on the internet cf. http://xkcd.com/386/ http://xkcd.com/386/) Your rudeness is totally uncalled for. If you excise that rude first sentence your post loses no value (in fact gains some.) I have a healthy skepticism when it comes to politically useful 'facts' like these and thus don't take government-commissioned reports even with many citations on face value. That doesn't deserve condescension.
- tptacek 13y ago
  When someone says "why don't you read XXX instead of jumping to conclusions", and it turns out you not only haven't read XXX but refuse to, the claim that their statement is rude becomes a little hollow.
  - anon1385 13y ago
    He pointed out that the study did not appear to be a peer reviewed scientific study, and asked if this was really the case. He was told to read it himself, but reading the report yourself doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the review/publishing process for the report. (Of course since it's not in a scientific journal the chance it received peer review is pretty low.) Telling somebody to read something themselves may or may not be rude, but it certainly wasn't an answer to the question. I know everybody on HN likes to think they are an expert in everything, but reading 'reports' by think tanks or other political institutions, even ones that cite scientific studies, is a good way to confirm your own biases, but not a necessarily a good way to educate yourself about contentious issues. If you are not familiar with the area of research you won't know what has been missed or ignored or proven unrepeatable or flawed. A peer reviewed meta-study would be much more likely to include the full cross section of available research.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      You're probably right, but I think your point is orthogonal to mine. Being told to read something is insulting and rude if the presumption should be that you'd already read it before commenting, but that presumption vanishes when you militantly declaim that you shouldn't have to read things. I'm biased because I sympathize with the "rude" commenter, in that I think discussions would be better on HN if people took more time to read linked sources and spent less time promoting their own preconceptions. Also, if this community is as smart as it likes to think it is (no comment), it should be able to extract credible content from think-tank reports without succumbing to their intended conclusions.
      - singular 13y ago
        You assume the rudeness is in being told to read it, rather than the tone of that. Actually it was the way he went about it, like I said, without that preface to his comment it loses no content and gains civility. There was no need, and my point stood as the kind parent suggests without my having read it. So I disagree, your point is not orthogonal. I'm not as smart as many in this community think they are (the majority are also almost certainly actually much smarter than me), so I don't trust my ability to assess the scientific quality of the report. I'm happy to have my preconceptions changed by the way, but I want to have some certainty - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the claim that pornography harms children in any significant way seems to me to be quite extraordinary, and very clearly full of confounding factors, so I want to see an extensive metastudy. Surely it's sensible for somebody to be able to critique very strong scientific claims that come not from a scientific journal but a government sponsored report by a committee which might reasonably be suspected of bias? Or do I have to read all the literature every time to be able to question that?