In case you wondered …

… Why we always get biology wrong – Mark Vernon.

It’s important to stress that basic misunderstandings of science are also rife amongst journalists. One of the most widespread is the conflation of causes and correlations. 

A recent review, published in The Lancet, identified risk factors linked to dementia. It generated headlines about how to avoid dementia by making lifestyle changes. These included such diverse strategies as raising levels of education and addressing midlife hearing loss, as well as tackling obesity and smoking. “Risk factors” became causes in the reporting, and what was easy to overlook, too, was that the factors themselves actually accounted for only a small fraction of the overall risk. In fact, two-thirds of dementia risk is thought to be “non-modifiable”, The Lancet reported. In a way, that was the real story, but it doesn’t make for good headlines.