Latest post in my blog on popular science:
Striking errors in scientific research
http://populscience.blogspot.com/2020/12/striking-errors.html
Regards,
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When I saw the title, I hoped Pons and Fleischmann would be mentioned. Though AFAIK, the failure there in the public reporting wasn’t a result of scientific ignorance by the media (as best I recall, they reported the claims with a reasonable degree of accuracy), but that the claims themselves were wrong. I don’t recall, though, seeing a good explanation of the cause of the error–I wouldn’t expect they were deliberately faking (as they’d have to have known they’d be sure to be exposed).
Yes, in that case the media were reasonably accurate and mentioned the possibility of a mistake from the beginning. But I included this case, because it was the first where a press conference was used to announce a scientific discovery.
There are still people who believe that that discovery was genuine and continue their research, but it does no longer get a large visualization by the media.
Regards,