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this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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Welcome to the modern news media, where everything's a crisis and words don't mean anything.
In a headline, as soon as I see "scientists" instead of "researchers" I start getting doubtful. If scientist is preceded or followed by the word "baffled" or any of its synonyms I go straight to ignore. It's all clickbait these days
I don’t disagree (I actually do the exact same thing when I see the word “baffled”) but I’m interested in your distinction between researchers and scientists. Is it a common tactic for news articles to use “scientists”as a buzzword instead of “researchers”?
I'm not him, but now that I think about it, there is a tendency for many people to prefer the more generalized term.
Where scientists don't tend to use the word scientist as much, I can't recall ever seeing the term in a journal article for instance. (I don't read many, but I'll read an abstract here and there) I'm not sure why. I expect it's some categorization thing, where not all scientists perform research, so researcher is the more precise term. I'm just guessing as to the reason though, I do not have a PhD.
I would guess because "scientist" has no qualifying definition and is also vague. I just conducted an experiment to see if a McDonald's cups bottom would retain 4oz of Coca-Cola over the course of 5 days in a hot car (it didn't). Yay I am a scientist.
At least researcher or "research scientist" gives some idea of what the title is implying.
Late reply, sorry. Basically what others have said, "scientist" is used as a buzz word. I don't have any issue with the word itself, just how it's used in news media
Scientists Trace Heat Wave To Massive Star At Center Of Solar System