The link goes to a very poor article that links to another poorly-written article at sciencenordic.com, which ultimately links to Elsevier where they want to sell you the original paper for an ungodly amount of money.
First, journalists are not capable of reporting on scientific studies because they are not equipped to do so. There are many newsworthy elements to the study, the most important being that it was not an original study but a meta-analysis of other studies. Meaning that any methodological issues with those other studies are incorporated blindly into the present study. This means that the present study is of far less value than would be a large (especially randomized, controlled, double-blind) prospective examination of the matter.
But the journalists writing the crap that is interpolated between the intelligent Hacker News reader and the original work are too stupid to mention this extremely noteworthy, and arguably newsworthy, fact.
The real story here is that science journalists have buried the lead so deeply that this second-rate so-called "science" becomes indistinguishable from actual science to the reader. And therefore the reader is led to believe that this study has equal importance and validity with any other results on the matter.
The other issue is that science journalists probably do this on purpose as clickbait crap to earn them some advertising money or to further a political agenda. In this case, the motherhood-and-nanny-state issue that wearing a helmet is good for you and should be mandatory. How dare you stupid people NOT wear a helmet! Stoking holier-than-thou anger is bound to increase clicks.
Finally, The Institute of Transport Economics in Oslo gets about 100 million kroner annually to do this kind of research, which they then publish at Elsevier, who wants to screw readers out of another $35 or so to read the research that they already paid for. This creates a system where science journalists can mislead the public by hyping a bogus study for advertising dollars without actually reporting on the results.
They dish out this crap and people accept it uncritically, then turn around and preach it like they have the moral high ground.
2 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 19.9 ms ] threadThe link goes to a very poor article that links to another poorly-written article at sciencenordic.com, which ultimately links to Elsevier where they want to sell you the original paper for an ungodly amount of money.
First, journalists are not capable of reporting on scientific studies because they are not equipped to do so. There are many newsworthy elements to the study, the most important being that it was not an original study but a meta-analysis of other studies. Meaning that any methodological issues with those other studies are incorporated blindly into the present study. This means that the present study is of far less value than would be a large (especially randomized, controlled, double-blind) prospective examination of the matter.
But the journalists writing the crap that is interpolated between the intelligent Hacker News reader and the original work are too stupid to mention this extremely noteworthy, and arguably newsworthy, fact.
The real story here is that science journalists have buried the lead so deeply that this second-rate so-called "science" becomes indistinguishable from actual science to the reader. And therefore the reader is led to believe that this study has equal importance and validity with any other results on the matter.
The other issue is that science journalists probably do this on purpose as clickbait crap to earn them some advertising money or to further a political agenda. In this case, the motherhood-and-nanny-state issue that wearing a helmet is good for you and should be mandatory. How dare you stupid people NOT wear a helmet! Stoking holier-than-thou anger is bound to increase clicks.
Finally, The Institute of Transport Economics in Oslo gets about 100 million kroner annually to do this kind of research, which they then publish at Elsevier, who wants to screw readers out of another $35 or so to read the research that they already paid for. This creates a system where science journalists can mislead the public by hyping a bogus study for advertising dollars without actually reporting on the results.
They dish out this crap and people accept it uncritically, then turn around and preach it like they have the moral high ground.