Yep, and in the conclusion the author is stating that because he's found a single study that can be heavily misrepresented to make his point, the entire position of 'the other side' is therefore of equally poor quality. It's both bad science and bad journalism. It's like climate change deniers pointing to the 3% of naysaying scientists and therefore claiming parity in the debate.
Look, I'm not saying that social psych research couldn't do with improvement in quality, but that someone who's pointing fingers should make sure their own stuff is tight.
Do you think the evidence in favor of violent movies causing violence is significantly stronger? Comparing to the climate science debate implies that you think there is a huge disparity in evidence. If so, it should be easy to present some.
Personally, I'd think it would be hard to directly test the proposition "existence of violent movies at all increases baseline level of violence in society". You can't do a randomized controlled trial, and there are no good natural experiments. Trying to measure both variables across a range of communities would be hopelessly polluted by confounders. Therefore, I'd spect neither side to have a very strong case, which is exactly the point of the article.
Comparing to the climate science debate implies that you think there is a huge disparity in evidence.
No, my comparison to the climate science debate was more about using a selected study and demanding it has parity with the collection of whatever evidence is on 'the other side'. This is what the author is doing in the conclusion; suggesting that because he's found one or two studies that go against the grain, that the side those studies oppose are equally poorly researched.
Yes, it is difficult to measure, I absolutely agree. But the author could still have made his point without resorting to spin-doctoring. He is suggesting that the line of reasoning is valid and plausible - and it's not, because he's heavily misrepresenting the data in that first case. If that was his point - that some studies heavily misrepresent the data like that - then he should have exposed studies instead of repeating the process as a counterpoint.
In any case, this is a line from his conclusion: the laboratory experiments that experimental exposure to violence causes people to play contrived games in a more aggressive manner couldn’t catch that in the real world, violent movies decrease crime. He's taken this blip from blockbuster opening weekends and taken it as gospel in his rationale. "Because violent people like to go see a movie with everyone else, and they don't do more crimes later on to 'catch up', violent movies do not increase violent behaviour". It's a really naive view of the argument around violent movies and violence in the public, that it only has short-term effects measured in weeks, yet he's using it in his conclusion (not just in his 'case studies').
By "couldn’t catch that in the real world, violent movies decrease crime", the author has clearly taken that faulty interpretation of the study as an overarching truth - even after saying that both sides of the story are 'plausible and intuitive', he's still declared that 'what happens in the real world' is based on the misrepresentation of his study. I don't think the spindoctor-esque misrepresentation was a conscious decision on the author's part, else it would have been highlighted more clearly. I think it was just a mistake.
Look, I'm not saying that social psych research couldn't do with improvement in quality, but that someone who's pointing fingers should make sure their own stuff is tight.