John Oliver takes down science reporting

May 9, 2016 • 10:45 am

Several readers sent me this clip from John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” about science reporting. And I have to say that’s it’s not only funny, but instructive. It discusses p-hacking, the lack of replicability of many studies, and the distortion of research reports by the popular press. He even goes after TED talks, which, I have to say, are often overblown.

Now I haven’t read the “pregnancy and chocolate” study that Oliver mentions, nor do I know about “Dr. Love” and his eight-hugs-a-day regimen for boosting oxytocin, but it looks as if Oliver’s staff has done their homework.

Do watch the whole thing (I wish every citizen would!). For me, one of the best parts is the 22 seconds between 14:39 and 15:01, but in the last four minutes there’s also a hilarious parody of TED talks.

Oliver manages to combine serious criticism with humor in the way Jon Stewart used to. I must watch him more often.

 

46 thoughts on “John Oliver takes down science reporting”

  2. Wait – the media distorts things and takes them out of context? What is the probability that someone will take Mukherjee’s article in the New Yorker and spin it into Lamarckianism – which will sweep the nation. NAH – no way that happens.

  3. Am I the only one who thought Paul Zak’s Ted Talk on oxytocin bore a striking resemblance to Joel Osteen preaching the prosperity gospel?

  4. For “bonetired”:

    Clip of a Talk Show Guest: “I think the way to live your life is you find the study that sounds best to you, and you go with that.”

    Back to John Oliver: “No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no! In science… In science, you don’t just get to cherry-pick the parts that justify what you were going to do anyway. That’s religion. You’re thinking of religion, that is what you’re thinking of there…”

    1. Actually, that was Al Roker, one of the Today Show hosts (mostly weather).

      A more charitable parsing of the brief clip of Roker—which is probably not justified—would have him meaning that “you should research all of the studies and go with the one that is scientifically the best”. If that is what he meant, or would actually claim if he were confronted on the issue, then he should have said so.

      Perhaps he will be made aware of Oliver’s analysis and respond.

      1. I thought he was being ironic, but I’m more used to British TV, where it would be practically a given.

      2. I too parsed that comment as: do the science yourself, compare all of the results, make your own analysis of the benefits to your health but have an open mind that nothing is a panacea.

        1. I wondered about that, but I’m afraid I judged him by the company he was keeping. Given that the other three appear to be shills and zombies, I didn’t credit him with being any better. So I took his statement at the shallowest ‘feel-good’ level.

          If he was being sarcastic it was impossible to tell.

          cr

          1. I agree. Maybe one has to know Roker to reach the more charitable interpretation?

            I don’t know him at all and given only the evidence of that video clip, and looking really hard for clues that would seem to support the charitable interpretation, I really saw nothing at all that made me think he meant anything other than what Oliver interpreted him to have said.

  5. I have really come to despise TED talks. My boss occasionally sends us links to them and I feel obligated to say something complimentary, but I just want to scream.

    I think Oliver might have misinterpreted the guy on the Today Show who said something like “just find the study that looks good to you and go with that”; you can’t really tell from the context, but he wasn’t necessarily saying go with what makes you feel good.

    1. It is possible that Al Roker was being sarcastic, but didn’t want to make it to obvious that he was making fun of his co-hosts.

  6. John Oliver’s show is entertaining, informative and hard-hitting nearly every week. It is one of the best shows on television.

    I stopped watching the TED talks a few years ago because they went downhill. At the beginning they were excellent but when they tried to expand to more talks the quality fell drastically.

  8. I happened to watch this episode, and was, as usual, delighted by John Oliver. An American treasure (well, he is living in ‘Mericuh now).

  9. I love John Oliver. I have this recorded, so I’ll save this part for tonight!

  10. TED talks are the equivalents of self-help books which I believe total nonsense. They are so overrated and silly that I wouldn’t give one, even if I had a Nobel prize. I have seen a few of them where people (even scientists) go on the stage and tell anecdotes! It’s just a PR machine.

  11. Both sad and great that the only real force of enlightenment on TV is a comedian!

    The main problem with all of this is that there is practically no overlap between what scientists consider important questions and what gets fed to the public by media how are only interested in cheap superficial attention.

    This is detrimental in many ways. It undermines the credibility of science (one day coffee is healthy the other day it isn’t, do these eggheads know which it is?). It portrays science as a marginal, whimsical enterprise that will look increasingly unattractive to young minds. And most importantly, it bereaves the public of their right to know what the fruits are of all this costly research they pay billions for. The public has a right to be educated about science…

  14. Ummmm

    So I s this a good place to tell PCC(E) – Sarah Silverman announced a Chicago gig…. soon, I think … sorry, don’t have details.

  15. The media is definitely taking the lessons learned from religion. With the epistemological cat out of the bag, religions may not have much time on this planet, however, the media may have a few decades left of offering ambiguous results as wishful thinking through the auspices of ‘scientific studies’.

    Note that all discussion focused on human centered science. Most people no longer can recognize what science is. They no longer see the foundation of research in anything. They just see technologies as part of life without any idea the level of experimentation, anticipation, risk, and failure that drive innovation.

  18. Loved it!

    TODD talks, reminds of toddler. But I would have tried insTED talks, “when you need even more drivel”.

  19. nor do I know about “Dr. Love” and his eight-hugs-a-day regimen for boosting oxytocin

    I’ve never heard of the guy either, but it sounds less destructive than the common method of getting a baby to feed an oxytocin habit.

    1. Hmmm, I note that the script about the oxytocin research referred to “intranasal oxytocin” while “Dr Love was holding up a standard 5ml hypodermic needle.
      Not a good sign.
      What I’m wondering now is why Youtube is connecting this to a documentary about the worlds hardest metal? … Maybe it’s all those hard questions?
      I’ll just put on my lab coat to seem more authoritative.

  20. Still watching – well, listening – and wondering if this guy has ever had Ben “Bad Science” Goldacre as a guest? Nope, doesn’t seem so.

  21. That was freaking hilarious! The guy’s an evil genius.

    Has Coca-cola sued him yet for his description of their… products? 😉

    cr

    1. Oh, and that excerpt his researchers found of the bozos from the Today show extolling fat-as-a-way-to-lose-weight – I could hardly believe what the bald black guy said: “You find the study that sounds best to you, and you go with that”.
      That was a poe moment.

      cr

  22. Oliver is fantastic. Way more insightful and funnier than Stewart ever was. His 20 min debunking of Trump is a classic.

  23. Besides being hilarious, it was really impressive how Oliver flowed – as though mitochondria and such had been part of his vocabulary for years. (Maybe yes?)

    Also, re. replication studies, as I understand it the original purpose of the Nobel Institute in Stockholm was to replicate studies of prospective Nobel prizewinners. Not sure how long that lasted, but I gather it wasn’t long.

Comments are closed.