> "The problem is not these supposed 'reversals', but rather how this information is being reported."
The reporting is terrible, but I think there is a problem with the research itself. There's little apparent awareness by many researchers of the limitations of single studies, perhaps because they have been heavily indoctrinated re: the significance of p-values, etc., or perhaps because their careers depend on it.
It's the researchers themselves writing "We show that ____", as if their single study with 20 participants all of whom are starving college freshmen CONCLUSIVELY proves such-and-such completely bizarre point which all previous observations have flatly contradicted. Then the media gobble it up, with all the authority of "science" to back them up, and when further research refutes the flawed study, nobody pays attention.
The reporting is terrible, but I think there is a problem with the research itself. There's little apparent awareness by many researchers of the limitations of single studies, perhaps because they have been heavily indoctrinated re: the significance of p-values, etc., or perhaps because their careers depend on it.
It's the researchers themselves writing "We show that ____", as if their single study with 20 participants all of whom are starving college freshmen CONCLUSIVELY proves such-and-such completely bizarre point which all previous observations have flatly contradicted. Then the media gobble it up, with all the authority of "science" to back them up, and when further research refutes the flawed study, nobody pays attention.