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Do you think video games have led to more violent attacks by young people? You are not alone. Lots of people do. It was in every major newspaper because a meta-analysis once showed it was so.  But then another meta-analysis showed that belief is false.

Journalists gushed over both claims(1) even though one was suspect to anyone who understands the nature of selection bias in meta-analyses. So let's discuss what a meta-analysis is and what it can and cannot do. 

What meta-analysis is: It is just what it sounds like, an analysis of analyses, which is better than a literary criticism of literary criticisms, though in...

Journalism isn't what it used to be.

Decades ago, it was a widely respected career. Every night, people would gather around their television sets to watch the nightly news. There weren't many options to choose from, and Walter Cronkite was easily the most famous. He was so influential, that a myth widely believed to this day circulated about him: When Cronkite declared the Vietnam War a stalemate, President Lyndon Johnson supposedly remarked, "If I've lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America."

He never did say that, but the kernel of truth at the heart of the myth still rings loud and true: There was a time when Americans...

The Gray Lady has gotten raunchy in her old age. News has just broken that the New York Times's national security reporter, Ali Watkins, was sleeping with a source who worked as an aide to the Senate Intelligence Committee. That source has now been arrested as part of an investigation into leaks of classified information.

It's long been known that journalism, like the legal profession, attracts its fair share of agenda-driven sleazebags who prioritize half-truths and personal ambition over honor and veracity, perhaps none more so than the New York Times. Back in 2003, Jayson Blair, a reporter for the NYT, resigned because he plagiarized and...

By Josh Bloom, PhD; Alex Berezow, PhD; Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA; and Thom Golab

ACSH was founded in 1978 by a group of scientists, including a Nobel Prize winner named Norman Borlaug, who were fed up with the misinformation being spread in the media in regard to important scientific and health topics, particularly nutrition, toxicology, and chemistry. In other words, ACSH was fighting “fake news” long before the term was invented.

Whenever you speak the truth, this automatically creates enemies. While people say that they want the truth, when confronted with something that goes against their own beliefs or self-interest, they often (metaphorically) shoot the messenger. Today, the most widely used weapons are defamation, character assassination,...