Kaiser nails it. The offending article, by John Tierney, somehow ended up in the Science section rather than the Opinion section. As an opinion piece (or, for that matter, a blog), Tierney’s article would be nothing special. But I agree with Kaiser that it doesn’t work as a newspaper article. As Kaiser notes, this story involves a bunch of statistical and empirical claims that are not well resolved by P.R. and rhetoric.
Maybe it's in the wrong section of the paper, but arguably it will find most of its interested readers in the Science section, not the Opinion section.
However, what on earth justifies *Kaiser's* claims about the "lies" these tests are supposedly full of? He jumps from "the predictions are sometimes wrong" (well, duh, that's why they're predictions) to "the Times thinks that it is ok for medical tests to tell lies." Does he not realize that even traditional medical tests have false-positives and false-negatives? I mean, clearly he must realize that, as a "professional statistician", so what chip on his shoulder is making him write a post like this?
"Nails it", no, I would not say so.
Ken:
Perhaps it could be in the Science section but labeled as a column or feature rather than as news. (Or maybe it was labeled as such; I didn't notice it in the hard-copy paper.)
I think Kaiser's key point was that the story was presented in a one-sided way, more like a press release than something you'd expect in a top newspaper.
Ken: If you read my blog, you'll find a lot of discussion of errors in medical testing. In this case, the medical experts have determined that the accuracy rate of this type of tests is too low to be considered useful for most people. Tierney claims otherwise. I see nothing substantive in his opinion piece to justify his claim. Further, I am shocked that this blatant piece of PR is being sold to NYT readers as "science journalism".
As someone who recently posted about some _actual_ lies, I'd like to second Ken's comment that Kaiser really uses the term "lie" when he applies it to any incorrect risk inference. I think most of us use to term only when there is an intent to deceive. If you believe someone is at elevated risk of colon cancer, and you tell them so, you're not lying even if you're wrong.
I agree that the article doesn't have a neutral point of view. I don't necessarily object to news articles having a point of view, though; indeed, one thing that bugs me is when a reporter goes out of his way to present "both sides of the story" when in fact one side is right and the other side is wrong. If a story is subtly biased, that's bad, but if the reporter makes it clear that his opinions are coloring the story, I think that's OK.
Although I don't _necessarily_ object to a news article having a point of view, in this case I agree that the article is somewhat objectionable. But not because it has a definite point of view, and I certainly don't think it says it's OK to lie.