Reply #47: The media is why people don't trust scientists

[johnd83]

If you read the actual release by the scientists, they say their data is giving a strange result and asking for verification. It is quite possibly an instrumentation error, or an effect they didn't take into account. Some writer sees it and decides that the scientists have broken the speed of light and leaves off the "maybe". Two months or so later, the scientists will find their error. The scientific community will shrug and move on. The non-scientists will lose faith in science because they think the scientist are making stuff up and can't be trusted. Science (actually everything) is a very subtle topic, and the media seems to lose the complexity with this type of shock headline.