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>If anything is a serious danger to humans here, it's not Roundup, it's reporting like this. What exactly is so horrible about Bloomberg's reporting in this in

by rl3 12y ago

>If anything is a serious danger to humans here, it's not Roundup, it's reporting like this. What exactly is so horrible about Bloomberg's reporting in this instance? Did you even read the article? Half of it is essentially defending Roundup.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
I did. It doesn't really defend or accuse Roundup, it just gives a bunch of quotes from both sides. And that's ok. My issue is that there's no attempt at specifying the significance of the problem. Saying "it (maybe) causes cancer" doesn't say absolutely anything about how dangerous it actually is - both in absolute terms and relative to alternatives. I think that "X causes cancer" articles should be considered harmful.
- fit2rule 12y ago
  >I think that "X causes cancer" articles should be considered harmful. Well then your opinion is highly un-intelligent and socially specious, because cancer sucks and if people can avoid it by being educated about the nature of what causes it, thats a good thing. Why would you like the world to get more cancer?
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    What I'm saying is that those article should specify threat level. Cancers are not equal to each other, cancer risks even more so. Article claiming "asbestos has a stupidly high risk of giving you a lung cancer when inhaled, get rid of it" is ok. Article saying "coffee increases chance of prostate cancer in mice by 0.03% (p<0.05)" is also fine. Note that the first is a serious public health hazard, while the second is something irrelevant - you're about as likely to get killed by a car driven by a shark than by a prostate cancer from coffee. But when you lump the two together, saying just that "asbestos/coffee causes cancer", you breed paranoia.
  - gus_massa 12y ago
    Car accidents also suck, but no one is proposing to ban all the cars. The idea is to make them safer. High speed accidents are more dangerous than low speed accidents, but people still complain that they like to drive faster. Talking with the cell phone while driving increase the accident rate, it' banned in some place, but I think it's not banned in USA. IIRC texting while driving is not banned in USA, even when it's clearly more dangerous because you have to put your eyes on the phone instead of the road. The word is full of tradeoff. A mammography increase slightly your cancer risk, but it can detect small cancers so it increase the life length. But if the mammographies are too frequent, the chance to detect a new cancer decrease (because it has no time to appear) and the chance to create a new cancer increase (because you get more radiation). A few years ago, they reduced the recommendation from one mammography each year to one mammography every two years, because once a year was too much. (Check the current recommendation with your medical doctor, it depends on the age and other factors.)
- rl3 12y ago
  I get what you're saying. However, the article having a high degree of brevity isn't really cause to shoot the messenger in this case. What was reported was factually correct. Bloomberg isn't obligated to provide in-depth context and analysis of the issue. If people want to take interest in the underlying science, they can. If people want to be stupid and jump to conclusions to support whatever biased position they hold, they can do that too. Either way, it's not the article's problem.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    It is the article's problem. A ballpark range of the risk is necessary to even get close to understanding the issue. Reporting without that is worse than nothing. It leaves people further from informed than they previously were.
    - rl3 12y ago
      Imagine if we were talking about a tweet, and that tweet simply mentioned the existence of the WHO report in question. I highly doubt it would be subject to the same level of condemnation. The article may as well be the journalistic equivalent of that. Its purpose isn't to provide an in-depth understanding of the issue, it's simply saying an event occurred that is notable.
      - TeMPOraL 12y ago
        People give different weight to tweets and articles, in a similar way they do to a HN comment and a blog post. In both cases, the former is less "official" than the latter. I agree that the line between these two types of responses can be blurred at times.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    I disagree. The job of the press is - or should be - to inform people. It's not about "in-depth context and analysis"; what bundling everything under "causes cancer" does is provide negative information. > If people want to be stupid and jump to conclusions to support whatever biased position they hold, they can do that too. I understand that you can't be responsible for people being randomly stupid, but if the stupidity is systematic and predictable, then indeed it becomes your responsibilty if you know about it and play into it for profit.

by rl3 12y ago

TeMPOraL 12y ago

I did. It doesn't really defend or accuse Roundup, it just gives a bunch of quotes from both sides. And that's ok. My issue is that there's no attempt at specifying the significance of the problem. Saying "it (maybe) causes cancer" doesn't say absolutely anything about how dangerous it actually is - both in absolute terms and relative to alternatives. I think that "X causes cancer" articles should be considered harmful.

fit2rule 12y ago
>I think that "X causes cancer" articles should be considered harmful. Well then your opinion is highly un-intelligent and socially specious, because cancer sucks and if people can avoid it by being educated about the nature of what causes it, thats a good thing. Why would you like the world to get more cancer?
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  What I'm saying is that those article should specify threat level. Cancers are not equal to each other, cancer risks even more so. Article claiming "asbestos has a stupidly high risk of giving you a lung cancer when inhaled, get rid of it" is ok. Article saying "coffee increases chance of prostate cancer in mice by 0.03% (p<0.05)" is also fine. Note that the first is a serious public health hazard, while the second is something irrelevant - you're about as likely to get killed by a car driven by a shark than by a prostate cancer from coffee. But when you lump the two together, saying just that "asbestos/coffee causes cancer", you breed paranoia.
- gus_massa 12y ago
  Car accidents also suck, but no one is proposing to ban all the cars. The idea is to make them safer. High speed accidents are more dangerous than low speed accidents, but people still complain that they like to drive faster. Talking with the cell phone while driving increase the accident rate, it' banned in some place, but I think it's not banned in USA. IIRC texting while driving is not banned in USA, even when it's clearly more dangerous because you have to put your eyes on the phone instead of the road. The word is full of tradeoff. A mammography increase slightly your cancer risk, but it can detect small cancers so it increase the life length. But if the mammographies are too frequent, the chance to detect a new cancer decrease (because it has no time to appear) and the chance to create a new cancer increase (because you get more radiation). A few years ago, they reduced the recommendation from one mammography each year to one mammography every two years, because once a year was too much. (Check the current recommendation with your medical doctor, it depends on the age and other factors.)
rl3 12y ago
I get what you're saying. However, the article having a high degree of brevity isn't really cause to shoot the messenger in this case. What was reported was factually correct. Bloomberg isn't obligated to provide in-depth context and analysis of the issue. If people want to take interest in the underlying science, they can. If people want to be stupid and jump to conclusions to support whatever biased position they hold, they can do that too. Either way, it's not the article's problem.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  It is the article's problem. A ballpark range of the risk is necessary to even get close to understanding the issue. Reporting without that is worse than nothing. It leaves people further from informed than they previously were.
  - rl3 12y ago
    Imagine if we were talking about a tweet, and that tweet simply mentioned the existence of the WHO report in question. I highly doubt it would be subject to the same level of condemnation. The article may as well be the journalistic equivalent of that. Its purpose isn't to provide an in-depth understanding of the issue, it's simply saying an event occurred that is notable.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      People give different weight to tweets and articles, in a similar way they do to a HN comment and a blog post. In both cases, the former is less "official" than the latter. I agree that the line between these two types of responses can be blurred at times.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  I disagree. The job of the press is - or should be - to inform people. It's not about "in-depth context and analysis"; what bundling everything under "causes cancer" does is provide negative information. > If people want to be stupid and jump to conclusions to support whatever biased position they hold, they can do that too. I understand that you can't be responsible for people being randomly stupid, but if the stupidity is systematic and predictable, then indeed it becomes your responsibilty if you know about it and play into it for profit.