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Scientific Studies: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

LastWeekTonight · comedy · Watch on YouTube

Media, journalism & propagandaScientific method & science communication

What it is

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on how media outlets report incomplete or untrue findings as settled science. It covers sensational headlines, small studies and pressure on researchers.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN commenters recommend it as an entertaining and sophisticated primer on reading science reporting critically.

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2016, last 2019

What HN commenters said

  1. “John Oliver has a great segment called 'Scientific Studies' I'll link at the end of this post, everyone should watch this.”

    Great segment on critically evaluating science reporting

    idDriven, 2019-02 · Strong recommendation · in “YouTube Just Demonetized Anti-Vax Channels”

  2. “John Oliver did an awesome bit recently on scientific studies”

    Oliver bit on how media distorts study results

    dahart, 2016-06 · Recommendation · in “Dunning-Kruger and other memes (2015)”

  3. “John Oliver's analysis is both sophisticated and entertaining”

    Sophisticated and entertaining analysis of scientific studies

    brudgers, 2016-12 · Recommendation · in “Suggest HN: Studies based on small sample sizes shouldn't be on HN”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: scientific studies, media literacy, john oliver, replication, sample size

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