Comment by like_any_other
4 days ago
> You trust your pilot to do their job
In this case, the "pilot" (the combined media and researcher science communication system) is deliberately steering the plane into the side of a mountain. A coin flip would do a better job. They've burned their credibility to the ground, and you're trying to repair it by invoking other professions that haven't done so.
Okay, I’ll bite. Who exactly is “they”? How have they burned their credibility to the ground? And how does reading scientific papers yourself address this issue if in your telling it was created by people who are no better than a coin flip?
Well, this study and the BBC's reporting on it (ignoring the misleading title) isn't quite as bad as worse-than-coin-flip, but the study from my other comment [1] is worse-than-coin flip - not only did they fail to adjust for birth weight, they even cut out data they didn't like [2]. So "they" varies by field, institute, and researcher.
[1] https://dailycaller.com/2025/03/31/exclusive-researchers-axe... (every claim the article makes is backed up by attached FOIA'd documents, so you don't have to take the Daily Caller at their word if you don't trust them)
Okay, let’s even grant you both studies at face value based on your description.
Are two studies enough to “burn their credibility to the grounds”?
Science is a process, not individual studies. Your daily caller article is actually a good example of this. It is a replication study that disproves the original study. This is how science is supposed to work; not by hinging on one individual paper (as influencers and cranks do) but on the sum total of the scientific literature. (well in this case you need less papers if you can prove obvious mistakes or misconduct)
The process cannot guarantee that every single paper is True. But, if followed, it guarantees that in time it will self correct.
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