All too often the popular press will jump on a scientific result and shout its praises. On the surface, this is great. The scientists get exposure. The people get knowledge. What could be wrong with that?

Well, it turns out that 99% of the time journalists seem to avoid the dirty work of reading the paper that describes the research in question and simply go for the abstract. Then, they often take one choice sentence from the abstract and extrapolate from there. This, of course, leads to conclusions which are not supported by the data.

Although the most recent example I came across isn’t necessarily an example of this type of journalism, it has the same flavor. This is an interview in Time magazine of Daniel Kripke, co-director of research at the Scripps Clinic Sleep Center in La Jolla, Calif.

The article suggests that those people who sleep between 6.5 and 7.5 hours live the longest and those who sleep less than 6.5 or more than 7.5 have a higher likelihood of dieing early. On the surface, this is terrible for me. I routinely sleep 8 - 8.5 hours per night. I guess I’m already a corpse? Of course, those of you that read the entire article will notice that Dr. Kripke acknoledges that this relationship is NOT CAUSAL. Did you get that? It’s not that sleeping more leads to early death. It’s that, for whatever reason, people who sleep longer also die younger. It does not mean that if I sleep 1 fewer hour I will live longer!

Now, the good news is that this was at least mentioned in the article…but not till pretty far into it. Most people just read the headline and the first paragraph, a dangerous practice. If I took this seriously (as I’m sure many people will), I might uproot my life based on the belief that I’m sleeping too much.

Journalists needs to get some stronger ethical standards when it comes to presenting scientific research and acknowledge things like correlation <> causation early on. Defusing these types of misconceptions will surely lead to a more informed citizenry.

Quite a few news outlets are covering the recent Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life report detailing the changing nature of the religious landscape in this country. I actually read through a good part of the report looking for statistical faux pas to use in my “How To Lie With Statistics Series,” but found only minor ones…good job.

What I’d like to highlight, however, is the way in which the media is, to say the least, stretching the results.

Here are the headlines and choice quotes from a few “reputable” sources:

1. US News & World Report. Headline: Protestants Verging on Becoming Minorities - US News and World Report.
2. AFP. Headline: Protestants on verge of becoming minority in US: study.
3. Boston Globe. Choice quote: “A sweeping new study of religious affiliation in the United States finds a country in which Protestants are becoming a minority”.
4. The Australian. Headline: US protestants verge on minority.

Really, minorities? The report shows that Protestant Americans have dropped in numbers to 51% and US News & World Report seems to think that if they drop below 50% they will be a minority. Technically they would be correct, but they would be more correct in saying that Protestants would still be a plurality as they would be, by far, the largest religious group in the country. Something tells me that Protestants won’t be treated like other “minorities” in this country.

Turns out that a US Spy Satellite is dropping out of orbit and needs to be shot down. If I didn’t know any better, I would say that this is a scene straight out of Diamonds are Forever. Too bad it’s the real deal. Let’s hope they don’t miss and accidentally blow up the Fox News satellite…oh wait, that might actually not be so bad.