Doom 4. The Violence.
So I am reading Twitter and it's all like: "Whine. Whine. Doom 4. My god. The violence. Whine whine."
Excuse me. Like hasn't science killed that argument already? Like didn't science shoot that debate in the the back, the chest and the head already?
[Besides we've been there before. Like hello. The moving pictures. Duh! We've had this debate like a million times.]
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/10/video-games-violent-study-finds
Meh. Don't be fucking with DOOM.
"Poets dream of love. I dream of DOOM."
Excuse me. Like hasn't science killed that argument already? Like didn't science shoot that debate in the the back, the chest and the head already?
[Besides we've been there before. Like hello. The moving pictures. Duh! We've had this debate like a million times.]
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/10/video-games-violent-study-finds
Meh. Don't be fucking with DOOM.
"Poets dream of love. I dream of DOOM."
Comments
The argument seems to be something more along the lines of "surely we can do better than spending millions and millions of dollars to do the same things we did already". At least, that's what people in my twitter feed have been talking about: Can we move on from violent games a bit? Just consider the notion for a while, maybe?
That said, that article in The Guardian mentions that there is research showing a causal relationship between violent media and aggression in the short term. It also mentions research that disagrees (to which the author of the article assigns a lot more weight).
At the very least this shows that there is debate about this still going on in the field of science.
Personally I'm not convinced that there not being a rise in real world violence in parallel to the rise in popularity in video games proves anything. The effects might be far more subtle than that and still be very damaging to society or individuals. At the same time, there's also research that shows playing Tetris competitively can elevate short term aggression. It's also been shown that playing a game like Doom 4 co-cooperatively results in no increase in aggression (which is certainly how I intend to play the game).
At the moment I'm skeptical of both sides of the debate. It feels to like most of the research for either side that rises to public visibility is done by researchers on either extreme of the debate, where the research we don't hear about is where the results are messier and the conclusions more complicated.
I guess as a game developer I feel responsibility to have the correct view on this. As much as I'd love for Doom 4 to be above criticism, I'd be aghast if I spent my entire career developing videogames only to discover at some point that actually I caused significant harm.
That said, if people just don't like Doom 4, that's their opinion, I probably don't like some of the games they like, and that's just my opinion. It doesn't look like Doom 4 is going to struggle to make sales, it certainly doesn't need anyone's defense, in fact any outrage about it probably helps it.
People will complain about stuff whether or not science is on their side. I don't mind violence, but I don't particularly consume a lot of it either, it's alignments in personal tastes.
We've been here before, and we will be here a million times yet :) How I wish the world as a collective has better memories, but it does not.
Edit: aren't - not are!
That's nothing like real life whatsoever, as is more passive-aggressive than anything. It also might speak more to how much you even think the "other person" is a real person.
The tetris game shows evidence for the Frustration-Aggression hypothesis (something I'm investigating currently in DotA 2) while the majority of research has focused on the General Aggression Model.
Again, what my twitter feed is people complaining that violence is boring. Not that violence makes people aggressive (which we can neither say is true or not true at this point in time).
*Disclaimer: Doom is the 'Game Wot Made Me', so, yeah.
I find violence trivial when it poses no threat.
In the original doom and other games of the time, saving your game was a tedious task, and there was an element of thrill to keep fighting or risk losing progress... eventually this faded out.
First unlimited saves, then quicksaves , then auto saves, and now people don't care for dying since the only punishment is a loadscreen that sets you back a few seconds....
in this respect, violence and combat in general loses impact. It loses its thrill. To me violence was merely a superficial visual representation of the conflict, but this particular theme (blood gore and fire) translated well for me in base instinctive understanding that if the other guy loses more organs and blood than me, then I live... but with current day gaming immortality, that conflict representation has become somewhat pointless.
The conflict as a whole loses meaning, and the gore and blood becomes an image that I'm less sensitive to.
I fail to see how purely personal, 100% anecdotal posts are useful in this discussion. Clearly people would rather have that than humor aimed at pointing that out. Noted.
@Pierre: Thank you for contributing your take on how violence in games affects you to this discussion. I'm glad that we have all voices involved and now we no longer need to wonder about what it is you personally feel when playing a violent game. Making the conclusion that multiple people have become desensitized to violence in games based on your own experience is not sound reasoning though. The discussion itself was also not about how violence in games affects you personally, it was about the current twitter debate/posts around the use of violence in game design.
This article sums up the argument that violence is boring quite well.
... is that it's not what this thread is about.
If you were starting a religion I'd reckon you'd have a problem. Religions have a causal link to violence that goes back eons. De facto. Proven. No research required.
But entertainment?
I've been reading about the intersection of violence and entertainment [music/movies/games] for close on two decades, and nothing - but nothing - I've read has yet convinced me that there's a strong argument to be made for violence being caused by entertainment. Au contraire. I personally think that fantasy violence mitigates real world violence because it enables people to blow off steam. When you play Doom etc you are engaging in a certain brain state that is a type of a catharsis. Plus your problem solving and doing activities that engage higher thinking - so you're actually [IMHO] becoming a better person - in pure cognitive/brain function terms.
I strongly believe that those people who kill are already predisposed to violence through genetic, brain function, brain chemistry and other factors. The one place that I do think is a problem is online hate forums - places like Stormfront.org - where people who do have social issues stoke each other up. Stormfront.org has been linked to close on 100 hate-crime murders. Is there any games forum that can come close to that kind of claim? ;)
Is Broforce or Doom going to unleash a squad of Isis-styled or Breivik type killers? Nope. That's religion, ideology and anti-social personality disorder, and and and. That blame cannot be laid at the door of Doom or Broforce. [Having said that I haven't played Broforce yet, but I've done legions of Doom. I hope to get to Broforce real soon.]
After everything I've read I am so not convinced that entertainment drives violence or violent behaviour. [And have you read any of the original Grimms Fairytales. Yeowzer. Talk about violent.]
I unashamedly adore Tarantino. I adore him because for a few bucks, the cost of a slushy and some popcorn he takes me away from the mediocrity of life and immerses me in story that is engaging, brilliantly crafted, that is super-real and yet not real. As a consumer of media I'm not a big fan of wallpaper. Who is? I want heart-puming, adrenalin pounding action. I want total immersement.
Look. When we reach the singularity I might change my opinion on this. But from what I've read lately its likely that we'll all just become some super software or robot's little bitch - so my opinion won't really matter then anyhow. ;)
I'm willing to put a wager on this. That you're not going to find this evidence.
I dig cider. Let's take a bet on this. Should we say a six pack of Savannah Lite?
No, I don't think anyone who has played Broforce has killed anyone. But, there's a lot of people who don't realise that broforce is parody - and that means that they may have their racist views reinforced by the media they're consuming.
If you'd like me to dig up all the papers on how media consumption can influence our views on issues, let me know.
A large part of the current discussion around violence in games has to do with the cultural impact both of games on people in particular cultures AND of cultural values and mores on games themselves. You seem to be saying that brain chemistry is the only thing that makes killing okay in people's minds, yet we know this to be false. We also know that societal values and general attitudes are communicated and reinforced through media.
It's that second part that we're talking about here. How does the culture we exist in communicate with and about violence. How do the games we make exist within that culture and what messages are we reinforcing? Which messages can we even see? Which messages do we understand?
That seems to be the big push right now in games criticism: Inadvertent racism in games because of the unchallenged nature of societal exclusion of PoC from media; Tone-deafness towards police violence that wasn't broadcast prior to the recent spate of police murders in the US. This sort of stuff is meaningful to talk about and yes, sometimes it can be uncomfortable if it makes us ask hard questions about the sorts of entertainment we find most cathartic.
That discomfort doesn't mean we should challenge people to meaningless bets in attempts to "win" discussions though :)
I like my debates to be factual and scientific. I am not a big fan of assumption or thought experiments that aren't grounded in reality. I can't relate to the value of debating with assumptions.
If BroForce reinforces racist stereotypes, I'd love to see you build out a strong argument or case for this. I'd like to see the evidence for this - rather than you just saying it is so. The evidence and the argument is what holds the weight in debate, not opinion, nor assumption.
And the debate we're having is about violence, not racism per se - that is a whole different kettle of fish and requires a whole different approach in terms of debate, science etc. Forgive me for saying so but I reckon you're conflating the debate a little. [And here I am not being aggressive or patronising - merely stating the facts.]
I hear you and you do make some strong points.
I do think a lot about the nexus of entertainment and violence, particularly because I am a human being who has been exposed to violence and sexual violence on more than one occassion. I think about it a lot.
To my mind it is more useful to not conflate arguments but to look at the arguments [even though they overlap] in the categories in which they exist:
Violence
Sexual violence
Racial violence or hate-crimes.
I think this is important because it is IMHO critical to look at power and violence - the relationship between power and violence. So for example with sexual violence I think its important to look to look at political power, and patriarchy and to understand where this comes from and how it is reinforced. For instance in SA as part of this kind of discussion it would be important to look at the role of traditional values and power structures - for instance we have the most progressive constitution in the world but we have an arcane system of traditional leadership and a legion of government sponsored Kings who are actively involved in the suppression of gender rights. [I offer this as one small example of the complexity of sexual violence.]
What I'm trying to get at here is that discussions about violence and what causes violence are incredibly reductive, when violence is an incredibly complex human issue. I think entertainment and games make for an easy scape goat or point of access for social outrage, because its easier to point a finger Doom or BroForce, than it is to unpack all the political and economic and class and race systems that have brought us here. [Male privilege. White privilege. Class systems. Colonisation.]
If we want to talk about the cause of violence - the real cause of violence - we need to talk about politics, religion, economy and class structures. And that's hell of a complex.
Games causing violence. IMO. Not so much. The real problems live elsewhere. And for the most part we don't want to go there. [Because then it means looking deep into that pit of despair that is our own human failings - of which there are legion.]
Demanding that someone defend a point they didn't make isn't very nice... It's especially unfair in this context to do so to @dammit, whose psychology masters thesis is about aggression in games AND who has extensive ties to the Broforce dev team. This is why @dammit has responded to the point of "can media influence our views on issues", because that's the least aggressive interpretation of what you're asking.
@dammit's point links to my earlier point - which was all about games and real world violence.
How am I supposed to know that @dammit has a masters thesis in aggression in games? And why should that preclude me from asking for evidence to support a particular line or argument or debate?
"Demanding that someone defend a point they didn't make isn't very nice." The comment should be read in a stream, and the word 'nice' introduces an interesting morality here. Like good vs bad. Perhaps it would be more useful to say that asking somone to defend a point that they didn't make is bad debate form, or not a good way of debating.
By bringing nice into the equation you're making a morality comment on me as a person. Nice. Vs not nice. I think its important to separate people from arguments. Logically I am not my argument - so that doesn't really make sense anyhow.
I feel a bit out of my depth here obviously. I'd like to know more about all of this, but I don't have the time to properly research this. I'm definitely not implying that I have a deep understanding of this stuff, I feel like I'm just sifting through the shallowest inch below the surface and am completely blind to what is stored underneath.
I have seen that some researchers question whether some of the studies suggesting violent games cause aggression are in fact measuring competition, not the depiction of violence. http://www.researchgate.net/publication/262152640_The_influence_of_solitary_and_cooperative_violent_video_game_play_on_aggressive_and_prosocial_behavior
Obviously I find cooperation vs competition very interesting. Again, I have a vested interest in cooperation being beneficial as I develop a game with a cooperative focus.
I think this thread seems to have moved on from the discussion about research into aggression in games. But I'm interested in anyone's thoughts if they have something to add or correct me on.
Even if we agree that games do not directly and single handedly cause violent behavior, is it not still a worthy concern as to whether or not it is culturally harmful?
Does it really not concern you that people become "jaded" or dulled to the effects of violence?
Is "being more violent" really the only thing we need to worry about, or is developing apathy towards the occurrence of violence also, perhaps, problematic?
Does it concern you that much of the gaming community still considers "killing things" to be our primary source of entertainment? Even if those things are simply constructs of imagination, is it not worth considering encouraging children or young adults to find amusement in "building things" or "creating things" more?
We know enough about the effects of apathy, we know enough about the influences media has on society, and we know enough about the effectiveness of advertising, magazines and stories, that we can make educated guesses, and since we are actually part of the industry, these are things we need to think about, not just ignore because scientists haven't explicitly told us what to do yet. This isn't about banning violence in gaming, this is about encouraging creators to generate, or at least think about, content that presents constructive and fun alternatives, instead of relying solely on an old formula that normalises a negative and harmful phenomenon.
Thanks so much. Loads to chew on here.
We are in the infancy of something here, noone understands it, we really don't have much of a leg to stand on in terms of drawing conclusions :)
cc @dislekcia
Dammit. I would like to apologise to you, unreservedly. I have been through this whole thread and now do see how you perceive that I have been aggressive. I am truly sorry.
I apologise for my behaviour (but don't surrender the argument that I am making) although I do now fully appreciate that we're all on the same team - although we don't all think the same way about this issue.
I am a skeptic. I love critical thinking. I love science and research and investigation, so if you could please understand that this is just me. Me being me.
Also - because I have been a bit of an ass I concede that I have lost the bet. If you DM me your address I will get some cider - or the refreshment of your choice - or at the very least a bag of fine coffee, sent over to you spot.
Sawry! MdW aka Charlie.
Thanks for this. This post has really got me thinking. And reading. And thinking.
I agree that morality isn't absolute. But we do have good science and good scientists that can help our thinking on morality.
The answers to your questions. Of course violence concerns me. I have spent the past five years as a journalist writing a lot about violence - albeit political violence, sexual violence and hate-crimes. I think about violence a lot. What causes it. Why it exists. What we can do about it. I'm sure you do too - I say this because I can read your concern in the post you have written.
But I think it is important to think about issues clearly and carefully. [And my saying this doesn't suggest that I think you're not doing this.]
I think it is erroneous to look at all the studies of violence with one lens. The research on violence and children and the media; and the research on adolescents and violence and the media; and the research on adults and violence and the media are three different categories, and deserve individual consideration. I don't think its usefuly to assume this as one study - because the results show us different things.
Which is why I appreciate the thinking of Vasilis K. Pozios, Praveen R. Kambam and H. Eric Bender, who are forensic psychiatrists and the founders of a consulting group Broadcast Thought, and who deal extensively with issues of media and violence.
I deeply appreciate their thinking in this article in The New York Times, which concludes: "Even if violent media are conclusively found to cause real-life violence, we as a society may still decide that we are not willing to regulate violent content. That’s our right. But before we make that decision, we should rely on evidence, not instinct." See: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/opinion/sunday/does-media-violence-lead-to-the-real-thing.html?_r=0
I also appreciate research at JournlistsResource.Org that summarises the latest trends on the nexus between media, games and violence:
"The relationship between violent media and real-world violence has been the subject of extensive debate and considerable academic research, yet the core question is far from answered. Do violent games and movies encourage more violence, less, or is there no effect? Complicating matters is what seems like a simultaneous rise in onscreen mayhem and the number of bloody events in our streets — according to a 2014 report from the FBI, between 2007 and 2013 there were an average of 16.4 active-shooter incidents in the U.S. every year, more than 150% higher than the annual rate between 2000 and 2006.
But as has long been observed, any correlation is not necessarily causation. While Adam Lanza and James Holmes — respectively, the perpetrators of the Newtown and Aurora mass shootings — both played violent video games, so do millions of law-abiding Americans. A 2014 study in Psychology of Popular Media Culture found no evidence of an association between violent crime and video game sales and the release dates of popular violent video games. “Unexpectedly, many of the results were suggestive of a decrease in violent crime in response to violent video games,” write the researchers, based at Villanova and Rutgers. A 2015 study from the University of Toledo showed that playing violent video games could desensitize children and youth to violence, but didn’t establish a definitive connection with real-world behavior, positive or negative.
A 2014 study in Journal of Communication, “Does Media Violence Predict Societal Violence? It Depends on What You Look at and When,” builds on prior research to look closer at media portrayals of violence and rates of violent behavior. The research, by Christopher J. Ferguson of Stetson University, had two parts: The first measured the frequency and graphicness of violence in movies between 1920 and 2005 and compared it to homicide rates, median household income, policing, population density, youth population and GDP over the same period. The second part looked at the correlation between the consumption of violent video games and youth behavior from 1996 to 2011."
- See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/culture/violent-media-real-world-behavior-historical-data-recent-trends#sthash.yrobeR1B.dpuf
The point I'm trying to make is that the research isn't that cut and dried.
You asked: "Does it concern you that much of the gaming community still considers "killing things" to be our primary source of entertainment?" Doom is an adult game, and it came out when George A Romero was god, and both Doom and Romero were very much a response to how sanitised movies were back then. Context is important to these arguments.
The question I would like to ask you is how do you influence what media is made? Do you want to influence what media is made and how? I guess what I'm asking for is the logical end point of your argument. What does your ideal world like like, and if there are rules, what do those rules look like, and who polices those rules and how?
I love Doom. Unashamedly I love Doom. I played it and it afforded me a lot of joy. Similarly I love Tarantino movies. As an adult I don't want to live in a nanny state, I don't want my entertainment to be prescribed to me. That said I also love Mushroom Wars, and I'm a major Tower Defense junkie, and I'll forever grieve that Heart Of Darkness fell apart and disappeared.
For me it is not a matter of either/or, but both/and.
I think we can exist in a world where we can play the games we want, and make the games we want. And still encourage better games - and game making - for kids and adolescents. However I think the best revolution we can effect is to change the nature of the industry. I think as the industry broadens the game diversity will broaden - and I think [hope] that's where the real magic will happen.
Anyway. Thanks for engaging with me.
To answer your question though, I actually started in the advertising industry, but having realised that the creation process behind a commercial is something that I would have little power to influence until much later in my career, I decided that I wanted to make games. Started with a couple of unofficial offers to work on gambling games which I wasn't really interested in, but ultimately I got lucky and I currently work with a company that I happen to share many ideals with. So I now I plan to influence the media from the inside ;)
As far as I'm concerned, it's less about culling or policing violent games and more about producing more content that offers attractive alternatives. Honestly? I don't like violent games, but whether or not they have a right to exist depends on the position of our moral standards once we have a better understanding of what makes us violent, and, I think more importantly, what encourages us to be constructive instead.
The popularity of games like Portal, Super Meat Boy (I can excuse the gore), indeed the entire Sims franchise, and even Peggle and Farmville, suggests to me that people DO want to play games that aren't primarily about killing. I guess part of the challenge could be to eventually convince more AAA studios that rely heavily on franchising that people would also be interested in playing something epic and fun and beautiful that doesn't have to be violent, by showing them how important the indie scene can become purely because people are interested in alternative games.
Maybe the other part is to convince real people that they shouldn't be ashamed or shame others for enjoying things that are typically perceived as "girly" (like the Sims, or any future endeavours towards games that encourages nurturing, creating or growing things) which is why I'm also quite invested in gender equality and the representation of women in gaming.
Anyways it's not something that anyone expects to change immediately, especially considering the sheer amount of time it takes to produce a good game, but I guess when something like Doom 4 pops up, it can be a bit alarming to be reminded of the overwhelming confirmation that destruction still sells better than construction. (I tell myself that perhaps it's due to the cathartic relief people can get through inconsequential acts of violence, and maybe this is something that some people just need an outlet for.)
But I think probably most concerning is when attempts to suggest variation and alternatives are often met with open hostility from gamers. I've seen people behave very aggressively when the idea of encouraging less violence in games is brought up. Not even "NO" violence. Just less, and people immediately assume you want to take away all their toys. We just want you to try play with new ones.
Long story short, because it's 4am now, a world that I'd be content with is one in which violent games aren't more prevalent or popular than games with any other mechanic. But you might as well ask me "How do you plan to change society?" :P heck, I don't know. I'm not a sociologist, Jim.
Sorry I can't give you a perfectly logical or structured answer, maybe others who have been in this industry longer can give you better.
But for starters, I guess I plan to make more things that I can feel good about putting into the world.
And yeah, my (published) honours thesis concluded competitive environments produced more verbal aggressive behaviour than cooperative environments (in games rated as M for mature content).
@CharlieAckAckAck No problem at all :) We'll hang out one day and have some coffee and it's all good.
How should society engage with these people? [Of which I am one because I enjoy playing Doom.]
When you talk about violence how do you define it. For instance would you see AngryBirds or Mushroom Wars as violent. I guess what I am asking here is how you think about violence in terms of it existing on a continum or existing as a varied universe.
There has been some shaming of gamers who like violence by prominent game critics, but it seems to me that it's largely backfired. I'm not too certain about the psychology of shaming, but I suspect that, unless the shaming comes from people who the shamed trusts, it tends to have an effect opposite to the shamer's intentions.
The caveat in my mind is if some aspect of violent video games turn out to be definitely responsible for negative effects in society (which I don't think is the position of the scientific community at the moment, but it's being debated), then we should all be taking greater measures to limit the type of violence that causes these effects. Shaming might not be the right tool (I really don't know), but some kind of educating would be needed.
I'm not sure that the depiction of violence is necessarily a problem at all. "Violence" covers a ton of things.
Tetris can make us angry (for instance). If increasing short term aggression is a problem then there are sweeping ramifications for the industry.
But some games do depict troubling behaviour that we wouldn't want normalized. Normalizing the dismembering of demons is NOWHERE NEAR as problematic as normalizing the abuse of sex workers in a game like GTA V. In some ways the the way the violence that nations in Civilization perpetrate on each other is simulated is troubling (and might influence players to accept actually invading other countries more easily). Whereas violent games like Spec Ops: The Line actively denormalizes violent acts (not saying the game is perfect though).
So I guess I'm saying is that the way this conversation is framed often makes idiots of us all (particularly when about a game like Doom 4 which was never going to be anything other than hyper-violent). Often people who are arguing against violence are really arguing for their taste and using violence as an excuse to lend weight to their arguments. Often those who defend their right to play violent games are willfully ignoring legitimate concerns.
There are irreducible qualities of "violence" though. "Violence" always implies imposing one's will on something else. There's obvious appeal to this even in the abstract sense. Enacting "violence" always means being powerful. A lot of people desire that fantasy, as they feel powerless in real life.
Violence in games, at a most basic level, means simulating zero-sum situations. I don't think that's necessarily harmful to players... Not as individuals anyway... however... I think simulating non-zero sum situations, situations where cooperation is rewarded, where actions that benefit the player also benefit other actors in the world, do have more positive psychological effects (and its worth encouraging these sorts of games).
http://www.polygon.com/2015/8/13/9149481/violent-video-games-aggression-research-review-report-apa-resolution
Interestingly, depending on your news source, this report is being touted as showing that there has been no established casual relationship between video games and violent behaviour, or otherwise showing that there is an established relationship between feelings of aggression and violent games, depending on the agenda of the news organization.
Just thought I'd necro this thread because this is something of an update on the science out there about violent games.
The ESA has reached out saying something like the APA has a bias against violent games. I completely 100% do not trust the ESA (as they are essentially run by AAA publishers), but academics have criticized the APA before (which lead to this new APA review of the research): http://www.polygon.com/2013/9/30/4786466/group-of-228-calls-on-apa-to-review-media-violence-research (and among other things the APA is not factoring in the effects of competition of games in their analysis at all, though their pretty valid excuse is that there just isn't much research into competition in games at the moment).
The ESA obviously don't want higher age restrictions on Assassin's Creed etc... And the report makes an argument for being a bit stricter about violence.
I admit, I was very open minded when I read my first APA report... But as I read it, things started bugging me right from the start regarding their methods.
For one... their "research" was often conducted by a biased "task force" seeking confirmation bias to reinforce their ideals. Seeking confirmation for a conclusion they have already drawn before hand.
Worse still is their opening assertions of morality as though it is part of concrete scientific fact, when morality is an abstract ideal at best.
Further to that, unlike other scientific research, the APA also assumed the role and authority to decide on what "remedies" society is supposed to take to resolve the "problem".
Then I started reading peer reviews and it all went downhill for the APA from there for a variety of reasons.
That said, I now have very little faith in the quick drawn conclusions made by such associations, and the media that is eager to fan the flames as soon as the results are released.
I mean, at worst the APA is coming to strong conclusions based on imperfect information. But it's not like they're making things up or presenting falsehoods.
This report is a meta-analysis. They're just collating what hundreds of scientists have already researched. They went through 170 scientific papers and collated the results (as I understand it). This is certainly not a quick drawn conclusion.
I'm not saying that we should be willing to just assume their conclusions are 100% correct. The APA is not the only authority on this subject...
But they are an authority on this subject. Where you and me know jack-shit by comparison. And worse, we have incentives to be biased against them. So we should listen and not dismiss their work because we think we have insight into why they are wrong, because we probably don't.
That said, if you want to share the peer reviews of the report that cast doubt on the report's conclusions I am interested.
You're right. It would be unfair of me to assume they are definitely wrong on every account, even if they have a poor track record. However I'm going to remain skeptic of these reports and studies.
(How often do we read that a study admits there is "more to be done" or that "further analysis is needed" and yet conclusions are drawn regardless?)
We may be cutting ourselves short by saying we know "jack shit by comparison".
A relevant degree of common knowledge and sense, allows most adults to read studies, reports etc. and draw their own conclusions.
Still I certainly wasn't going to assume I know just as much as they do, which is WHY I read peer reviews as well.
I'll drop some info in a PM for you to read. It's unrelated to the study mentioned above, so you can decide for yourself, if you feel like posting any of that information here if you like. :)
Link.