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."
>
> ____
I would like to understand more about what his motivation is for
wanting it to appear that men and women are "more similar than
****trayed in popular media".
They are DIFFERENT.
They are VERY DIFFERENT.
Celebrate the HUGE DIFFERENCES because it will ALWAYS BE.
But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and the
man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ, 1
Corinthians 11:3
|
