It’s ‘scientifically proven!’ – it must be TRUE
And, yes, the above quotation is correct – or, at least, is accurately quoted.. Which is not quite the same thing.
‘Science’ says that letting babies cry themselves to sleep is a good thing…
If you believe the news of recent ‘scientific research’.
If you forget about human emotions.
About love.
About kindness.
About caring for scared young people..
If you decide ‘the data proves it … so that’s that!’
Science tells us – so it’s true!
So there you have it. It must be true – it’s been scientifically proven: parents should now let their babies cry themselves to sleep!
Yup. Turn the TV volume up and, well, ignore the cries – and your feelings.
That is, according to the Daily Mail (the headline is from their website).
And according to nearly 2,000 other online and offline publications.
These reputable and ‘true’ claims are based on scientific research at Flinders University in Australia and published in the peer-reviewed ‘Pediatrics’ journal in May 2016.
The study found that it’s okay to let babies cry themselves to sleep. It has just been published and has now it’s become headline news around the world – here’s a Google search http://bit.ly/1TS5CJv showing how the story has been picked up.
And the nice things about ‘science’ and ‘scientifically proven’ research is that we can rely upon it. Years, decades even, of media reassurance has convinced is that we can accept it as ‘true’.
It doesn’t have to be accurate – just newsworthy
The articles I’ve read do report the truth.
Some of it, at least.
But the bits they omit would create different headlines such as
Pity the poor journalists
It’s fascinating how journalists will grab scientific research to make up stories without allowing even a hint of critical thinking to faze them.
And yet, it’s sort of understandable.
Journalists have a hard life nowadays: it’s a pressurised and shrinking industry and fewer and fewer writers are available to very speedily fill those column inches. Otherwise they’ll likely be in the next batch of redundancies.
This means standards have had to be relaxed.
No time for further research – just grab the headlines in a scientific paper and say it’s ‘scientific’, that’ll do. On to the next story. Good for ‘click bait’ too.
It’s up to us to think critically
Since we can no longer expect journalists to write balanced articles it’s up to us to fill in the gaps. To think critically. To question, or even doubt, everything. And to aim to figure out who’s interests is the story aiming to fulfil, such as advertisers, proprietors, or editors.
In NLP we have a great tool for thinking critically. It’s the Meta Model with its 13 patterns, each of which highlights a different type fuzzy or sloppy thinking. This is such an important tool for clear and incisive thinking and communicating that we come back to it again and again in our NLP Practitioner 2 programme.
Then, when it comes to getting to the truth behind the ‘health’ headlines the NHS Choices website should be a first port of call. Their analysis of stories is thorough and fair – and properly scientific.
For example in a long article on the ‘let them cry’ research they comment:
“A problem with the study is its size – there were only 14 to 15 infants in each of the three test conditions at the start of the study.
There were even less after three months, when most of the results were analysed – only seven in each group. This isn’t enough to make reliable statements about which sleep method works best.”
The Pegasus NLP Newsletter
Most articles on this site originally appeared in The Pegasus NLP Newsletter – which has been published continuously since January 2001.
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