but this is not entirely academia's fault. I'm reminded of the ongoing conversation about alcohol's impact on our health. Over the decades, if you've consumed mainstream media, you've been told everything from "2 glasses of wine per day is good for you" to "no amount of alcohol is good for you" and everything in between.
What's difficult is that it's hard to communicate the nuance of what a study actually studied. How many people were involved? What were the methods used? What was the effect size? What were the confounding factors that couldn't be controlled for? None of this can be effectively communicated in a world that reads headlines and probably not much beyond that.
And of course, the media does sensationalize because they're incentivized to. You'll click a headline that says "alcohol is good for you, says science" but probably won't click a headline that tries to communicate the nuance.
I think the end result is the same. Outsiders should be highly skeptical of reporting on topics which take decades of expertise to start to understand.
People seem to feel compelled to form an opinion on every topic, and then think that whatever their take is must be informed.
It is okay to not have an opinion on a topic!
If someone is particularly interested in obtaining an armature understanding of a subject, by all means, they should jump in and form on opinion, but maintaining some humility is essential.
What's difficult is that it's hard to communicate the nuance of what a study actually studied. How many people were involved? What were the methods used? What was the effect size? What were the confounding factors that couldn't be controlled for? None of this can be effectively communicated in a world that reads headlines and probably not much beyond that.
And of course, the media does sensationalize because they're incentivized to. You'll click a headline that says "alcohol is good for you, says science" but probably won't click a headline that tries to communicate the nuance.