The New York Times has responded to all the criticisms of their stupid article on the health dangers of the Apple Watch. And they have done a terrible job.
Three things bothered me about this reply.
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It’s long. It’s really long. It meanders all over the place, trying to cover all the bases — it’s like a fan dance, only instead of a fan, they’ve got a single feather, and they’re trying to whip it around all over the place to cover the fact that they’re naked.
And all the babbling goes nowhere. At the end they concluded, vaguely, that the piece needed more vetting — OK, it certainly did, why aren’t you checking it out now? — but otherwise, no action is taken. Why bother to say anything?
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There are two ways you can respond to a problematic article. One way is this:
We have reviewed the article, and find it controversial but well within our standard journalistic practices. We are keeping it as is and appreciate the author’s work.
Or you could do this.
The article is seriously problematic; it was inadequately vetted and represents the scientific consensus poorly. We are retracting it (or making a long list of errors), and will avoid using the author for health and science related articles in the future.
Only that’s not what the NY Times has done. This is what their summary looks like:
The article is seriously problematic; it was inadequately vetted and represents the scientific consensus poorly. We are keeping it as is and appreciate the author’s work.
Madness. Their reply notes all these problems, and then does nothing.
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Nick Bilton is an idiot.
I corresponded with Mr. Bilton and the Styles editor, Stuart Emmrich. Mr. Bilton, defending the column and its sources, mentioned other Times articles over the years that have raised questions and concerns on the same subject. On the use of Dr. Mercola, he told me that his contribution was a relatively small part of the column.
He is one view among a dozen studies, articles and reports I cite in the column,
he said. (However, I’ll note that Dr. Mercola is the only person directly quoted in the column.) He said that describing Dr. Mercola as an alternative practitioner should have alerted readers.It should have alerted readers, but apparently a NYT journalist is a lower class of beast who is completely oblivious to the quality of his sources. Good to know.
Mr. Bilton also wrote to me:
The reality is, we still don’t know definitively the causes of cellphones and cancer, but I can tell you one thing, as a technology enthusiast myself, I approached this piece thinking all the research was bogus. But, as I noted in my column, after doing my own reporting on this topic, I’m no longer going to talk on my cellphone for long periods of time without a headset. And I will likely also keep my soon-to-be-born son away from cellphone use until his brain develops, as erring on the side of caution, until more research is done, seems to me to be the smart and intelligent approach to this issue.
Speaking as a technology enthusiast myself, I’m pretty sure we do know the causes of cellphones. As a biologist, I can also say that we do know, in a general sense, the causes of cancer (the detailed error by error variation in an individual cancer is a different problem). We also know that there is no correlation between cell phone use and cancer incidence — the few studies that say there is are problematic, while many studies with large sample sizes have found no link — so if, as he’s trying to say, we don’t understand how cell phones cause cancer, he’s not even wrong. They don’t.
I also don’t know how compact fluorescent light bulbs draw so many tigers to my house, but I think the smart and intelligent approach to prevent tigers from eating me is to go back to incandescents.
I don’t understand why the piranhas would keep leaping up out of my toilet when we switched to a vegetarian diet, but I think the smart and intelligent approach would be to eat lots more meat, to satisfy the sewer piranhas.
I don’t understand why toe crabs nest in my sock drawer, but I think the smart and intelligent approach to keep my toes from getting pinched is to stop wearing socks.
And that’s why, if ever I have grandchildren, they will not be permitted to use fluorescent lights, eat vegetables, or wear socks. Because I am so smart. Like Nick Bilton.
In other news that casts doubt on the collective wisdom of the New York Times administration, Nicholas Wade is back writing articles on genetics for them.
The “Public Editor” at the NYT has been a huge disappointment. All of their replies when they caught in something dumb look like this, and that’s the best case.
It seems clear it means nothing to the editors, reporters, and columnists than just a place for ungrateful readers to vent.
The Times knows its readers well – Americans who love a bit of oogedy-boogedy.
He’s gonna use a headset? Probably one if those bluetooth radio headsets?
Shorter NYT “I’m stupid, and so should you!”
Again, Marcus nails it. Because, if a handheld radio-emitting device is so dangerous, sticking a second radio-emitting device straight in your ear canal is so much better!
Mr. Bilton, “And I will likely also keep my soon-to-be-born son away from cellphone use until his brain develops (more than mine ever has).
FIFY
While keeping the other radio-emitting device in your pocket, next to your genitals!
one of the things that has happened since I started to read this here blog regularly is being more exposed to the irrational “thinking” in a way that makes it much harder to ignore.
That awareness is irreversible as long as I keep thinking and listening.
It seems so pervasive I ran into some of the other day that was related to this “I do not know about this (scientific principle) but it scares me so it must be bad. it must be causing this cancer thing (which I do not understand either) which also scares me ” It was about “chem trails” and he did not trust NASA studies because”reasons”?
should I despair?
uncle frogy
I’m still trying to figure out why the NYTimes thought someone who studied graphic design (NY School of Visual Arts) and journalism and documentary film (The New School) was qualified to write about science. What’s next – a deaf music reviewer who rates new releases by watching an oscilloscope?
Look on the bright side, though: he’s clearly overqualified for the op-ed page.
Does Bilton refuse to get dental x-rays as well? Those are more energetic and pointed straight at his head!!!eleventy!
Look, he’s not a science writer, and there are multiple “causes” including biological pathways that are histologically unique to particular types of cancer. Anyone who says they “know definitively the causes of cancer” is being ludicrous.
So okay. But isn’t this like Jesse-fucking-Helms throwing queerness in with “pyromania” as a “disability” that “shouldn’t be accommodated”? We all get why people shouldn’t be able to set fires legally if they are pyromanic, but what does that have to do with queers?
Just so for Bilton.
He may, in fact, plausibly not know the causes of cancer, not even in a general sense as that is not his field of expertise.
But when Bilton says he doesn’t know the causes of cell phones, I say the time has come to fire him as a tech writer.
Fucking buffoon.
I can see how trying to find a common cause of both cellphones and cancer is tricky. Unless you just reach for the old goddidit, of course.
@unclefrogy #7:
Always.
How do these people develop the delusion that they are competent? There is a part of me that thinks they’ve never actually known anything, so it is beyond their comprehension that everyone out there isn’t simply bullshitting their way through life the way these guys are.
@anym, #11:
Oh, sure, but then they contradict themselves. Sure, common cause, goddidit, etc. But when a student says the pledge in Finnish, that’s the cause of the the latest right-wing outrage.
To justify their rants, they even deceptively translated only the first 3 words of “one nation, under Nokia,” into English.
Cellphones are a gift of the ancient astronauts, only recently unearthed when humans became ready for them. Cancer is just a side effect of the mutations introduced by the ancient astronauts to enable our hominid ancestors to use cellphones.
As far as I’m concerned, the NYT is still in the doghouse for unquestioningly printing what Dick Cheney fed them about the non-existent Iraqi WMDs, and yet here they are doing the same kind of shit. And they wonder why I ignore their kind invitations to subscribe to their rag.
@#4, Artor:
Again, Marcus nails it. Because, if a handheld radio-emitting device is so dangerous, sticking a second radio-emitting device straight in your ear canal is so much better!
The icing on the cake, as I’ve just confirmed with a friend of mine who works them (not dealing with this section of the paper, I hasten to add), is that the New York Times offices are a wi-fi area. :-D
Because he studied journalism.
Most media honestly believe that any journalist is qualified to write about any science-related topic. It shows.
LOOOOOL!!! :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
we still don’t know definitively the causes of cellphones
I can’t agree more. It’s something that puzzles the hell out of me.
So cell phones are pushing out enough energy and massive radiation to cause cancer (and other cell phones), these powerful signals piercing the air like a swarm of crazed Japanese hornets throwing flaming knives, spanning miles in their constant migration towards the nearest cell tower…they will rip through your brain like Wolverine clawing through a marzipan wall…but only if you hold it to your head. The first 3 inches past the antenna on your cell phone is basically a light saber, but after that its cool, just use a headset, problem solved. At least thats what I got from the conclusion.
This is the product of someone who gets paid to write?
David Marjonovic
I am not sure Bilton is qualified to write.
Trebuchet
The benefits of carrying the device in that location when it is set to vibrate mode are worth the risk.
But you must answer it, eventually.
And explain to your Granny why you never answer her calls.
Even if he uses a plug-in without Bluetooth or wifi, the copper wire will act like a radio antenna that amplifies the signal that he’s plugging straight into his earhole. Idiot.
David M@18:
Actually, I think a professional journalist should be able to write a good piece on almost any subject, even one they don’t know much about at the start, by canvassing a range of opinions and checking the quality of the evidence for each opinion. Sure they might not be able to understand the nuances of critiquing scientific papers, but they sure should be able to understand the statement “all the large, well-designed studies show no correlation between cell phone use and cancer” and make that central to their story. What has happened here is as much a failure of basic journalism as a failure of scientific understanding. Or to put it another way, he knew nothing about the subject at the start and had learned nothing at the end of his writing.
From the OP:
Reminds me of another commentary:
“Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can’t stop what it’s meant to stop.
We like it.
It’s left a trail of graft and slime,
It’s filled our land with vice and crime,
It don’t prohibit worth a dime,
Nevertheless, we’re for it.”
We had a similar, but much more serious, situation here in Canada, where the Toronto Star published a front page story suggesting that the HPV vaccine caused serious complications, and even one death, in a number of recipients. This was based on nothing more than a small number of anecdotes.
After considerable pressure from the scientific and medical community, the story was eventually retracted:
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/post2173791.html
They quoted Mercola for balance, y’see. It’s amazing that no one associated with the Times has ever remarked on this