"Sens. John McCain and Clinton have, at least, been the subjects of biographical books, but the only in-depth biography of Obama is his autobiography."

This is not correct; David Mendell published a biography last year.

Incidentally, while Dowd was technically inaccurate (and should issue a correction), Clinton certainly did indirectly aim the hat/cattle remark at Obama (e.g., her reference to Kirk Watson's appearance on MSNBC).

Unfortunately, such distortions aren't restricted to mass media outlets. Ever compared the way that research findings are written up in the "news" sections of scientific journals, to the research articles themselves?

I think part of this problem is due simply to the fact that news, fundamentally, relies mostly on its entertainment value. A further problem is that scientific papers are intentionally (and rightly so) written to be suggestive, but precise.

This is because the nature of science is incremental. So, a paper often will not be conclusive. But, to be interesting, it must explain and suggest why it is relevant.

So, consider the case of chemicals and reproduction. If there is no causation, and the correlation is simply a coincidence, then there is nothing interesting here. The paper is a non-paper. So the paper must make a case for how its results are evidence of causation, or at least suggestive of causation. At the same time, it can't overstep its claims, or else the reviewers will shoot it down.

This nuance is easy for scientists to navigate, because we do it all the time, but seems to often confuse the media and the public.

You might ask, why not write conclusive papers only? That's due partly to the pressure to publish. If you only write papers that are conclusive, you will have a lot fewer papers. Probably more importantly, though, is that you will never get it funded. No one will fund you for a massive, conclusive research project on a particular question unless you have preliminary results of some kind, have established a track record, etc.

For example, suppose I think that cell phone towers cause autism. Would you, as a taxpayer, give me $N million to study this, with absolutely no preliminary results to suggest that there might really be causation? Of course not. So how do I get the preliminary results? Well, I publish small, cheap studies that suggest there is something more to it. That piques your interest, and hopefully you will give me more money for a bigger study, etc.

The media gets a hold of it, they miss all the qualifiers in the text, they don't understand the statistics or the math, etc. Then, they themselves are under pressure to simply, to reduce, to condense. Their readers don't want to actually have to think hard.

Parts of this article are very opaque. Where exactly did the 1% a year claim come from?

David,

I am delighted to know that you believe my alma mater is Colorado's leading college. Or at least it has the best college newspaper in the state.

Class of 1980