The title is from the article.

The problem is deeper than the title of some random article though. The basic currency of any reporting is attention, and that’s the case not only for media intended for the non-scientific public, but also for scientific papers.

At the same time, a lot of science, especially basic research, is really boring. Because basic research is per definition without a real application (yet), and pretty much any research is years if not decades away from being commercially available.

To get around this dilemma, every level of science reporting needs to be sensationalist. Every little thing needs to be a “break-through” that “will change the world”, otherwise it won’t get attention, and stuff that doesn’t get attention won’t get funding.

But sensationalism is inherently counter-scientific, because it requires the authors to make claims that the science doesn’t support.

So right within the core systems of modern science is a mechanic that rewards being non-scientific while punishing researchers that stick to dry science.

And that’s a real problem because it means that a large portion (estimates are at ~30%) of scientific papers are just bogus, and an even larger portion (my cynical estimate is ~90%) of what makes it into non-scientific media is pure sensationalist garbage.

In science reporting, every result breaks a paradigm and has important applications in medicine or something else consumers relate to.