Even though I am sort of “the progress guy,” I am very reluctant to share/amplify stories about supposed breakthroughs in science/technology, especially when reported in the “science news” of the mainstream press.
Let me try to articulate why.
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Basically, this stuff is usually overhyped. If every headline were true we'd be living in a Star Trek future by now.
Often the study represents a small, incremental step towards a distant goal, but is reported as if it had practically achieved that goal.
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Sometimes it's not even that good. Sometimes studies are just wrong or meaningless, and their tenuous conclusions are repeated by credulous journalists.
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Real breakthroughs are pretty rare. And in science, they usually don't come from a single study. They are the accumulation of many studies, over decades—and the consensus builds gradually, such that there is no single moment when it has happened.
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A lot of the problem actually comes from the practice of reporting on individual studies.
I tend to think that science news should almost never do this, because of how little any one paper means. But it is easy and natural and it is the standard practice.
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“Aquinas famously said: beware the man of one book. I would add: beware the man of one study”
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Some things that give me more confidence that a thing is real and important:
1. If it's reported by a journalist/blogger I trust, e.g . In medicine I would trust . Etc.
2. Similarly, if I hear it via social media from a domain expert who says it's a big deal
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3. If it's a meta-analysis instead of a single study
4. If it's an actual product, service, treatment, etc. available now or very soon (on a specified date) to actual customers/patients/whatever
What would you add?
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limerick?
as much as we love innovation,
i value more implementation!
what's published, i see
is chosen to be
increasingly hype & sensation!
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