

This is a news website article about a scientific paper - harscoat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/sep/24/1?CMP=twt_gu

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Eliezer
This is a clever and witty comment which points out that the original paper
couldn't possibly have meant what the journalist said it did.

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wheaties
This is a reply to your comment pointing out that you missed one tiny fact and
disagreeing with your comment on the basis of that fact, regardless of your
arguments merits.

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RyanMcGreal
In this unbearably nitpicky reply, I point out that you forgot an apostrophe
in your penultimate word.

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DavidSJ
He forgot the part where he claims the paper demonstrates a causal link from A
and B, when in fact the paper merely demonstrates a correlation, and the
scientists explicitly warned that A may not cause B.

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gjm11
This is a comment pointing out that the idea is probably copied shamelessly
from <http://faultline.org/index.php/site/item/incendiary/> which in turn
copies equally shamelessly and equally without attribution from David Moser's
wonderful short story found here <http://consc.net/misc/moser.html> .

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swombat
This is a comment pointing that "there is nothing new under the sun", as the
Ecclesiastes puts it.

This comment also suggests that it is probable that the ancient greeks made
self-referential text jokes too, thousands of years ago.

The final part of this comment bemoans the lack of progress of humanity from
this and other standpoints.

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Robin_Message
The way news website don't cite the actual papers they are writing about bugs
me. It's not hard to dig up the paper. It's not all the journalist's fault
though: Most press releases don't cite the actual research properly either.

Also, this article is right to call out the desire of news outlets to create
controversy, even when there is none. However, more often they tend to just
repeat the gushing, enthusiastic statements of the university or charity PR
department, with no conception of when and indeed if the research will
actually lead to anything in the real world.

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tokenadult
And this news article format is why I mention Peter Norvig's online essay
about how to read research reports

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

in comments to most HN submissions of such articles that I see.

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timthorn
Also a good proxy for recent BBC Horizon programmes, I'm afraid.

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arethuza
I used to watch Horizon a lot when I was a kid in the '70s and '80s (I
particularly remember the "Painting by Numbers" program where they covered the
state of the art in computer graphics).

However, when I have watched it more recently it seems terrible - very "pop
science" with lots of annoying repetition. What I don't know is whether the
old Horizons were actually any better or whether it is me getting a lot older,
or a combination of both!

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almost
Seem here, except I was a kid watching it in the 90s.

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arethuza
Thinking about this a bit more I suspect it is largely the quality of the
programs. I watched Sagan's Cosmos when it first came out and have watched it
recently and I thought it stood up pretty well.

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RyanMcGreal
Here's a recent example of a news website writing a _good_ article about a
scientific paper:

[http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/09/gamers-make-
fast...](http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/09/gamers-make-faster-
decisions-than-nongamers-are-just-as-accurate.ars)

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some1else
How meta :-)

Reminds me of CNN's "Nothing is happening" and another BBC news cast
"tutorial", I think it was done by Ricky Gervais. These things just sink into
the web somehow, does anyone have a bookmark left?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Charlie Brooker - How To Report The News

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtGSXMuWMR4>

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gort
Is this actually about something? The "journal link" goes to creationist site
Answers in Genesis and its "journal", however I cannot find anything relevant
there...

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gdickie
This is the paragraph where the research is described as a significant step in
fighting terror, curing cancer, or solving world hunger.

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Evgeny
This is a comment asking if someone can provide a tl;dr version.

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zeynel1
He described generic New York Times article about "science." Academic
physicists know that a mention in the first page of the New York Times earns
them more professional points in the form of fame than the actual article.

