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Science and the media have a strained relationship. Scientists are extraordinarily conservative and exact in their language, and the media, in their quest to sell papers or boost ratings, is... not.
This tends to give the public the false impression that science proceeds in grandiose leaps, where with every leap, all preceeding science has been proved false. In fact, science tends to plod along at a more or less steady pace, each new bit building on the accumulated preceeding bits.
The false impression the public has, does enormous harm to scientists credibility, which is particularly dangerous when it comes time for scientists to give warning.
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