Each year the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) lists "the Year's Biggest Science Reporting Flubs", "detailing the worst examples of shoddy science reporting." You can find the 2006 winners discussed here, and I trust they will soon be added to the STATS homepage, where previous winners are noted about 2/3 of the way down.
An example: "The Wall Street Journal misreported that teenage girls increased alcohol consumption more than 30 percent from 1999 to 2004. The study's mistake was that it treated, for example, a 6-ounce glass of alcohol the same as an ounce of alcohol mixed with 5 ounces of orange juice."
Understandably the examples quoted are all from the USA. However, I suspect that some of the stories have been picked up over here.
The one about teenage drinking must have been, since there has been a massive and ongoing PR campaign (and I wish I knew who has been orchestrating it so I could hire them) against alcohol use. Comments about the "massive" growth in alcohol consumption by teenage girls are rife in some newspapers (such as the Daily Mail).
Incidentally, the Daily Mail was one paper (along with the Evening Standard) that ran a concerted campaign against what it termed "24-hour binge drinking" when it was referring to the, entirely sensible, legislation that was introduced to allow pubs to open for the hours that suited them and their customers, rather than the hours imposed on them nearly 100 years ago by a long-dead. teetotal Prime Minister.
Richard English
Posts: 8038 | Location: Partridge Green, West Sussex, UK
Hilarious. I do love Nunberg's writings on language. Becanus is one of the first crackpot lignuists I came across back in my high school days browsing and drowsing in the library. My favorite becanist is Jean-Pierre Brisset, favorite of the pataphysicians, and mad linguist extraordinaire: he traces human speech back to the croaking of frogs: Brekkek Kekkek Kekkek Kekkek! Koax Koax Koax!
