These failures in science and science communication affect the real world. More and more often, politicians and (increasingly) judges look to social science to explain current trends and the likely effects of new laws and regulations. How difficult is it to get an abortion? What are the likely effects on the environment of having more children? How much does marriage affect public health?
These kinds of questions have enormous ramifications on society and public policy. But with credulous reporting—and original research often hiding behind paywalls, mountains of statistics, and academic style—the public has had few places to turn for accessible and useful information.
That’s the problem The Unskewed Project intends to fix. Launched late last year, and co-sponsored by The Wheatley Institution, The Austin Institute, and The School of Family Life at Brigham Young University, Unskewed reviews new social science to explain how it was done, why it matters, and how it’s being spun.
“The peer-review system was set-up to provide a check on bad science, but we felt there was a need to provide an extra critique for research that was impacting the public dialogue” said Brian J. Willoughby, the editor-in-chief of Unskewed and an associate professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University. “The echo chambers of the media and academia have led to a situation where research findings are less scrutinized and more blindly accepted more than ever before. Unskewed was created to provide a counter-point to flawed social science research being disseminated in the public.”
The results are sometimes unsettling, sometimes funny, but always illuminating. To get a better sense of the problem, here are just some of the most egregious examples from the past year.
These 4 Studies Show The Importance Of Fact-Checking Junk Science
These kinds of questions have enormous ramifications on society and public policy. But with credulous reporting—and original research often hiding behind paywalls, mountains of statistics, and academic style—the public has had few places to turn for accessible and useful information.
That’s the problem The Unskewed Project intends to fix. Launched late last year, and co-sponsored by The Wheatley Institution, The Austin Institute, and The School of Family Life at Brigham Young University, Unskewed reviews new social science to explain how it was done, why it matters, and how it’s being spun.
“The peer-review system was set-up to provide a check on bad science, but we felt there was a need to provide an extra critique for research that was impacting the public dialogue” said Brian J. Willoughby, the editor-in-chief of Unskewed and an associate professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University. “The echo chambers of the media and academia have led to a situation where research findings are less scrutinized and more blindly accepted more than ever before. Unskewed was created to provide a counter-point to flawed social science research being disseminated in the public.”
The results are sometimes unsettling, sometimes funny, but always illuminating. To get a better sense of the problem, here are just some of the most egregious examples from the past year.
These 4 Studies Show The Importance Of Fact-Checking Junk Science
