I seem to recall they made it clear that they are not doing "science for pedants". They are doing "science for fun", to make it enjoyable and interesting and engaging, and they seem to have succeeded as suggested by the article.
Needing it to be 100% rigorous science is missing the point.
To meet your requirement they would need to submit a multi hundred page peer reviewed thesis with every assertion of "busted" or "plausible" or whatever. That would be super boring.
He never said they need to be 100% rigorous, he criticized their overconfident / absolutist conclusions.
We all know why they mislabel the conclusions - because they prioritize "good tv" over accuracy. It's perfectly reasonable to be disappointed about that.
> they are not doing "science for pedants". They are doing "science for fun"
False dichotomy, my friend! I see two underlying arguments, here:
1. It's disingenuous to claim (or take) credit as a science educator when you're doing piss-poor science.
2. They could easily do better without sacrificing entertainment value.
It's entirely possible to both remain entertaining and better communicate scientific values.
>To meet your requirement they would need to submit a multi hundred page peer reviewed thesis with every assertion of "busted" or "plausible" or whatever. That would be super boring.
Holy strawman...
The only thing that most of us asking for is a more nuanced analysis of results, by which I mean saying something like "we didn't disprove the myth, so it might actually be possible". Nobody is asking for a 50-page grant application.
They have busted, plausible and confirmed as conclusions, you've pretty much defined plausible.
(Many of the myths the tested were fine to label as busted or confirmed as they were vulnerable to a single counter example or verified by a single positive example)
You're raising a concern about the validity of their test setup, which presents your comment as being a curmudgeonly pedantic one. The test setup doesn't matter. It's for fun and entertainment.
Needing it to be 100% rigorous science is missing the point.
To meet your requirement they would need to submit a multi hundred page peer reviewed thesis with every assertion of "busted" or "plausible" or whatever. That would be super boring.