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Deconstructing Bunk Reporting in Five Easy Steps
By Beth Skwarecki
Bitch Magazine

British scientists have uncovered the truth behind one of modern culture’s greatest mysteries: why little girls play with pink toys. Is it because toy companies flood whole store aisles with the color? Or because well-meaning relatives shower girl babies with pink blankets and clothing? Nope. According to the men in lab coats, it’s purely biological.

Apparently, women are hardwired to like pink because our cavewoman foremothers spent their days gathering red leaves and berries amongst the trees while their husbands were out hunting. Later, women needed to notice red-faced babies and blushing boyfriends. And why do men like blue? Because it’s the color of the sky.

This evolutionary just-so story takes up three pages of a 2007 issue of Current Biology. To back up the assertion that pink is a universal girly preference worth examining, the authors refer to a 1985 study finding that little girls use more pink and red crayons in their drawings than little boys do.

Dig further, however, and the story completely falls apart. British women do prefer pink, but the author’s claim of a “robust, cross-cultural sex difference” turns out to be neither. The scientists compared British natives with Chinese immigrants to Britain, and glossed over the differences. For example: The girliest color in the British results, a purplish-pink, was in fact the Chinese men’s favorite.

Nowhere do scientific findings get more mangled than when they’re about the differences between men and women. According to the science pages, women aren’t just biologically hardwired to prefer pink to blue. We’re also predisposed to backstab one another in the workplace, cry in the boardroom, and have both lower iqs and less of a sense of humor than men.

Some misleading stories come from bad science, where the study authors’ conclusions aren’t supported by their own data. Others are well-conducted studies whose conclusions mutate upon contact with the mainstream media. Newspapers and websites are prone to playing fast and loose with their reports on studies, often neglecting to reveal salient facts about a study’s sample group or methodology.

The fact is that science articles aren’t designed to be read by non-scientists. College and grad students in the sciences are trained in how to do it: They review papers and discuss them in journal clubs; learn how to question methodologies (Is that sample really big enough? Was that the right test to use?); and learn how to be critical of authors’ interpretations (Do the results really mean what they say they mean?). Students also know to look at context for each study, looking up previous papers on the subject, reviewing the authors’ previous work, and searching out any evidence of bias that might color a study’s findings.

Journalists looking for a quick story, however, do little such research. And in an age where news sites, wire services, and blogs pick up stories with lightning-fast speed, bad research gets around. When London’s Sunday Times reported on a 2007 study claiming that men get dumber in the presence of blond women, the paper got the name of the journal wrong, citing the Journal of Experimental Psychology rather than the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Nearly every subsequent news article repeated the error because they were content to simply reword the Times’ version of the story rather than finding and discussing the study itself.

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In the July issue of Jolie, a magazine insert The State newspaper markets to women, Editor Sarah Gilbert Fox writes in her letter to readers, “This month everyone will celebrate the 4th of July, gather at the beach, have BBQ’s, knock back margaritas, and, well, worry about their weight. Which makes me wonder how much independence do we really have? I’m beginning to think we don’t much like freedom, because when we have it we just end up subjugating ourselves to something else, such as the perfect-body image. So what if we’re a size 12, which used to be an average size. If we can’t fit into a size 4, we’re doomed.”

“It’s all rather shocking,” she writes, “this need to obtain a skinnier self at the expense of a happier self. And it’s a shame to know that these women’s children are constantly exposed to this talk. These daughters hardly have a chance to live a life of self-acceptance.”

She vows to “make a difference” by getting women to stop judging their bodies so harshly or to shut up about it if they can’t.

“I’m a former 82-pound anorexic,” she confides, “and it’s taken me 35 years to get to where I am right now: less boney for sure, but happier, more relaxed, and with enough energy to realize how much I’m really worthy, large or small. Don’t get me wrong – I’m still neurotic and out of touch with most things, but at least body image is not one of them.”

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How do you spell hypocrisy? F-O-X (alternate spelling: C-B-S).

This is a real head-scratcher. The same TV networks that have no problem running shows chock full of gratuitous sex and violence draw the line at running condom ads. What’s up with that?

Here’s a recent message from Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (Planned Parenthood Health Systems of SC is a Network member group):

Here’s a pretty telling story from the world of media. There is a new condom commercial on the airwaves that starts with a bunch of women in a bar surrounded by some men who happen to look like pigs. One of these men then shuffles to the men’s room, grabs a condom from a vending machine, and all of a sudden is turned into a regular guy. But the message at the end is what I like: “Use a condom every time.”

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If you haven’t seen the OreoMobile show, which has been touring South Carolina since early June, you have another chance on July 8. The rolling civics lesson will offer its short program at the Unitarian Church in Charleston, 4 Archdale St., at 11:30 Sunday morning. If you’re in the area, check it out. You’ll get some perspective on this country’s budget priorities, some free toys and Oreos. Bring your own milk.

The movable feast stopped at the Network’s board meeting June 9 in Columbia. It was entertaining and appalling in equal measure. The presentation was fun; the statistics frightening.

Activist Aaron Rubin launches a pack of Oreos into the crowd at the Network’s June board meeting in Columbia.

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So I read in today’s The State that JayBo is walking across South Carolina, with his sights set on San Francisco. He expects it will take him a year to walk the 2,800 miles and that he will emerge on the Left Coast a new, slimmer Bo. “I get to see wonderful things, meet new interesting people, and yes I will lose weight,” he wrote in his blog on his third day.

I love this story, and I am rooting for JayBo. I know how transformative a long walk can be. In the fall of 2002, I trekked solo across northern Spain. It took me a month to do the 500-mile pilgrims’ trail, known to seekers around the world as the Camino de Santiago. And while the trail was physically demanding – crossing two mountain ranges and the meseta, a vast moonscape that takes days to traverse – I found the biggest challenge was mental. The scariest part was not traveling alone or packs of wild dogs (which I’d read about in Paulo Coelho’s book The Pilgrimage), it was navigating the landscape in my head. With no distractions, no phone, no radio, nothing but the sound of my feet meeting the earth, there I was with myself. Hours upon end, just me and my thoughts.

Terrifying.

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A vigil to honor the life of 20-year-old Sean Kennedy was held tonight in Columbia. Friends and family shared songs, poetry, prayers and stories with the crowd that gathered at the State House to pay its respects.

It appears that Kennedy, who was beaten after leaving a club in the Upstate in May, was killed because he was gay. The 18-year-old accused of the crime is being held on murder charges in a Greenville jail. The assault has sparked public outrage and renewed pressure to enact hate crimes legislation in South Carolina, one of only four states without such protection. Rep. Seth Whipper (D-Charleston) introduced a bill in March; maybe this tragedy will generate enough heat to move the legislature to act when it reconvenes in January.

Sean Kennedy’s mother, Elke, and sister, Dawn.

Good news from SC Fair Share today:

The General Assembly has overwhelmingly overridden the Governor’s vetoes of additional SCHIP funding and the proviso expanding SCHIP eligibility from 150% to 200% of the federal poverty level.

This is a great victory for 65,000 children that has taken us a long time to get to. Thanks for everyone who helped today and over the years.

John Ruoff