Pop-Sci Clickbait Criticism

Users criticize sensationalist headlines and misleading summaries in popular science journalism and press releases, repeatedly urging others to read the original peer-reviewed papers instead and suggesting HN links be updated accordingly.

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Keywords

ATLAS www.pnas p.s QUESS sciencemag.org newsrelease.cfm NASA BBC UCLA HN article paper scientific published jumps breakdown press peer reviewed peer conclusions

Sample Comments

MattPalmer1086 Nov 16, 2024 View on HN

It's just typical pop sci journalism, with a click baity headline. Read the paper instead.

trilbyglens Mar 29, 2023 View on HN

BBC article innit. Hardly a scientific paper.

gus_massa Apr 18, 2019 View on HN

Read the comment by mirimir, that is based in the research article instead of the press article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19694140

jessriedel Jan 30, 2020 View on HN

This title is pure clickbait. Any reason to not replace this BBC article with the "Nature News and Views" article? More informative, less dumbed down, but still accessible.https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00165-7The original journal article:https:/&

arkades Nov 5, 2018 View on HN

This is actually a terribly misleading pop-Sci writeup. Any chance mods can change the link to the actual study?http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6414/598

klyrs May 25, 2019 View on HN

I literally cited the first hit from the most obvious google search. You sound curious and dissatisfied with the science reporting. Why don't you look up the paper, possibly use sci-hub if it isn't freely available, and actually read what the scientists say?

maxk42 Jun 12, 2012 View on HN

Why is this shit on Hacker News, let alone any sort of scientific publication?

amelius Mar 13, 2021 View on HN

I don't think such a great finding deserves an article in this tone. Posting the original paper instead would be more appropriate.

pocketsquare2 Oct 21, 2017 View on HN

Link to the article, published in Nature, so we can judge it on its merits rather than via the NYT summary: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00957-yEither way awesome NYT article title.

MauranKilom Dec 28, 2020 View on HN

A (terrible) article based on this (reasonable, in my layperson eyes) paper was recently discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25537049