This was a great lesson on cognitive biases, logical fallacies, and the scientific method. Mnookin seems to indulge in a little bit of bias himself, demonizing and mocking some of the players (David and Mark Geier, for instance) to the point that it is hard to be even a little sympathetic to their work. The families of autistic children are treated with more fairness and sympathy, though.
It is clear that science and scientific principles are not very clearly conveyed in the media, and the media are generally more interested in controversy than in presenting the results of scientific studies. There is also the problem of evaluating the quality of research design and analysis, which most ordinary people are not very well equipped to do.
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