I thought Nancy was asking me to identify a specific article that was selectively quoted. I did: all of them.
I’m just saying that the headline is a lie, supported by selective quotation: this is not a finding of sexual similarity and none of the popular coverage claims that it is a study of sexual difference. I’m not saying anything fancy about subtle connotations that are smuggled in and not explicitly identified. This is a very simple claim and anyone interested in more detail should read the popular articles themselves. What else could I have possibly meant?
First popular article linked from Slate. Slate says this article trumpets the study as revealing “differences in men’s and women’s bodies, differences found as deep down as the cellular level”.
I think the article is nominally about the study, but ends up saying rather little about the study. It quotes an author of the study about the findings of the study. Then it goes on to quote him talking about genes on the Y-chromosome more generally, and has a couple of paragraphs that so far as I can tell are unrelated to the study, about differences in conditions like autism between males and females. Then it quotes “researchers” (doesn’t say what researchers or give any context) saying that those differences may reveal “differences … as deep down as the cellular level”. And then it jumps back with a couple of paragraphs about what “the scientists” (now meaning the authors of the study, rather than those unspecified “researchers”) plan to do next.
The article doesn’t say that the study reveals exciting differences between men and women or that it’s evidence of difference. But it does take a study that (as the Slate article says) finds chromosomal similarities between men and women, and then use something like half the space it has to discuss it to talk about how men and women are biologically different because of their different chromosomes. I think the Slate article is at least half right here.
Second popular article linked from Slate. Slate says the article says that the 12 genes looked at by the studies “may represent a fundamental difference in how the cells in men’s and women’s bodies read off the information in their genomes”. The article says, near the start, exactly this: “the Y chromosome includes genes required for the general operation of the genome, according to two new surveys of its evolutionary history. These genes may represent a fundamental difference in how the cells in men’s and women’s bodies read off the information in their genomes.” Which I think is exactly what the Slate article says it says.
The third article is like the first. It quotes someone—in this case actually the study author—saying that genes on the Y chromosome (but, it seems clear, not the one the study found) may represent a fundamental difference in, etc. It doesn’t say that the new research has found that. But it leaves readers to draw their own conclusions, and a careless reader could very easily get the wrong impression about which the Slate article complains.
My overall impression is tha tthe Slate article has correctly identified an interesting (and complaint-worthy) phenomenon: anything to do with sex and biology tends to get turned into a story about differences between men and women, perhaps because readers love reading stories about differences between men and women—but it’s overstated its case and suggested that those kinda-misdirected articles are wronger than they actually are. (By claiming that they say sex differences were actually found by the studies they’re reporting on, which at least in two of the three cases they don’t quite say.)
It seems to me that Douglas needs a lot more evidence than he’s given any sign of having, if he’s going to claim that “all the quotes are chosen for the purpose of deceit”, and I think he’s flatly wrong to say that “the whole article is nonsense”.
If you accept Slate’s interpretation of the Nature articles, then the popular coverage isn’t very good. But, as I said, the Nature articles aren’t a discovery of sexual similarities or differences. The topic is sex differences, but the study says nothing new about how big or small the human difference is.
I thought Nancy was asking me to identify a specific article that was selectively quoted. I did: all of them. I’m just saying that the headline is a lie, supported by selective quotation: this is not a finding of sexual similarity and none of the popular coverage claims that it is a study of sexual difference.
And again, you reiterate your original claim and respond to neither Nancy nor myself.
Here is an article. You say it is wrong and not only is its thesis wrong, every quote is misleading. When asked for elaboration, you go on saying that. If ‘this is a very simple claim’, it should be easy to elaborate how the popular articles are correct, the quotations of them misleading, and the revisionist interpretation ‘nonsense’.
If I had to choose representative quotes, I’d choose the headlines or first sentences. But what’s the point? The only reason we are talking about this is the claim of distortion, not to summarize the science, let alone the science coverage.
I thought Nancy was asking me to identify a specific article that was selectively quoted. I did: all of them.
I’m just saying that the headline is a lie, supported by selective quotation: this is not a finding of sexual similarity and none of the popular coverage claims that it is a study of sexual difference. I’m not saying anything fancy about subtle connotations that are smuggled in and not explicitly identified. This is a very simple claim and anyone interested in more detail should read the popular articles themselves. What else could I have possibly meant?
OK, so I took a look.
First popular article linked from Slate. Slate says this article trumpets the study as revealing “differences in men’s and women’s bodies, differences found as deep down as the cellular level”.
I think the article is nominally about the study, but ends up saying rather little about the study. It quotes an author of the study about the findings of the study. Then it goes on to quote him talking about genes on the Y-chromosome more generally, and has a couple of paragraphs that so far as I can tell are unrelated to the study, about differences in conditions like autism between males and females. Then it quotes “researchers” (doesn’t say what researchers or give any context) saying that those differences may reveal “differences … as deep down as the cellular level”. And then it jumps back with a couple of paragraphs about what “the scientists” (now meaning the authors of the study, rather than those unspecified “researchers”) plan to do next.
The article doesn’t say that the study reveals exciting differences between men and women or that it’s evidence of difference. But it does take a study that (as the Slate article says) finds chromosomal similarities between men and women, and then use something like half the space it has to discuss it to talk about how men and women are biologically different because of their different chromosomes. I think the Slate article is at least half right here.
Second popular article linked from Slate. Slate says the article says that the 12 genes looked at by the studies “may represent a fundamental difference in how the cells in men’s and women’s bodies read off the information in their genomes”. The article says, near the start, exactly this: “the Y chromosome includes genes required for the general operation of the genome, according to two new surveys of its evolutionary history. These genes may represent a fundamental difference in how the cells in men’s and women’s bodies read off the information in their genomes.” Which I think is exactly what the Slate article says it says.
The third article is like the first. It quotes someone—in this case actually the study author—saying that genes on the Y chromosome (but, it seems clear, not the one the study found) may represent a fundamental difference in, etc. It doesn’t say that the new research has found that. But it leaves readers to draw their own conclusions, and a careless reader could very easily get the wrong impression about which the Slate article complains.
My overall impression is tha tthe Slate article has correctly identified an interesting (and complaint-worthy) phenomenon: anything to do with sex and biology tends to get turned into a story about differences between men and women, perhaps because readers love reading stories about differences between men and women—but it’s overstated its case and suggested that those kinda-misdirected articles are wronger than they actually are. (By claiming that they say sex differences were actually found by the studies they’re reporting on, which at least in two of the three cases they don’t quite say.)
It seems to me that Douglas needs a lot more evidence than he’s given any sign of having, if he’s going to claim that “all the quotes are chosen for the purpose of deceit”, and I think he’s flatly wrong to say that “the whole article is nonsense”.
If you accept Slate’s interpretation of the Nature articles, then the popular coverage isn’t very good. But, as I said, the Nature articles aren’t a discovery of sexual similarities or differences. The topic is sex differences, but the study says nothing new about how big or small the human difference is.
And again, you reiterate your original claim and respond to neither Nancy nor myself.
Here is an article. You say it is wrong and not only is its thesis wrong, every quote is misleading. When asked for elaboration, you go on saying that. If ‘this is a very simple claim’, it should be easy to elaborate how the popular articles are correct, the quotations of them misleading, and the revisionist interpretation ‘nonsense’.
Could you be more specific?
Take at least a few of the quotes and tell us what you think is wrong with them.
There’s nothing wrong with the individual quotes, just that they aren’t representative of the article. Have you never heard of selective quotation?
Could you give us some better quotes?
If I had to choose representative quotes, I’d choose the headlines or first sentences. But what’s the point? The only reason we are talking about this is the claim of distortion, not to summarize the science, let alone the science coverage.