renegade7 said:
So if I understand this properly, you're saying that we need to fight shitty, biased, reactionary journalism written by people with no understanding of the subject with more shitty, biased, reactionary journalism, written by people with no understanding of the subject?
I know, probably better than anyone here, the extent to which popular science reporters can fail to properly understand what they're writing about. The solution to this is not play their game, hushing up or going into full-on defensive mode any time an inconvenient result is found, and it's not to attack the competence of the researchers or the integrity of the results, otherwise you're no better than nutjobs like Ken Ham. Rather, the solution is to emphasize that:
-Moral judgments, normative social arguments, and policy recommendations should not be drawn from single studies
-Most psychological and sociological studies are limited in scope to a particular set of circumstances, and studies in those areas never make the claim that influence X universally directly causes behavior Y
-Initial studies like this one report only on correlation, not on causation, and the studies make no pretense of claiming causation
-The abstract of the study is made readily available and should always be read first
That sounds pretty reasonable. Though, I find your point: "he solution to this is not play their game, hushing up or going into full-on defensive mode any time an inconvenient result is found, and it's not to attack the competence of the researchers or the integrity of the results," way too naive. It's been proven to me again and again, especially in my political spheres and from my own party, that non-discussion or no arguments make it worse.
And what really irritates me about how bad the Escapist's reporting here was is the fact that they didn't even bother to reach out to the researchers and ask them to discuss their results.
If that kind of diligence had been given, it would have been more clearly understood that this study actually weakens the claim that "violent video games cause violence" by, first, giving an example of how susceptibility to desensitization is variable based on individual characteristics of players and secondly by showing that only a small minority of players, most of whom had pretty clear predispositions towards aggression to begin with, showed enough desensitization to cause concern.
I agree that Lizzy should have had the decency to reach out to the authors of the study. But please explain to me why this is fanfared as proof of building misogyny in gamers through video games when it was so cut and dry.
Really, which part of it? Here's the paper, in full, in case you need to look through it again: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0152121#sec008
I make no promises but I might later if you care at all.
- Wikipedia has helped thousands of students to their degree. How can you not see that?
First, where exactly was I talking about Wikipedia?
What makes you believe that I was talking specifically to/about you?
Second, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a teaching resource. Encyclopedia articles are written by and for people who already have a high level of background understanding of the material, they will not introduce a person to a subject or give you the kind of information you'd need to get by in college courses.
That opinion is true and should be the case. Fact of the matter is that your opinion is out of this world, far from any reality. I am in school and have been for 16 years in total. The majority of my friends have a degree, one in Informatik Bachelor of Science, one specialized in the economy sector of informatics (don't know the exact name for an accurate translation right now), and one is trying something in mechanics. Wikipedia was a major source to them for information, sometimes as a summary of a certain part in a specific book to quickly mark them as a credible source - with success. All my more recent "class mates" have used Wikipedia, the teachers in recent years allowed Wikipedia to be a source by itself, further increasing its credibility as an independant institution. The meme to cite Wikipedia as a source didn't come off as a joke, at least nowadays it isn't.
But maybe that's totally different in the US.
You can argue if this is good or bad, and I would probably (at least when concluding your statements) agree with you. But it simply isn't the reality. Wikipedia is actively shaping opinions.
I don't "defend" studies, I only point out that denial and accusations of conspiracy are not productive ways to engage with a scientific result, even if that result is uncomfortable or inconvenient. As a researcher myself, I can attest to the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientists are acting in good faith, and that regardless we have basically nothing to gain from conspiring in the ways we usually are accused of.
Or am I just in on the conspiracy?
Institutes don't get funded privately? And you've never seen faulty, finished, published results?
Oh, that is just rich. "Glamour and power"? I'd like to know where scientists are being given glamorous and powerful lives, maybe they're accepting applications.
I'd suggest that you take this less personal. Maybe you haven't experienced it, but if people read "scientists have found out that", they usually tend to believe what is written next. I don't mean a researcher's live is glamorous, I mean that to the general public, you know, those whose opinion publications tend to want, scientists have a certain authority.
With this point in particular, I meant that publications abuse the supposed prestige.
You mean cases where someone spent a lot of money bribing a group of psychologists to fabricate a study designed to contribute to the brainwashing of society into thinking
As an example:
That is what in most Social Justice courses throughout the US happens, except that
that some sexist people sometimes become more sexist when they're given an opportunity to act sexist?
Wouldn't make much sense since this is not where the misuse stems from. Do you
believe in The White, Cis-Shet, Capitalistic Patriarchy?
Just an example.
Forgive me if that seems far fetched. But then again, if I was in on the conspiracy, that's exactly what I'd want you to think, isn't it?
Do you feel insulted personally?
I'd go into more detail, but I have to start getting ready for work, and it takes so long to get into my human disguise in a way that convincingly hides my reptilian features.
You at least act as you were part of a collective, taking any insult personally and compensating with sarcastic remarks. Why? I maybe failed to make clear who misused what and who I deem absolutely nefarious instead of just corrupt. Hopefully, this makes more sense to you. I don't know you, or were you part of this publication? Gee, man. I fight for bigger science funding. I simply can't trust anyone, after so many bogus publications, that accepts a high amount of private funding,
especially when I know who funded what (WHICH I DON'T KNOW HERE, SO DON'T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS) and then see a suspect publication again.
What a disgrace. And only because renowned publications have a fail-rate of 50% (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) doesn't make it better
Yopaz said:
Did you know that 50% of the articles published in Nature in neurobiology has been shown to be incorrect in their analysis and should be retracted? That one third of publications in life science in general can not be replicated by independent laboratories? Why aren't there articles on that? Shoddy science happens in every field, it's a huge problem, but every single article doesn't require a long article which (poorly) picks it apart. The peer review system needs to improve and all journals need to agree on certain standards.
