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Schizophrenia, Hubris and Science
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2016/02/01/schizophrenia-hubris-science/#.VrIyuLIrIdU"A press-release from the Harvard-MIT Broad Institute reaches astonishing heights of hyperbole in announcing a new schizophrenia study (Sekar et al. 2016).
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When I first heard about this on Twitter, I couldn’t believe it. Surely Broad hadn’t actually claimed the “first-ever insight” into the biological origin of schizophrenia? Yet, absurdly, they did. They seem to be saying that no-one has ever found out anything biological or genetic about schizophrenia until now.
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Is this press release an attempt to frame a similar “Heroes of Schizophrenia” narrative? Perhaps so. Certainly, the language in the release goes well beyond the accepted limits of hype. Hype would be to say ‘this research is very important’. Every press release does this to some extent. But Broad are saying ‘no-one else has ever done research like this’, which is beyond hype: it’s hubris.
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So, all in all, a really nice study, sadly tarnished by an absurd level of hype and deep inaccuracies in the press release and associated hyperbolic quotes.
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Gah. It's so painful to see this level of silliness.