On Mar 28, 5:12=A0pm, MichaelP <papa...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Author points out that scientists don't rely on non-science media for
> their scientific knowledge. Also describes the unreliability of
> (aallegedly) scientific conclusions presented in those non-science
media.
>
> ##############
>
> http://*****magazine.org/article/mad-science
>
> Mad Science: Deconstructing Bunk Re****ting in Five Easy Steps
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 By Beth Skwarecki
>
> =A0 *Beth Skwarecki majored in biology but ended up as a programmer and
a
> writer. She lives in Ithaca, New York.
>
> ***** Magazine --Spring Issue
>
> British scientists have uncovered the truth behind one of modern
culture's=
> greatest mysteries: why little girls play with pink toys. Is it because
> toy companies flood whole store aisles with the color? Or because
> well-meaning relatives shower girl babies with pink blankets and
clothing?=
> Nope. According to the men in lab coats, it's purely biological.
>
> Apparently, women are hardwired to like pink because our cavewoman
> foremothers spent their days gathering red leaves and berries amongst
the
> trees while their husbands were out hunting. Later, women needed to
notice=
> red-faced babies and blu****ng boyfriends. And why do men like blue?
> Because it's the color of the sky.
>
> This evolutionary just-so story takes up three pages of a 2007 issue of
> Current Biology. To back up the assertion that pink is a universal girly
> preference worth examining, the authors refer to a 1985 study finding
that=
> little girls use more pink and red crayons in their drawings than little
> boys do.
>
> Dig further, however, and the story completely falls apart.
>
> British women do prefer pink, but the author's claim of a "robust,
> cross-cultural *** difference" turns out to be neither. The scientists
> compared British natives with Chinese immigrants to Britain, and glossed
> over the differences. For example: The girliest color in the British
> results, a purplish-pink, was in fact the Chinese men's favorite.
>
> Nowhere do scientific findings get more mangled than when they're about
> the differences between men and women. According to the science pages,
> women aren't just biologically hardwired to prefer pink to blue. We're
> also predisposed to backstab one another in the workplace, cry in the
> boardroom, and have both lower iqs and less of a sense of humor than
men.
>
> Some misleading stories come from bad science, where the study authors'
> conclusions aren't sup****ted by their own data. Others are
well-conducted
> studies whose conclusions mutate upon contact with the mainstream media.
> Newspapers and websites are prone to playing fast and loose with their
> re****ts on studies, often neglecting to reveal salient facts about a
> study's sample group or methodology.
>
> The fact is that science articles aren't designed to be read by
> non-scientists. College and grad students in the sciences are trained in
> how to do it: They review papers and discuss them in journal clubs;
learn
> how to question methodologies (Is that sample really big enough? Was
that
> the right test to use?); and learn how to be critical of authors'
> interpretations (Do the results really mean what they say they mean?).
> Students also know to look at context for each study, looking up
previous
> papers on the subject, reviewing the authors' previous work, and
searching=
> out any evidence of bias that might color a study's findings.
>
> Journalists looking for a quick story, however, do little such research.
> And in an age where news sites, wire services, and blogs pick up stories
> with lightning-fast speed, bad research gets around. When London's
Sunday
> Times re****ted on a 2007 study claiming that men get dumber in the
> presence of blond women, the paper got the name of the journal wrong,
> citing the Journal of Experimental Psychology rather than the Journal of
> Experimental Social Psychology. Nearly every subsequent news article
> repeated the error because they were content to simply reword the Times'
> version of the story rather than finding and discussing the study
itself.
>
> The Times re****ted that blond-exposed subjects "mimic the unconscious
> stereotype of the dumb blonde." But that's not exactly what the study
> tested. Rather, subjects - most of them female - fared slightly worse on
> online trivia quizzes after rating hair color (is she a blond, brunet,
or
> redhead?) on pictures of beauty queens. You could just as easily say
that
> beauty queens make people dumb, or photos of dazzling smiles make people
> dumb. It seems this study made the news mostly because it could be
> illustrated with photos of Marilyn Monroe and filled out with dopey
quotes=
> from blond models and actresses, as well as blond jokes from the Times
> itself.
>
> Ben Goldacre, who writes the "Bad Science" column for the UK's Guardian,
> speculates that science stories come in three varieties: the wacky
story,
> the breakthrough story, and the scare story. Most widely re****ted
studies
> ongenderseem to fall into the wacky category - the supposed innate
> preference for pink is one of them - and their media strength is that
they=
> tend to sup****t existing stereotypes of women, reassuring readers that
> social stereotypes do, in fact, reflect reality.
>
> We can't put all the blame on mainstream media, of course. Scientists
are
> part of the same culture as the rest of us, and they too have biases
that
> shape their hypotheses and interpretations. The scientific community can
> also be as fad-driven as popular culture, creating a climate in which
many=
> researchers simultaneously geek out over one specific theory while
> competing ideas get lost or abandoned. So let's learn how to read
between
> the lines of these dubious articles. Next time you see an article
> re****ting that women are happiest when they're picking up their man's
> dirty socks, try asking these questions:
>
> 1. DO THE CONCLUSIONS FIT A LITTLE TOO WELL WITH CULTURAL STEREOTYPES?
>
> Science has the capacity to surprise and amaze us, but sometimes it's
more=
> satisfying when you can jump up and say, "Yes! I knew it all along!"
Which=
> is why articles touting the awesomeness of traditionalgenderroles are an
> evergreen subject in the science pages.
>
> A 2007 study from the American Society for Cancer Research journal
Cancer
> Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention titled "Physical activity and
> breast-cancer risk" found fame in such headlines as the BBC's "Housework
> cuts breast-cancer risk." That's not to mention the 2006 study on
> housework and cancer in Canadian women, the 2005 study on housework and
> cancer in Chinese women, or the 2004 study ... you get the idea. [See
> "Home Is Where the Cardio Is," ***** no. 27]
>
> The reality? Being physically active seems to help prevent cancer, and
the=
> researchers behind the recent studies have been counting housework as
> physical activity. Housework, s****ts, and active jobs all had
significant
> effects in reducing cancer risk, and the authors think the key may be
> frequent, low-impact exercise.
>
> An author on several of these studies, Christine Friedenreich, told the
> Calgary Herald that in past studies, researchers counted jobs like
> construction work as physical activity, but not housework - and it turns
> out that domestic tasks are, duh, hard work.
>
> This means that many women are getting more exercise than they (or their
> doctors) had realized. That should be good news for them - but instead,
> the message imparted by the news re****ts is, "Get back into the kitchen!
> That's all the exercise you need!"
>
> It's worth noting that one of the study's sponsors, Cancer Research UK,
> answered questions about the 2006 study on its website, pointing out
that
> for many of the older women in the study group, housework was their
> primary form of exercise. The organization went on to address charges of
> ***ism directly, making sure to mention a related 2006 study that found
> housework cuts the risk of bowel cancer for both men and women,
> concluding, "There's absolutely no excuse for men to dodge the dusting!"
>
> 2. DOES THE STUDY AGREE WITH THE HEADLINE?
>
> Behind every junk-science headline is a scientific journal article.
> Sometimes the university or organization that was home to the study
sends
> out a press release to mainstream outlets, hoping for attention; other
> times, journalists simply scan the abstracts of academic journals for
> newsworthy fodder. Chances are a story will make the papers if it's got
> some kind of hook - weird (like the idea that housework has curative
> properties), controversial (like claims that men are smarter than
women),
> can be illustrated with bikini babes (like the dumb-blond study), etc.
> Especially for online news outlets, these hooks are valuable because
they
> make good linkbait: the kind of thing they hope you'll forward to
friends
> or post on your blog.
>
> The London Times probably hadn't read the full study titled "Prejudice
> against women in male-congenial environments: Perceptions ofgender-role
> congruity in leader****p" when they summarized it under the headline
> "Office Queen Bees Hold Back Women's Careers" in a 2006 article. The
> paper's charge - that "women bosses are significantly more likely than
men=
> to discriminate against female employees" - may indeed have surprised
the
> study's authors.
>
> The actual study went something like this: Participants weren't put in a
> boss's role, but an observer's. They read a purposely vague description
of=
> a manager who was being considered for promotion and were asked to
imagine=
> how qualified the candidate was, and whether he or she was likely to
> succeed. The study made a number of interesting points that the Times
> could easily have re****ted on - for instance, that female managers were
> judged to have both very masculine and very feminine traits, possibly in
> an attempt to reconcile theirgenderwith the traditionally
> masculine-associated role of leader****p.
>
> Both the male and female participants were optimistic about the male
> manager's success, but not about the woman's (except when she worked in
a
> female-dominated industry). Sounds pretty realistic, right? The
> researchers thought so too. They write, "Participants' predictions about
> the [female] candidate's future salary ... mirrored the fact that women
> earn less money in the same position [than] men do in real life." So
where=
> are those "queen bees" that the Times so gleefully name-checked?
Exactly.
>
> It's not difficult to track down the science behind the story. Look for
> the names of the researchers, the journal their work appeared in, and
(if
> you're lucky) the title of the article. Type whatever info you've got
into=
> Google Scholar (www.scholar.google.com), and soon you'll be looking at
an
> abstract for the paper. Scientific journals are usually locked behind
> paywalls, unfortunately, so you may need to call upon a pal at a
> university for access to the entire study.
>
> 3. CAN YOU SPOT THE DOUBLE STANDARD?
>
> Whether it's lions fathering all the cubs in their pride, or human males
> getting a pass for cheating on their girlfriends, males sleeping around
> rarely make the news - it's the natural order, after all - unless the
> article is happily touting the genetic advantages a male gets from
> spreading his dna around.
>
> But when female cheetahs were found to do the same by a Zoological
Society=
> of London study, the study's words about "promiscuous" felines were
> quickly outnumbered in Google's index by the phrase, "cheetahs are
****s!"=
>
> Study author Dada Gottelli was quoted thus: "Mating with more than one
> male poses a serious threat to females, increasing the risk of exposure
to=
> parasites and diseases. Females also have to travel over large distances
> to find new mates, making them more vulnerable to predation." Sounds
like
> a cheetah-specific version of certain ***-ed curricula: Don't sleep
> around, girls, or you'll catch lots of diseases and the male cheetahs
> won't respect you in the morning. Male cheetahs, however, aren't
> "promiscuous" - they're creating a healthier gene pool.
>
> Not too surprising, then, that most of the coverage glossed over the
> evolutionary benefit of promiscuity for both male and female cheetahs:
> Multiple cubs by multiple cub daddies increases the likelihood of
genetic
> diversity - a definite positive for a threatened species. Furthermore,
the=
> study noted that the rates of infanticide in cheetahs are much lower
than
> in other big-cat populations, likely because male competitors don't know
> which offspring might be theirs. But why let the facts slow down a good
> headline?
>
> In a human example of a double-standard story, women were found to be
> "worse oglers" than men, according to the Sydney Morning Herald summary
of=
> a study published in the journal Hormones and Behavior. (The Herald
> inexplicably illustrated its story with headshots of Sharon Stone and
Mr.
> Bean). What does that even mean, you ask? When researchers showed
"***ual
> stimuli" (read: Internet ****) to hetero***ual men and women, they
> expected women to look more at faces and men to look more at genitals.
The=
> newspaper re****ted that, in fact, "almost the reverse was true."
>
> Actually, the study says that men looked at women's faces more than
women
> did, and men and women looked with equal frequency at the pictured
> genitals; women who weren't on oral contraceptives looked slightly more.
> So where did that headline come from?
>
> The study authors didn't originate the "worse oglers" language; they
even
> warn in the study that they can't say why subjects' gazes lingered where
> they did, or whether they were turned on as they looked. So it's not
fair
> to say that the study was about "ogling," a word that suggests that
> looking is lustful and perhaps inappropriate.
>
> To say that women are "worse" at ogling, we have to believe, first, that
> ogling is bad, and second, that men do it at some normal, baseline level
> that women are exceeding. The judgmental language makes it sound like
> women in the study were indulging a bad habit. Right there in the
headline=
> is the double standard: If men ogle, it's normal, but when women do it,
> they're "worse."
>
> 4. IS THERE ANOTHER CONCLUSION THAT WOULD BE JUST AS VALID?
>
> Sometimes a news story is an accurate representation of the scientists'
> conclusions, but the scientists' conclusions don't follow their results.
> Take this 2005 BBC headline: "Men Cleverer Than Women." The study, at
the
> time of the headline yet to be published in the British Journal of
> Psychology, claims that as iq scores rise, thegendergapwidens, with 5.5
> men for every woman scoring at the "genius" level of 155 or higher on iq
> tests. That's all the evidence the authors (one of whom, Richard Lynn,
has=
> published similar studies on racial differences in iq) give to sup****t
> their claim.
>
> But there is another, equally powerful explanation that's been
considered
> for years before this study came along: iq tests - which don't measure
> intelligence directly, but try to approximate it - have a wealth
ofgender,=
racial, and cultural biases.
>
> In a 2000 survey of *** differences in intelligence called "The Smarter
> ***: A Critical Review of *** Differences in Intelligence," in the
> Educational Psychology Review, Diane Halpern and Mary LaMay write that
> Lynn's approach "rests on the belief that the test of intelligence is
> really measuring what psychologists mean by intelligence, and that it is
> doing so in a way that will yield a fair *****sment for males and
females
> - two assumptions that may not be justified."
>
> Statistically, men do outperform women on certain types of questions,
but
> the reverse is also true; test designers use this fact to calibrate iq
> tests, balancing male-biased with female-biased questions so that men
and
> women average the same scores on the same test. Addressing Lynn's
research=
> directly, Halpern and LaMay say, "Using data from tests that are
designed
> to yield no *** differences to argue for a difference is psychometric
> nonsense." Either the tests were miscalibrated (and thus biased) or
Lynn's=
> results are a fluke: Probably the latter, since other studies (like a
1995=
> study on a population similar to Lynn's, done by scientists at the
> Flinders University of South Australia and published in the British
> Journal of Clinical Psychology) found no difference between males and
> females.
>
> So why even re****t the latest study from this obviously biased
researcher?=
> Perhaps it's reassuring to believe that ***ism isn't ***ism, it's
science;=
> that the status quo reflects some kind of natural order; and that anyone
> who claims otherwise is a whiner. Or perhaps Lynn's studies make the
news
> because he's sort of a one-man show of bunk science - after all, this is
> the same guy who claims that African-Americans have higher iqs than
> Africans because they have Caucasian genes that make them smarter.
>
> Then there are the stories that point the finger at feminism for a
variety=
> of historical incidents and ills. The 2007 Boston Globe story titled
> "Stone Age Feminism? Females joining hunt may explain Neanderthals' end"
> is one of these.
>
> The sup****ting study, authored by archaeologists Steven Kuhn and Mary
> Stiner, turned on the hypothesis that Neanderthal women participated in
> hunting alongside Neanderthal men. The dangers of hunting - among them,
> getting stomped and gored by various beasts - along with the fact that
> many cavegals' lives were cut short before they could produce baby
> Neanderthals, meant that the breeding population dwindled and the
species
> died out.
>
> But the evidence for this "stone age feminism" wasn't evidence at all.
The=
> hypothesis that the women hunted alongside the men was developed because
> the study's authors found no clues suggesting that Neanderthal women
were,=
> well, homemakers - no grinding stones and bone needles that would signal
a=
> traditional division of labor in the species. So is it possible that
male
> and female Neanderthals hunted together successfully, and the species
> dwindled for some other, totally unrelated reason? And, for that matter,
> why not hypothesize that coed hunting parties actually contributed to
the
> Neanderthals' longevity? More than 100,000 years of existence is nothing
> to sneeze at, after all. Why jump to the conclusion that feminism ruins
> everything? Ah, yes: because it's a story that will sell papers.
>
> 5. IS THE STUDY EVEN SCIENCE?
>
> In his "Bad Science" column, Goldacre reminds us that so-called studies
> may not have studied anything at all. A hair-removal cream company once
> asked Goldacre to come up with a formula calculating which celebrity had
> the ***iest walk. "We know what results we want to achieve," they told
> him, naming celebrities with shapely legs whose high-ranking walks could
> move units of their product.
>
> When Goldacre refused, another scientist supplied the company with a
> formula, thinking it would be used as a joke. The company's press
release
> became an article in the Telegraph, crediting a nonexistent "team of
> Cambridge mathematicians" and with no mention of the so-called study's
> actual source.
>
> Lesson learned: If you can't find the source article, it may not
actually
> exist.
>
> In another example of non-science, BBC News studiously re****ted in late
> 2007 that humor "comes from testosterone." The article? Based on a
British=
> Medical Journal study recording the casual responses of passers-by to a
> unicyclist. The article notes that little boys had more "aggressive"
> responses to the unicyclist (trying to knock him over) and young men
made
> the most jokes - typically an unimaginative variant of "Lost your
wheel?"
> - with elderly men's jokes being less hostile ("Does it crush your
> bollocks, mate?"). The article also featured a graphic showing the ebb
of
> testosterone in men over time; since young men have the most
testosterone
> and made the greatest number of jokes, the author concludes,
testosterone
> must be the source of humor.
>
> If all you read was the BBC piece, you might think that there's a clutch
> of professors somewhere in England taking this theory seriously. In
fact,
> the deliberately hilarious study was published in the BMJ's Christmas
> issue, famous for its joke articles. (A study from the previous year was
> titled "Surgeons are taller and more handsome than physicians" and used
a
> photo of George Clooney as a control.)
>
> The fact that the BBC didn't pick up on the joke speaks volumes about
the
> mainstream media's unceasing appetite for gendered potshots. How many of
> us would really be surprised to see a "legitimate" re****t linking
> testosterone and humor? Would it look anything like the 2005 re****t from
> Stirling and St. Andrews universities in the UK that claims testosterone
> causes women to be "career-driven" like men? The humbling take-home
> message from these studies is that traditionally masculine traits still
> belong to men - even when women share them.
>
> Although there is an element of humor in how wrong the news media can
get
> science, the trend isn't a harmless one. While plenty of smart people
> question biased headlines of all stripes, casual readers - particularly
> young ones - are likely to skim the stories and tuck them away in the
> pocket of their brains where stereotypes are kept. It's bad enough when
we=
> see images of women as passive, petty, dumb, or ****ty in fiction or
> advertisements, but stereotypes that come with the lofty stamp of
science
> have the air of being, well, factual.
>
> After all, if women are biologically wired to be weak or catty or dumb
or
> humorless, then there's nothing wrong with writing consistently
airheaded
> female movie and tv characters, dismissing women in positions of power
as
> "*****es" or "too emotional," or claiming that institutional ***ism
> doesn't exist, women just aren't smart enough to be ceos, grand masters,
> or surgeons. These studies reassure people that media images reflect
> reality, that society reflects biology, and that nothing can or should
be
> changed.
>
> Perhaps we should just take solace in one final study, released by the
> American Psychological Association in 2005 but picked up by very few
> mainstream sources. The title? "Men and women found more similar than
> ****trayed in popular media."
>
> ____
<<<So why even re****t the latest study from this obviously biased
researcher?
Perhaps it's reassuring to believe that ***ism isn't ***ism, it's
science;
that the status quo reflects some kind of natural order; and that
anyone
who claims otherwise is a whiner. Or perhaps Lynn's studies make the
news
because he's sort of a one-man show of bunk science - after all, this
is
the same guy who claims that African-Americans have higher iqs than
Africans because they have Caucasian genes that make them smarter. >>>
Actually, he's correct that "African-Americans" do have more Caucasian
genes than Africans, but from what I've witnessed, that's made them
stupider, not smarter.
F'rinstance, you don't see Africans burning down their OWN cities like
"African-Americans" burnt down Detroit and East Lost Angeles, do you?
The murder rate in the US cities dominated by blacks is ten fold
higher than in any city of Africa.
These are things that suggest some kiind of mental problem, if not
mental illness, wouldn't you say?
There are many other errors in this article, which we will tackle one
by one.
|
