![]() ![]() This averages many measurements and so is much more reliable. Meanwhile, Internet People like Smart Air or Jeff Kaufman do tests that show the entire trace of particles over time. This leads to them doing things like publishing two different tests of the same air purifier that imply clean air delivery rates that vary by a factor of 2.4. You’re only taking two measurements, so if there’s noise in either, the final ratio will be off. Now, this isn’t terrible, but it’s not very good. The most well-known name in the air purifier game is the Wirecutter. There are lots on the market, but to know if they truly work, we need to test them. ![]() To pick an example close to my heart, take air purifiers. I’d even go a little further: for complicated subjects, prestigious places are rarely the best sources. Unless the distribution of writing changes somehow to upset that dynamic, I suspect the copypasta will continue. So I suspect the market is reasonably efficient: The fancy places provide real value, even when serving up journalistic mush, and readers are making reasonable decisions when they pay attention to them. The Guardian provides a consistent bare-minimum level of quality across a wide range of topics, which is not easy. The world is full of outright lies, it’s hard to know who you can trust. Despite their mediocrity, people trust places like The Guardian, and-I claim-this is not a mistake. Because, unfortunately, I’d bet against any huge changes coming soon. We should think more about why this happens. He also suggested that if independent authors tried any of this nonsense, they’d be crucified, so maybe everyone should follow more independent authors. Independent writers complain, but they have small audiences, and aren’t considered a reliable source on Wikipedia.Įrik Hoel recently bemoaned that high prestige outlets like The Guardian somehow get away with this kind of “copypasta”, as well as dark patterns like deliberately making it hard to find the original scientific paper. The researcher’s colleagues roll their eyes, but don’t want to make enemies in their tiny gossipy community.Eventually, the fact that A causes B appears on Wikipedia, using the piece as a citation. The piece goes to a copy editor who chooses a headline of PEER REVIEWED RESEARCH SHOWS THAT A CAUSES B.They reassemble the press release into a simulacrum of journalism. The press release goes to a fancy media outlet where an underpaid and harried writer has no time or training to agonize over technicalities.It omits most of those caveats and has a quote from the researcher (now unencumbered by peer review) saying, “ B is bad! So this shows the dangers of A!” When the paper is published, the journal puts out a press release.In it, they’re careful to only say that A is “associated” with B, and that the data is imperfect, and that they only controlled for certain confounders, and further research is needed, etc. They gather data and find that A and B are correlated. ![]()
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