The Stress Vaccine: a case study in source amnesia

This lecture discusses the problems with secondary & popular (non-peer-reviewed) sources as illustrated by a case study in news transmission. In 2010, an article in Wired Magazine introduced research into the effects of stress on health. An article in The Daily Mail summarized the 6800 word Wired Magazine article in just 400 words and substantially misrepresented its contents. The Internet conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, then used the Daily Mail article as evidence that a global conspiracy was genetically engineering brain-eating viruses to turn humans into zombies.