I feel like every time I read about some new study in the media, they’re committing a huge error – that is, media coverage of scientific findings seems to be confusing ‘correlation’ with ‘causation’.

This week’s example is the coverage of this new study by the RAND Corp. which links sexual content in television to teen pregnancy rates. The stories claim that these researchers have found that watching sexy TV increases pregnancy rates – but that’s not what the study found. The study (weakly, in my opinion) found a correlation between watching explicit shows and pregnancy rates. So why does everyone keep claiming that Racy TV shows switch teenagers on to sex or Sex on TV Increases Teen Pregnancy?

I admit, this issue is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. But, SERIOUSLY? There is a huge difference between CORRELATION and CAUSATION, and people (including scientists!) seem to just completely ignore it. Does no one seem to see the dangers present in confusing the two?

If we claim causation, we open the door to prevention – that is, legislation, etc to stop whatever ill effect from happening. If we do so without the causation at all, we allow bigotry and random opinion to dictate our lives. Someone has to speak up and correct the media’s sensationalizing of scientific studies. As the biggest proponents of our own research, shouldn’t we scientists be the ones standing up to reveal the shortcomings as well as promise of our findings? How come everyone just accepts headlines like the ones above so effortlessly? Does no one actually read papers anymore?