The Five Minute Solution

It’s nice to know that the desire for the “five minute solution” is not restricted to my own field of Biblical studies. Many people have asked me over the years for a way to become really knowledgeable of the Bible with only a short devotional study, and I have to tell them that while one can benefit from five minutes a day, one will not become an expert on that plan.

Recently I had been watching the way science is discussed in the media and in normal conversations, particularly with reference to the creation and evolution controversy. There people simply don’t want to take the time to understand the subject, whether reporters, opinion writers, or ordinary people expressing their opinions. The question has been whether scientists communicate badly, or whether the public needs to dig in and take more responsibility themselves. (For the record, I’m pretty simplistic on this one. I think better public education would solve or ameliorate many, many problems. I think it would be the best investment of public money possible. See my essay Make Education a Priority.)

Now Newsweek, through a story featured on MSNBC, (Food News Blues) has brought a different topic into focus, but dealing with the same issues–diet. Now I need to make a personal confession. I’m overweight. But I grew up in a medical family, with my father an MD, my mother an RN, and the scientific approach to medicine a part of the daily intellectual diet. I can tell you why I’m overweight. I eat too much and exercise too little. I know how to solve the problem. Eat less and exercise more. There are numerous details about my diet that can be improved because of studies in nutrition. There are specific things that I should eat more of, and specific things I should eat less of, but none of those details change the basic formula.

The writers blame the situation on “too much information.” Another blog (Remember, it’s never the media’s fault) has commented that this isn’t quite accurate. He asks about the writing of headlines that tend to misguide. There are several examples of those headlines in the Newsweek article as well. One wonders why they didn’t focus on that.

As an aside, I recall a headline a few years ago about the excavation of a town in Galilee, where Peter once lived. The headline implied that the archeologists were looking for “the house where Jesus taught” while any reading of the archeologists reports would have suggested no such thing. The headline grabs attention, but it doesn’t convey information, at least not accurate information.

But I think there is an even deeper problem. It’s not just too much information or badly formed headlines. We will get badly formed headlines and poorly organized information as long as that sells newspapers. The newspaper with the headline “LOW-FAT DIET DOES NOT CUT HEALTH RISKS, STUDY FINDS” will generally sell more copies than the one with the headline “LOW-FAT DIETARY PATTERN AND RISK OF INVASIVE BREAST CANCER.” And as long as that’s a fact, it’s silly of us to expect our news media to produce the latter–an accurate headline–when what we will pay for is the former.

If we think we can get our health information in five minutes a day, we are going to get the quality of health information that people with that little interest in their health deserve. The same thing applies to every area of policy. We complain about the spin politicians put on things, but we tolerate it, and the media reports it, because we pay for it. Then we vote for the politician with the best spin, and he gets elected. Immediately after the election we return to griping about the horrible politicians and their spin. Well folks, they’re just providing for us what we’ll pay for. The media is just providing for us what we’ll pay for.

Isn’t it about time we demand better?