update, the paper is riddled with factual and hallucinated problems. i don't have time for this but ill have to send a letter insisting on retraction.
Michael L. Barnett
@mlbarnett.bsky.social
2.4K followers 1K following 254 posts
health policy researcher, primary care physician, dad
!["Gell-Mann amnesia effect"
In a speech in 2002, Crichton coined the term "Gell-Mann amnesia effect" to describe the phenomenon of experts reading newspaper articles within their fields of expertise and finding them to be error-ridden and full of misunderstanding, but seemingly forgetting those experiences when reading articles in the same publications written on topics outside of their fields of expertise, which they believe to be credible. He explained that he had chosen the name ironically, because he had once discussed the effect with physicist Murray Gell-Mann, "and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have".[153][154]
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.[153]
The Gell-Mann amnesia effect is similar to Erwin Knoll's law of media accuracy, which states: "Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true except for the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge."[155]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kumkpeo7y6hjtijoe4l4k3hl/bafkreigrxlxirmvyhbszumfre6ctxsmhnz4o3zm3cbol3nltiot4dr6h3m)
