Is neatly captured in the above Dilbert strip. Any report about some new research finding out cheese causes cancer in middle aged women e.g. never quantifies the risk enough to know how serious you should take it, nor puts it into context. If there’s a “significant increase” in getting cancer from eating cheese, what does it? Does it mean of a 100 non-cheese eating women none get cancer and of 100 cheese eating women, all get cancer? Or does it mean two in the non-cheese group and 3 in the cheese group, or…
What I expect from these stories, but never get, is a) how reliable is the finding b) how does the bad/good thing used as story hook compares to not doing it and c) context with other risks and likelyhood of having to care about it because the risk/benefit is high enough to make it worthwhile. If eating grapes makes me better resistent to Alzheimers, it matters whether eating a bunch a week means I never get Alzheimers or whether I need to eat a ton a day to get a five percent less high risk of getting it…