> The trouble is that if nobody has any particularly deep knowledge of the subject then it's a case of the blind leading the blind
I'm in bio/medtech and anytime there is an article about health, food, neuroscience, or any other 'bio-y' thing, the comments are just as you describe. Sometimes other 'bio-y' people will chime in and set the expectations correctly, but usually there are a lot of comments that are just nonsense (or at least it feels this way to me).
I also feel this way when any article about black holes comes up, however, I am not an expert in astro/particle physics. Still, you tend to see a lot of child-comments from physicists that try to set the parent-comments straight, though the wrong outweighs the correct most of the time.
The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect[0] should be considered a phenomenon everywhere on the internet where discussion occurs, not just in media, because most people claim far more expertise on subjects than they have. I just assume, now, that anyone on HN discussing any subject other than programming is probably wrong unless they specifically mention that they have direct knowledge in the matter. Otherwise, they're as credible as an anon on 4chan.
I'm in bio/medtech and anytime there is an article about health, food, neuroscience, or any other 'bio-y' thing, the comments are just as you describe. Sometimes other 'bio-y' people will chime in and set the expectations correctly, but usually there are a lot of comments that are just nonsense (or at least it feels this way to me).
I also feel this way when any article about black holes comes up, however, I am not an expert in astro/particle physics. Still, you tend to see a lot of child-comments from physicists that try to set the parent-comments straight, though the wrong outweighs the correct most of the time.