“不正常”的社會科學實驗對象

Vox: What journalists get wrong about social science, according to 20 scientists

There's a constant conflict between social scientists and the reporters who cover them. It's derived from "a fundamental tension between the media's desire for novelty and the scientific method," as Sanjay Srivastava, who researches personality at the University of Oregon, tells me. 

He's right. Journalists have a need for digestible headlines that convey simple, accessible, and preferably novel lessons. The scientific method stresses a slow accumulation of knowledge, nuance, and doubt.

文中舉出的11種謬誤，很多都屬老生常談。當然，不單傳媒人，讀者自己也要恆常警惕，避免曲解或誇大所謂社會科學研究發現。

第4點我覺得特別有趣：A lot of research is conducted on college students. College students are not normal.（很多研究都以大學生為研究對象。大學生並不正常）。

這個，與其說是在責備傳媒人，更多是棒打不少社會科學學者進行研究時的粗疏躲懶，專找最容易找到最省錢的實驗對象：“不正常”（即並不具備整體社會代表性）的大學生群。