Media reporting on science

Everyday, we view/hear/read reports in all forms of media of scientific or medical things. Surveys tell us that people trust doctors the most and journalists the least.

So why do we believe the scare mongering in medical and science reports written by journalists?

This rant involves some numbers. Beware.

Ok, so basically, there are things called "relative" and "absolute" numbers. If in a media report you see the headline "COCAINE USE BY SCHOOL CHILDREN DOUBLES", then this is (almost certainly) a relative value, by this it means a 100% increase of the original percentage. In this case the use had risen from 1% to 2% - so the relative increase is 100%. Understand? In this case, the absolute number for the increase is 1%.

Note that in this particular real headline, the real statistics were 1.4% and 1.9%, the media got it wrong due to poor research and god damn civil servants rounding figures to make the situation sound bad. Fools!

Anyway, so already you can see how the media can make big (technically legitimate) claims, due to the phenomenon of relative statistics and how they can cause the audience to jump to conclusions. Here's another case.

"IBUPROFEN CAUSES HEART ATTACKS!" Yep, you heard me, this was the claim. It is technically true, but the actual figures were that out of 1,055 people who took the drug, there was an increase of a SINGLE HEART ATTACK. Enough for a front page headline? I shall not dignify that rhetorical question with a proper answer.

Always remember, the business model of the media is to attract our attention. Unfortunately, this often involves scaring us or twisting statistics.

"MMR CAUSES AUTISM!" Now this is the big one. A few years back research was conducted and it found that MMR caused autism. The actual research, quite interestingly, involved children with autism. Of the 12 children in the study, 8 had had the MMR jab. A (tiny) result! This finding was pounced upon by the media and lauded as proof that doctors are nazis who don't care about our well being and that the government is saving money at the expense of our health yada yada yada...

Anyways, research done by scientists in Denmark. Research of nearly 450,000 children, found absolutely NO link between autism and having the MMR jab. A meta analysis of research from three other countries came to the exact same conclusion.

Guess what? The media systematically ignored these major findings, I guess because they were "boring".

As I said, the media survives because they are so efficient at grabbing our attention. I'll also note that most science reports are done by general journalists with no qualification on what they are discussing. Science today is incredibly complicated. Can anyone within 10 metres of you fix a modern car now? Almost certainly not, 50 years ago - cars were so simple that anyone with a spanner could have a decent go. This analogy holds for the science world.

I'd like to add that all research results posted in this rant are real statistics, however shocking they are(n't). Not just figments of my imagination.


I advise reading Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, it inspired me to rant about this topic and is a great read!