(1) The misplaced burden of proof, and (2) selection bias: Two reasons for the persistence of hype in tech and science reporting

Palko points to this post by Jeffrey Funk, “What’s Behind Technological Hype?” I’ll quote extensively from Funk’s post, but first I want to make a more general point about the burden of proof in scientific discussions. What happens is that a researcher or team of researchers makes a strong claim that is not well supported …