Strollerderby : fake

NY Times (and I) Post Crap Study on Bullying

Kelly Mills — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:31:00 GMT

I'm a big fan of digging deep when it comes to science reporting. It generally isn't that hard to find some serious flaws: Small samples, questionable methodology, and conclusions that stretch far are sometimes par for the course. But when I posted about a study showing bullies may actually enjoy inflicting pain on others, I didn't poke into it much at all.

At least I'm in venerable company, because the New York Times did the same thing.

At Slate they point out some very serious problems with the study, which used MRIs to study the response of "bullies" to images of pain inflicted on others. For example, the study didn't image brains during actual bullying, so the results have more to do with how subjects responded as observers than perpetrators. And teh sample was made up of people who could probably be more accurately characterized as sociopaths than just bullies. The results of the scans themselves are open to pretty wide interpretation.

Slate uses this story to show how the Times reporter just drew from the press release with very little independent reporting. I'm on this one because it was a good reminder to me to think critically when looking at studies getting a pass in the press. Especially when I'm adding to the chorus.

The Painful Reason Bullies Bully

They Say: Why Your Kid's A Bully Magnet

Best of FameCrawler: Week of August 8th

Whit Honea — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Is Bernie Mac Dead?

John Edwards - Mistress, Love Child & Hush Money

Barbara Walters Wants Sherri Shepherd Off The View

Helena Bonham Confirms Her Baby's Name-Finally

Angelina and Brad's First Picture of the Twins! Meet Knox and Vivienne Jolie-Pitt!

Pictures of Knox and Vivienne Jolie-Pitt Faked?!

Pamela Anderson: Boob Shots Only Please

Alessandra Ambrosio Gives Birth?

Knox & Vivienne Here!! Photo!!!

First Pictures of Vivienne and Knox Jolie-Pitt Mean Goodbye Brangelina

Faking Abortions for Art?

Jen Chaney — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:02:00 GMT

It sounded pretty freaky and disturbing when Yale student Aliza Shvarts announced that she had herself artificially inseminated multiple times, then aborted the fetuses for the sake of an art project. But after sparking much controversy on campus and in the blogosphere, she admitted the truth: She faked both the pregnancies and the induced miscarriages. Which, in a weird way, makes her seem slightly more sane. Slightly.

Shvarts originally told her peers she had been inseminated frequently during the past year, then took legal drugs to induce the miscarriages, which she then allegedly filmed taking place in her bathtub. The whole thing was supposed to spark debate and be provocative. Personally, I think it sounds an awful lot like something one of Claire's pretentious art school classmates on "Six Feet Under" would have done.

Here is the part (okay, one of the parts) I don't understand: If the college senior's real intention was to kickstart conversation -- presumably about women's bodies or our views on reproductive choice or when art crosses ethical boundaries -- why did she need to make it seem like she had these experiences herself? If she had filmed the videos and created the accompanying sculpture featuring her own blood mixed with Vaseline, but made it clear all was fiction, she still would have stirred the cultural pot and gotten people talking.

Instead she had to pull a James Frey/Margaret B. Jones and soak the whole endeavor in verisimilitude. The Memoir Fixation -- an obsession with stories that are true, as opposed to just stories -- has become an epidemic. I give Shvarts credit for having the guts to come clean. As for demonstrating wise judgment and good taste overall? In those categories, this student gets a D.

Photo: CSU.edu