Why does Science News Suck So Much?

In today's video I air my frustration about science news and what's wrong with it. From missing uncertainty estimates to talking about the dreaded scientific consensus.

#scicomm #science

0:00 Intro
00:39 Show me your uncertainty estimate
1:43 Cite your sources
3:07 Put a date on it
3:52 Tell me the history
4:42 Don't oversimply it
5:44 It depends, but on what?
6:46 Tell me the whole story
7:37 Spare me the human interest stuff
8:13 Don't forget that science is fallible
8:59 Science doesn't work by consensus
11:14 Sponsor message

[nussbert]

It's not only science news. Everytime I read about topics I'm at least somewhat well informed it's just frustrating to realize how many mistakes are made.

[Josh_Fredman]

My biggest pet peeve in science news and in all news (well, all print news, but that's pretty close to "all news") is the headline writing. Headlines are written by different staff from the story authors, in an effort to garner more interest. But this leads to compromised headlines that are uninformative, passive-aggressive, or just plain wrong, and it drives me nuts.

[bigbobelow]

For me its clickbait, it feels like every other day I see an headline about an asteroid heading straight for Earth only for the article to say "Actually no, no it's not".
Excellent videos btw Sabine, hugely interested in astronomy but can often be left confused by documentaries but your explanations get me closer to understanding, thx.

[demis]

I'd add one: the "everything is a revolutionary discovery" effect, that's the main reason i stopped reading science news from non specialized sites. Every one of two days there was a breaktrough in some field, and of course, almost all of them ended up in nothing. If a real discovery comes up, i will still hear from some other source.

[nziom]

Am doing my dissertation soon and MY GOD I relate to the citings and references part so much, I have to waste so much time on searching a source that is vaguely written and then it's a loop of websites that don't say where they got their information from

[materialknight]

The part about the dates hit reaaally close to home. That also applies to many other things, for example:

When I look for a software tutorial on how to do something, I do want to be hit in face with the date first because if it is too old, I will know in advance that it might not be up to date, and that not finding an option that appears in the tutorial might be an indication, not that there is a problem with my version, but simply that the menus have already changed.

[dougieh]

Being a CNC machinist and welder for 25 years, numbers without a plus or minus “tolerance” make no sense to me either. There’s no such thing as a perfect integer unless you’re enjoying pure mathematics.
Love your channel. ❤️❤️❤️

[diGritz]

It's nice to hear someone voice the same frustrations you have. Unfortunately in today's world the number of clicks a story/article generates is far more important then the actual content. And it's only going to get worse.

[lennywintfeld]

Some science news outlets are primarily selling readers to advertisers, and the story is the vehicle for this goal. In such cases the story is structured to attract readers (to be "compelling") and to a lesser extent to be complete, accurate and open ("scientific"), which may be overwhelming or boring to the general reader.

[machevellian]

'Spare me the human-interest stuff' Your explanation was perfect, thank you for putting words to my feelings!

[JesseDriftwood]

Funny enough, the thing I hate most about science news, is also the thing that got me interested in science: sensationalism!
I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was, but the first articles that peaked my interest were of the “this new discovery changes EVERYTHING we know about physics and existence!!” type articles. Thankfully I got to the point where I decided to learn about actual physics, before I try and learn about the buzz feed thing that somehow “cHaNgEs EvErYtHiNg!!!!”

[BobRossa]

This has probably been said a few times here. One of the things I hate is when I see some amazing story title about a discovery and when I read the article it turns out they "discovered" whatever it is in some computer model.

[Siansonea]

I think all of your critiques of science news applies to other types of news as well. I hate how long-winded and precious some so-called journalism is these days, especially in the 'prestige' publications. When I am trying to educate myself about world events, I don't want poetry, I want information. Thanks for everything you do, Sabine, you really do have a rare gift as a science educator.

[AndrewErwin]

I had statistics professor who was fond of saying "statistics don't lie, but statisticians often do", especially when discussing correlation vs causation.

[bartpander]

My science news pet peeves (next to the ones you already mentioned, agree with all of them): 1.Everything is always a breakthrough, even it is just as small addition to some work already done in the 1960ies. 2. Presenting the cool stuf that was done already a decade ago as the news, without mentioning the actual new science because that would sound kinda boring. 3. Publishing claims from commercial enterprises as independent science. 4. Publishing ideas, proposals, hypotises etc as facts.
5. Reporting realy shoddy science in the same tone as the great work.

[xarniia]

I "love" it when the conclusion in the article is different than from the paper or even the paper states that can't be concluded.

[icaleinns]

Content like this is exactly the reason why I watch this channel! Keep it up Sabine!

[thomasbell]

Thank you. I am a journalist who often writes about highly technical subjects and you are right about common transgressions in science writing. (Not by me, of course.)
But there's a major problem you didn't address: Very few readers have PhD's in physics. They bore easily and will stop reading when you start to explain the science. Sometimes it helps to "trick" them into reading with some human interest stuff. I first learned that while writing about cold fusion decades ago.

[johneonas]

Thank you for the video. Most science articles are clickbait.

[ShawnHCorey]

Biggest problem with popular science articles: sensationalism sells. In other words, never let science stand in the way of profit.