Sad misinterpretation of science by the media and people

[Silvestru]

Hello forum,

We engage in conversation with friends/co-workers/family every day and recently during a face-palm moment I was thinking about all the misinterpretation of accurate scientific papers by the media.

I am not talking about pseudoscience or papers like the one that Maeder recently published regarding Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

To give a few examples that I noticed/been a part of:

"The God particle" - Just typing this makes me cringe because I remember all the moments people started talking about this with me. Heck even my mom had an opinion about it.

Of course people who mention it don't even know what a particle is so I will just leave it at that with this example as I am sure some of you share my cringe.

"The laws of science break down inside the singularity of a black hole." -  This is up for debate as it's a quote from Kip Thorne but ofc people recite this like a mantra as a party topic. My understanding is that we just don't know what happens inside a BH. But again, ask the next person who says that what a singularity is and wait for the cricket sounds.

(this has less to do with actual scientific papers but:) "There is a statue of a demon in front of CERN. They are doing evil things there" - About the Hindu Nataraj statue. I wont speak more about this one.

"Scientists at CERN are potentially going to create a black hole that will destroy the world. It's dangerous" - I swear I heard this multiple times. To be honest I have difficulty explaining why this is something stupid to say because of my own limitations as often times additional questions pop up when engaging in this topic.

Can you give examples of such Misconceptions or correct anything I wrote above. I want laymen like me with an interest in science to get rid of some wrong views or misinterpretations that were put there by pop articles or media trying to click-bait readers with big terms.

 

I forgot to add maybe one of the most talked about and least understood ones - "Dark Matter and Dark Energy" -  Misunderstood as black/evil energy and a plethora of other ways. Of course I do not have a complete understanding of either of these terms but there are levels to ignorance. 

[swansont]

Any pairing of quantum teleportation with a mention of Star Trek

[dimreepr]

No such thing as fish is a rich source of material.

[Silvestru]

30 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

No such thing as fish is a rich source of material.

Oh yeah, I think you mentioned this podcast before yesterday. I was reading about the actual No such thing as a fish.

Quote

while there are many sea creatures, most of them are not closely related to each other. For example, a salmon is more closely related to a camel than it is to a hagfish.

Really interesting and the cool part is that I'm sure there are a lot of facts on the podcast that even the more knowledgeable of us did not know.

[dimreepr]

10 minutes ago, Silvestru said:

Oh yeah, I think you mentioned this podcast before yesterday. I was reading about the actual No such thing as a fish.

Really interesting and the cool part is that I'm sure there are a lot of facts on the podcast that even the more knowledgeable of us did not know.

The one that stuck in my mind is that there is no direct evidence that anyone, in history, has suggested the earth is flat, until now... 

Edited December 19, 2017 by dimreepr

[Silvestru]

9 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

The one that stuck in my mind is that there is no direct evidence that anyone, in history, has suggested the earth is flat, until now... 

This is exactly what I mean. I have said a few times that people in the middle ages believed that the earth is flat. I even mentioned it on the forum probably haha.

I will stop doing that 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth

[Klaynos]

5 hours ago, Silvestru said:

Oh yeah, I think you mentioned this podcast before yesterday. I was reading about the actual No such thing as a fish.

Really interesting and the cool part is that I'm sure there are a lot of facts on the podcast that even the more knowledgeable of us did not know.

I'm currently working my way through no such thing as a fish during the night. I find it's easy to fall asleep to as each piece of information is quite short. I normally listen to each episode about 5 times starting later into it each time before I think I've heard it all. 

For anyone who hasn't listened to it you really should. 

 

[pavelcherepan]

To me the biggest cringe I get whenever I hear someone utter something along the lines of: "...an asteroid killed dinosaurs...". People just use it like a mantra, while there were a lot of different things at work in KT extinction, but everyone just talks about the damned asteroid.

[pzkpfw]

That science is about proving things.

That science doesn't know everything about something, so any idea about that something has equal weight.

The misuse of "theory" (as in "Evolution is only a ...").