The ‘Last Week Tonight’ host explains why so many seem like ‘bull—-.”
On Mother’s Day, John Oliver delivered the mother of all scientific mockeries. His aim: to debunk the type of “studies” typically cited on morning talk shows such as NBC’s Today that purport to challenge conventional medical wisdom with surprising new data.
Illustrating how such information gets blown out of proportion by a revved-up news cycle that thrives on out-of-context and unconfirmed breakthroughs of limited scientific merit, the host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight delivered a trash-talking civics lesson as a comedy of errors.
“There are so many studies being thrown around, they can seem to contradict one another,” Oliver said Sunday. “In just the last few months, we’ve seen studies about coffee that claim it may reverse the effects of liver damage, help prevent colon cancer, decrease the risk of endometrial cancer and increase the risk of miscarriage.”
“Coffee today is like God in the Old Testament,” he continued. “It will either save you or kill you depending on how much you believe in its magic powers.”
Publicity-hungry scientists
Problem A, according to the British satirist’s report, is a rush to marketplace that finds scientists under constant pressure to publish research papers in order to land funding and academic tenure. In academia, as in Hollywood, sexy sells. “Scientists know nobody is publishing a study called “Nothing is Up with Acai Berries,” Oliver noted.
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John Oliver discusses how and why media outlets so often report untrue or incomplete information as science.
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