{"id":12211,"date":"2011-11-25T12:07:26","date_gmt":"2011-11-25T16:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=12211"},"modified":"2011-11-25T12:08:53","modified_gmt":"2011-11-25T16:08:53","slug":"fill-in-the-blank-is-now-a-clear-and-present-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2011\/11\/25\/fill-in-the-blank-is-now-a-clear-and-present-danger\/","title":{"rendered":"“[Fill-in-the-blank] is now a clear and present danger”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Orlowski<\/a> explains how we keep falling for junk science through media exposure:<\/p>\n

\n

Firstly. An obscure researcher or scientist will make a dramatic claim.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The media picks up on this, and a reporter is assigned to the story. The reporter will have no scientific background — but looks to the state and the bureaucracy to do something. Anything.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The hapless minister is then hauled on to explain the inaction. He will be intelligent — he is likely to have a PPE from Oxford, like the presenter — but no specialist knowledge. He, too, trusts the scientists.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A pledge is then made to increase funding for the scientist who makes the claim.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A pledge is also made to act — by introducing legislation or other regulations. Perhaps a task force or committee will also be involved:<\/p>\n

\"\"
Illustrations: Andy Davies<\/p>\n

The bandwagon is now rolling.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Orlowski explains how we keep falling for junk science through media exposure: Firstly. An obscure researcher or scientist will make a dramatic claim. The media picks up on this, and a reporter is assigned to the story. The reporter will have no scientific background — but looks to the state and the bureaucracy to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,66,28,16],"tags":[39,213,51,513,101],"class_list":["post-12211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-health-science","category-media","category-science","tag-junkscience","tag-newspapers","tag-pr","tag-research","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3aX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12211"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12219,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12211\/revisions\/12219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}