Clickbait is a gigantic problem that mars the reliability of stories appearing on web pages that may be labeled as Science News. There currently exists an economic ecosystem that strongly incentivizes the appearance of interesting-sounding but misleading science stories.
After a scientific paper has been written up and published, it is announced with a press release issued by the main academic institution involved in the research. Nowadays the press releases of universities and colleges are notorious for making sensationalized claims that are not warranted by anything discovered in the research being discovered. Often a tentative claim made in a scientific paper (basically a "perhaps" or a "maybe") will be stated as if it is was simply a discovery of a definite fact. Other times a university press release will make some important-sounding claim that was never made in the scientific paper writing up the research.
There are complex economic reasons why press releases so erroneous keep appearing so often, and why they are passed on in clickbait Internet stories that lead to pages containing ads that generate revenue. To understand those reasons you have to "follow the money" and look at which parties are profiting from such unreliable but interesting-sounding stories. The reasons are explained in this post, and sketched in the diagram below.
Let us look at a few examples, starting with a PhysicsWorld article entitled "Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year in physics for 2025 revealed." We have no mention of any real breakthrough in the field of physics. The first item on the list is not anything even involving physics, but some research in astronomy. It is a report of finding life-related chemicals on the asteroid Bennu. But the levels reportedly detected are so low (only a few parts per billion) that nothing like any breakthrough has occurred. As I explain in my post here, the reported chemical levels are so low they probably result merely from earthly contamination, rather than a detection of such chemicals on the asteroid Bennu.
We read of nine other claimed "breakthroughs," none of which are anything very interesting, and none of which are any actual "breakthroughs." The article is filled up with various results from technology and medicine. Reading the article, we may ask, "Where was all that grand progress we were promised would be coming soon?" Not long ago, physicists were boasting the most grandiose boasts, mindlessly crowing about creating "theories of everything." What happened to such boasts? It seems they are "gone with the wind."
A Harvard University page is entitled "Breakthroughs of 2025." Here are some of the items mentioned.
- We read of how David Liu did work that helped some gene-fiddling genetic therapy for a certain type of very rare genetic disease . It sounds like good work, but it isn't that much of a breakthrough, partially because of the rarity of the disease.
- There's a discussion of work on the origin of the "Uralic family of languages," with a very dubious claim that some DNA analysis has shed light on the origin of such languages. This is no breakthrough. The origin of language is a huge unsolved problem of science.
- There's some mention of AI work on genomic analysis, something involving rare genetic variants that may increase disease risk. It's not any real breakthrough.
- There are boasts about a neuroscientist paper that does not qualify as either a breakthrough or a good neuroscience research paper, because its use of too-small study group sizes (often less than 15).
- There is the claim that "Harvard scientists offer clues into how to treat deadly aortic aneurysms and hypertension," but it is not at all a breakthrough, because it is merely some rodent research, rather than something tested on humans.
- There is the claim that "Through research and archeology, Harvard scientists got one step closer to understanding the origins of life and the early history of Earth’s largest animal group." The claim is unfounded. The claim links to a very misleading article in the Harvard Gazette entitled "A step toward solving central mystery of life on Earth." The article is debunked in my post here, entitled "Harvard Misrepresents Information-Empty Bubbles As Being Relevant to Life's Origin." Some scientists made some artificial gizmo including green LED lights, and got some little bubbles bearing no real resemblance to anything living. One of them senselessly boasted that this was some breakthrough in understanding the origin of life. It sure was not.
I fail to find any big breakthroughs listed on Harvard's page entitled "Breakthroughs of 2025." Another "end of year recap" article is entitled "Top Scientific Discoveries Of 2025: A Year of Quantum Leaps And Cosmic Revelations." We don't read about any real "quantum leaps" in science (that term being one referring to an instantaneous change from one position to another). We mainly merely read about various types of incremental progress. There is mention of a medical treatment that can supposedly prevent HIV transmission. That might qualify as a breakthrough, although progress in fighting HIV has been steadily occurring for decades.
Quanta Magazine has some "year in review" articles reviewing science progress in 2025. They fail to discuss any item that is very memorable and important. Specifically:
- A "The Year in Physics" article starts out by discussing a very dubious claim that dark energy is getting weaker. Scientists have never even observed dark energy, and it has no place in the Standard Model of Physics. So it is kind of like a "is the leprechaun population dwindling?" article. Then there's something about a big black hole, which we are told is "terribly exciting." But that's astronomy, not physics. Ditto for the section entitled "How Climate Scientists Saw the Future Before It Arrived." That isn't physics progress. Finally there's a section about AI dreaming up physics experiments, but that does not qualify as big physics progress. Then the article ends. Where was all the big physics progress? The article fails to list any.
- A "The Year in Biology" article starts out with a section "What Can a Cell Remember?" No actual progress in biology is discussed in that section. Then there's a section "A Biography of Earth Across the Age of Animals." That also is not a discussion of biology progress. Then there's a section "AI Is Nothing Like a Brain, and That's OK," which also is not a discussion of progress in biology. Then there's a section entitled "How Paradoxical Questions and Simple Wonder Lead to Great Science," which also is not a discussion of biology progress. Then there's a section entitled "Touch, Our Most Complex Sense, Is a Landscape of Cellular Sensors." It is not a discussion of biology progress, and touch is not our most complex sense. Then the article ends. Where was all the big biology progress? The article fails to list any progress very big.
The journal Science has just announced its "2025 Breakthrough of the Year." It is: renewable energy. The page talks mainly about solar power, a technology that has existed for decades. We read this:
"So far, this is not a story of new technology. China is 'more or less relying on the same core [solar] technology that the United States invented half a century ago,' Li says."
I guess in a year where there haven't been much in the way of real science breakthroughs, this is what happens: the "Breakthrough" award goes to some old technology.
You will probably be disappointed by such "best of 2025" articles, because you probably got the idea all year long that scientists were making so many great leaps forward. You probably got such an idea by reading hype-filled misinforming "Science News" web pages that look rather like the page imagined below.
When "Science Slop" Clickbait Runs Amok
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