IT AIN'T NECESSARILY SO: How Media Make and Unmake the Scientific Picture of Reality

What should readers make of the news report stating that minority mortgage applications are refused twice as often as those of white applicants, when another one claims that their applications are approved 89% as often? How are we to evaluate the various scientific reports we come across every day? Washington, D.C.–based social scientists Murray, Schwartz and Lichter (Lichter is the co-author of Peepshow and other books) demonstrate how journalists can put a spin on research results to make them conform to preexisting beliefs, and, alternatively, how complicated findings can be easily and innocently misinterpreted. When politicians get hold of the news reports, the qualifiers found in the original research too often disappear as the pols seize upon a potentially troublesome finding and attempt to "do something about" it. Yet, as the authors fairly point out, the fault doesn't always lie with the messenger. Sometimes researchers use proxies instead of direct measurements, using income as a proxy for poverty, for example. And often, seemingly paradoxical results confuse everyone: a decline in the number of cases of a disease can still result in an increase in the percentage of total illnesses if other ailments have declined even more. The authors do a thorough job of pointing out the fallacies and errors that underlie much reporting on science—such as widespread reports that male sperm counts have decreased over the decades (a good look at the evidence, they claim, shows the conclusion was based on insufficient figures). Readers from all walks of life will acquire a more critical eye from this thought-provoking examination of how science gets served up for our early-morning reading and postprandial evening news. (Apr.)