Most news is sensationalist, prone to speculation and exagerration (sic), and has nothing to do with those things either.
Good news reporting, sure. I'd say science deals most closely with reality and truths, but I suppose that would be opening an oft-tread can of worms for this forum.
People are (which is where your question has some merit), but the methods are not. News publications are by necessity and design prone to such things.
Properly controlled science is devoid of speculation, it deals only with empirical data. Though the results or lack thereof can obviously be slanted or used toward an agenda, which is what I think you're trying to imply with your question. And you have a point, but we're talking about two different things.
So the institution of science, which would include the politics and agendas, isn't devoid of problems, but the actual methods are free of the things I mentioned. News, in contrast, has no standardized rule set, and no objective criteria for measurement or merit.
Scientific Literature: "The statistical methods [-reference three statistical methods-] produced by [-insert references-] suggest that the sky is most likely blue (P=[some number], [some number], [some number]). This is consistent with [-insert three theories of physics-]. [-Insert neurology theory-] suggests color to be a subjective value, and disagreement is understandable. Opposing opinions can be found [-here-].
News does have a standardized rule set, even if it isn't written out like the scientific method; it's supposed to be the "factual" relaying of events-seems to have empirical qualities, no? Both news and science are subject to bias and human error, that's the nature of the beasts. What?
I should be clearer. Science is not prone to speculation and exaggeration. Speculation and exaggeration can be found within scientific literature, but such mistakes are not encouraged and considerable efforts are taken to root them out.
Fair enough. And to the credit of some news agencies, news articles can be found that reference their sources, draw a defined line between a report of the evidence and an interpretation of the evidence, and open up discussions for peer reviews from competing news agencies. That, by definition, seems "not prone to speculation and exaggeration."
KMC Community Forums
Jul 14th, 2011 09:06 AM
