If someone else doesn't have this already, which they almost certainly do, I'm totally claiming this as Rhys' Law :
The value of a press release and the probability that the reported discovery is correct is anti-correlated with the grandiosity of the claims.
It's probably not a linear relation. Maybe more like a galactic hydrogen density profile : flat near the middle out to some quite large distance (importance of the claim), but then it drops precipitously beyond the stellar disc (as claims move from "probably" and "show" to "mystery solved" and "proof").
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... unless the headline reads "Astro-boffins say...."
ReplyDeleteI think "scientists say they've solved mystery X" is only marginally more credible than a press release announcing that mystery X is solved. So "scientists say" statements would just be a bit closer to the middle.
ReplyDeleteaka "the next HUGE thing to make us look as smart publishers addressing smart readers"
ReplyDelete"a new study says"...
ReplyDeleteIncredible how useful this is. I've just came across "new study shows Einstein's Theory of General Relativity was wrong". Some people published a paper that claims speed of light was infinite near the Big Bang. Great news.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm going to have to graph this up xkcd-style when time permits.
ReplyDeleteDogmatic Pyrrhonist Ahh, yes, there may be a fundamental plane where truthiness can be judged by the grandiosity of the claim itself on one axis and the language used on another...
A thought occurs that maybe this should be grandiosity of the statement as a whole, i.e. drama of claim multiplied by decisiveness of language.
ReplyDeleteSorry. It's a corollary of Simon's Law of Preview , which states:
ReplyDeleteThe longer and more grandiose the preview, the worse the film.