I stopped reading Razib years ago when one of his readers accused him of “sexing up” a headline and deliberately misrepresenting what a paper was about in order to attract more readers and he flat out admitted it and didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.
Misrepresenting your talk as “most people are stupid” is not surprising at all.
Did he misrepresent the paper’s contents merely in the headline, or in the body text as well?
Ambiguous headlines are standard fare in journalism, and can often serve to draw in and win people over to your article/cause, people who might not otherwise have given you, or the topic you wished to exposit, the time of day. I believe they call it “bait and switch” in certain circles.
I don’t remember the specific instance if it was headline or body. I did notice repeatedly though he seemed overly willing to be a bit trollish in order to generate controversy and responses, like summarizing Eliezer’s talk as “most people are stupid”, for example, which accomplished its desired effect very nicely.
I stopped reading Razib years ago when one of his readers accused him of “sexing up” a headline and deliberately misrepresenting what a paper was about in order to attract more readers and he flat out admitted it and didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.
Misrepresenting your talk as “most people are stupid” is not surprising at all.
Did he misrepresent the paper’s contents merely in the headline, or in the body text as well?
Ambiguous headlines are standard fare in journalism, and can often serve to draw in and win people over to your article/cause, people who might not otherwise have given you, or the topic you wished to exposit, the time of day. I believe they call it “bait and switch” in certain circles.
I don’t remember the specific instance if it was headline or body. I did notice repeatedly though he seemed overly willing to be a bit trollish in order to generate controversy and responses, like summarizing Eliezer’s talk as “most people are stupid”, for example, which accomplished its desired effect very nicely.