From the farthest corners of the Internet comes yet another tale of either woefully sloppy or simply disingenuous media hype. This one in the form of aliens
à la secret X-Files! So, when two respectable publishers posted about NASA finding alien life, it took the
Bad Astronomer to take on the
really bad reporting:
This sort of thing is upsetting because it diminishes real science being done to look for life on other worlds, and it also inures the public to it as well.
This isn’t my first rodeo; I’ve spent hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of words debunking bad news stories about science. I know this will always be a problem. But in a time when the government cries “fake news” every time a story is published that goes against them, I think it’s more important than ever to have our critical thinking caps on when we read the news.
Alas, if only there were some sort of high speed “telegraph” system and experienced scientists and science reporters readily available on it, who are willing to work cheap, or at no cost at all, and on short notice to get the basic science right. … And of course, the answer is, there are. Which begs the question: did the news sites in question do it intentionally?
- Last week we had a great discussion in comments about the problems tech companies seem to have finding qualified people willing to work cheap, even though tons of such people are applying for those jobs. But no clear resolution to the mystery of how the employers keep missing qualified candidates, although I thought this comment was worth highlighting.
- According to the inept orcs that hijacked the GOP, no one in the US has ever died from lack of access to health care! It’s just that access to the the newest, most expensive drugs can add a decade to the lives of HIV patients, and that’s probably true for many other kinds of disease:
Our research illustrates a success story of how improved HIV treatments coupled with screening, prevention and treatment of health problems associated with HIV infection can extend the life span of people diagnosed with HIV ...