I have spent the better half of the past six months trying to understand one thing: how can you effectively present primary scientific literature to the general public? Is this even possible?
[...] last year I was involved in organizing a student directed seminar concerned with covering the seminal work of my field over the past 30 years. Three of us canvassed resident professors, professional researchers, and professors and grad students across the world (literally) asking them for their top 20 articles.
I was blown away: more than half of these papers had become nearly obsolete (nearly obsolete, simply because their work was in of itself worthy of admiration for its brilliance). Why? You guessed it - a few key assumptions proven to be incorrect.
How do you explain to someone the relative magnitude of these assumptions? I’ve often caught myself saying, “Well, 10% error is nothing to be worried about. It’s the real world, things aren’t that simple.” Surely 10% isn’t much, but what about 50%? 10 fold?
http://nouseforadave.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/is-scientific-journalism-doomed/
Zur Erinnerung:
We all make mistakes and, if you believe medical scholar John Ioannidis, scientists make more than their fair share. By his calculations, most published research findings are wrong.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118972683557627104.html