7 Times The Media Spectacularly Failed To Understand Science
1. The Great Chocolate Hoax Of 2015
"EATING CHOCOLATE CAN HELP YOU LOSE WEIGHT", screamed the press.
Oh, if only that were true.
At the beginning of 2015, a dude called John Bohannon published the results from a study he had conducted, claiming that eating chocolate whilst dieting could help you lose more weight than just dieting alone. The press excitedly jumped on the story because, hey, why wouldn't you?
Unfortunately for them, this particular study was completely misleading on purpose. Bohannon made the study intentionally flawed, using too few subjects, too many variables and not accounting for statistical errors. He then published it in a dodgy scientific journal that will publish anything if you pay them to and waited to see if anyone would call him out on it.
Nobody did, despite the glaring errors, highlighting a problem with science reporting. Unfortunately, a lot of scientific research will wonky, misleading or just plain wrong. If reporters don't know how to sniff these out then the world of science reporting becomes a total mess, which of course it is. This is the main reason why pretty much everything seems to either cause or prevent cancer, and sometimes even does both.
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