North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Stephen Sadler" <Docshiva@Docshiva.org>]

Betty, I so appreciate good journalism like that.  You definitely do readers 
a service by doing it. 

~ Stephen 

-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org 
[mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Betty Mayfield
Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2009 9:15 PM
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] California’s tree crops are screwed, says new report

Richard,

As a newspaper reporter I have on occasion had to interview people who talked 
in a specific science jargon, but when they threw out something like 
"regression analysis" I would stop and dig until they could define it in 
plain English. If newspapers print unedited press releases, only the readers 
familiar with one area of study will understand them. This does not mean 
simplifying the material, only translating it into words that everyone will 
understand.

Betty Mayfield

At 09:30 AM 7/25/2009, you wrote:
>You're right....I have little clue what they mean by "regression 
>analysis". Does it taste good?
>                                            Richard
>
>--- On Sat, 7/25/09, Stephen Sadler <Docshiva@Docshiva.org> wrote:
>
>From: Stephen Sadler <Docshiva@Docshiva.org>
>Subject: Re: [NAFEX] California’s tree crops are screwed, says new 
>report
>To: "'North American Fruit Explorers'" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Date: Saturday, July 25, 2009, 10:56 AM
>
>The press does tend to oversimplify a bit, and that makes it hard to 
>react to a study based on a for-the-public simplified reporting.  I try 
>to go right to the original study before commenting or reporting, but 
>that really is going a bit further than most would want to.
>
>
>
> From the lead author of the study: “we didn't 
> just compare two years, but used regression 
> analysis over the entire available temperature 
> record to obtain representative conditions for 
> those two years. The numbers are just scenario 
> names. In fact we Also used the historic record 
> to obtain the statistical variation of the 
> temperature. That was used to generate 100 repetitions of each scenario 
> year.
>
>All that stuff was too complicated to communicate to the press.”
>
>
>
>Yours,
>
>~ Stephen
>
>
>
>From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org 
>[mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Richard Harrison
>Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2009 4:46 AM
>To: North American Fruit Explorers
>Subject: Re: [NAFEX] California’s tree crops are screwed, says new report
>
>
>
>The method reported of using 2 specific years 
>1950 and 1999 is flawed from the get-go IF that 
>was reported correctly. I am going only by what was written at the link.
>
>I think it was a bad subject with doom-and-gloom 
>as the subject line. So I responded to it to try 
>to help balance the subject. I think it was a 
>bad subject and it's time to get back to real 
>fruit production--now, and not chase future theoretical rabbits.
>
>I like fruit. It tastes MUCH better than theory!
>
> 
>Best regards,
>
>                                                                     Richard
>
>--- On Fri, 7/24/09, Stephen Sadler <Docshiva@Docshiva.org> wrote:
>
>
>From: Stephen Sadler <Docshiva@Docshiva.org>
>Subject: Re: [NAFEX] California’s tree crops are screwed, says new report
>To: "'North American Fruit Explorers'" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Date: Friday, July 24, 2009, 7:17 PM
>
>No opinion or debate follows:
>
>
>
>  I’ve read the original research – much more 
> comprehensive than the press release/report; 
> and am in correspondence with the authors.  One 
> might want to read the paper and then specify methodological deficiencies.
>
>It happens constantly, especially in science, 
>that research is simplified to the point where 
>misunderstanding or rationalization is 
>possible.  I don’t know what a good answer 
>would be.  Not everyone can comfortably read 
>original papers.  Perhaps trust the abstracts, 
>or read detailed summaries is science-for-the-public journals like Discovery?
>
>
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