2010-11-26
Explanation
This comic shows several sensationalist science magazine and newspaper headlines: "Will the World End in 6 Months?", "Is a Universal Cure Around the Corner?", and "Was Darwin Wrong?" These are all examples of real types of clickbait science journalism headlines that pose provocative questions designed to grab attention and drive readership.
The punchline is a proposed "New rule for Science Journalism: If your article can be summarized as 'No,' don't write it." This is a reference to what is informally known as Betteridge's Law of Headlines, which states that any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word "no." The comic satirizes the tendency of science journalists to write breathless, question-posing articles about topics where the actual scientific answer is unambiguous and unexciting. The world is not ending in six months, Darwin was not wrong, and there is no universal cure around the corner -- but framing settled science as an open question generates more clicks and sales.