Gaming Rickets, Gaming and Righteous Fury

You should see the stuff bit-tech makes up. Apparently I was a teenage hand model (3rd paragraph from bottom).

 

THE MEDIA LIES?!? NO WAY! THEY ARE THE PINNACLE OF TRUTH!

. . . or not. to be honest i stopped paying attention to the MSM a long time ago. i do not think they ever get the science right. or the politics. or business. it is all lies and spin. as a journalist, if you do not link back to your source you are making an unfounded claim as far as i am concerned, and i do not trust your opinion. the only news articles i trust are linked back to their original source, and i will make my own judgment call on weather you are right or not.

 

Its nothing new and uttery unsurprising TBH.

Earthquake? Braid did it! Just ask Jack Thompson, he knows his games.

I personally would like to see deliberately easily mis-interperated or mis-reporting of science in mainstream news made illegal and punishable. Just look at the ****storm MMR kicked up. That caused more suffering then the supposed risk could ever cause. Remember the first switch on of the LHC? All you ever heard about was how we are all going to die. God only knows what will happen when they fire up ITER.

Again, the crux of the matter is that people are stupid...

Interestingly the Daily Mail got caught with thier hands down thier pants not long ago:

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/01/why-is-the-news-media-comfortable-with-lying-about-science.ars

 

as a science / business journalist its nice to see the misinformed articles that appear in the daily rags getting the bashing they truly deserve,

It is worth noting though that many journo's have no control over what happens to their articles once they submit them and while they may write something that is factual, those in the editorial team often decide that they need to sell more papers / advertising and so sex the stories up a bit....

 

tbh I regard the Metro with the same disdain as the Sun, both are comics with a hint of factual content. The metro does have a pretty science double spread though

 

No offence meant to the Brits but is good to see the States does not have monopoly on poor journalism. Course what do I know, I'm a baby boomer and that means my mind was permanetly warped by listening to rock & roll .
Guess I'll wander off now and waste an hour on watching a cable show on how we should all live in total fear of the planet being destroyed or why they can't find bigfoot.

 

How do I know if I have rickets or not then?

 

I think you would know if you had it. Like if your bones brake all the time or you're deformed in some way. Drink milk, eat fish and be outside a few days a week and most people are fine.

 

For the record, if anyone is concerned about their health... multivitamins are cheap and plentiful. A bottle will last you a couple of months and will be quite affordable to almost anyone. It's not a replacement for proper diet and nutrition, but it will prevent vitamin deficiencies and other such things. I'm surprised more people don't take them.

 

You really don't have to get very much sunlight to process enough vitamin D to stay healthy. Clearly the research shows that lack of ingestion of vitamin is the issue, but the scientist conducting it is probably old, and wants kids to play catch in the park, and ride penny farthings and such.

 

"Games are viewed with suspicion just as comics were"

And we all know what comic spells backwards - satan is my lord!

 

Its a free newspaper published by the Daily Mail what else could you possibly expect?

As for the scare of MRSA with regards to that book in the article, there is a reason to be worried. If there wasn't, research companies and Universities wouldn't be putting so much money into antibiotic research. Just thought I'd point that out but its VRSA you need to worry about

 

A lesson for ALL to learn:
Correlation does not equal Causation

 

Since Vitamins were discovered there still to this day is NO clinical evidence to support that they have any benefit AT ALL on the human body.
So lets put them in our food just in case, what a load of complete tosh, and is probably something a government steering committee is currently deciding....idiots.
Leave us alone you meddling morons.

 

don't have any then and enjoy your rickets

 

To be honest, I was under the impression that the vast majority of the studies linking Vitamin supplements to improved health were done on those with pre-existing and often severe deficiencies or health problems. The average person, even with the s**t diet we eat in this country still has mare than enough vitamins and minerals. Sorry I don't have any sources to back this up, and so it should be taken with a pinch of salt, but a quick google might help.

 

I am sure Cardjoe will not enjoy you saying "take it with a pinch of salt", as his reply may contain a brief message on how to best live with cardiovascular disease....lol... and..ARSE.

 

First of all, good article - I was literally smiling as I read all of it. Some of my favourite subjects (science, bad science, scepticism, bad science journalism and video games) on a bit-tech article - nerd heaven! . This is exactly the kind of scepticism that should be encouraged when you read articles like the one in the Metro. An important note is that scepticism does not equal cynicism. It does not mean that you reject everything outright and instantly assume that everything written is wrong - it means that you employ some critical thinking; you do the research, you read up on the subject, you look at the evidence and you make your own mind up.

Also, tune into the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast. The subjects of pseudoscientific "alternative" medicine, bad science, etc., come up and are debated/debunked quite often (as Tim Minchin put it, "Alternative medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that has been proved to work? Medicine."). The subject of vitamin D "deficiencies" was also discussed recently. Fantastically interesting, though a bit mind-melting sometimes!

QFT. When you start to look for it, you will be amazed at how often you will see this fallacy.


I'm threadjacking a little, as I could go on and on about this subject for ages...

 

Ever notice how all the women seeking women are 50+ ?

 

I used to read the Metro every day when I went to uni on the train. Used to think it was a good paper compared to the Daily Record which was the paper I used to read at my folks house. Now on the rare occasion I take the train, I realise half of the stories are pure sensationalist rubbish and the other half is usually semi-alright.

With reagrds to the topic, it takes something really wrong in your life to get rickets. You don't need to be out playing all day every day to get enough vitamin D. At the same time, you shouldn't be inside on computer games, reading or anything else. As with everything else in life, balance is key.

I always like reading a newspapers where they describe a quote as being "A source close to X told us", its obvious they're making a quote up from thin air and are using the term "source" to pretend they want anonyminty (spelling is obviously worng) . I read a post on the internet, can't remember for the life of me where though, where someone analysed the "quotes" in various news stories and could match the quotes in different stories to the same journalist just on the style of the quote. This either meant that the journalist was paraphrasing quotes to his/her own writing style or blatantly making the quote up and had the same writing style as the rest of their articles. I know which one seems most likely to me.