So I was stumbling today, as you do, and came across this article. I was stumbling 'health' and I'm not really sure how this relates to health, but there you go. Anyways, it is about Otzi the Iceman, and I think it is a pretty good example of what I was talking about in my last entry. When articles are written about archaeological finds that contain very little information, and only a few flashy sentences, sometimes readers can get the wrong idea. I don't think that Mirror News intends to misinform their readers, but sometimes these things happen. Which is unfortunate. If anyone is interested, this is a link to the article:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/27Ahve/www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/new-dna-profile-reveals-clues-746637/
As you can see, broad, sweeping statements are made about the find, without any sort of evidence mentioned or clarifications made. Oh well.
I think that it is also important to note that this happens with almost every field of research, not just archaeology. 'Psychology' is a subject that one can 'stumble' and I am a pysc major so occasionally I do. And while I find the articles I read there interesting, I know to take all of them with a grain of salt.
Journalists don't put the full story into articles because if they did there would be no point, they would just be rewriting academic papers. And while I respect that and still enjoy reading these articles, I think it is important to think critically about them. We are in university after all! Isn't that what were supposed to be learning to do?!
Anyways, just a quick example of what I was talking about last week. I hope midterms are treating everyone well!
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