This is, like, the fifth time I’ve seen this headline. Everytime the mention that one study that says people get the disorder from eating too much cat shit. Sure. That totally sounds like a thing that happens often enough for a study to find that as a significant cause. This article, however, said that study met “mixed reception.” So it went on for a few minutes without saying anything and concluded “We just don’t know enough about the link between schizophrenia and cats.” This, my comrades, is real science.
I mean it sounds like ok science. “We maybe found a correlation but it’s pretty weak so we can’t be sure” is a valid result that can/should be published. It’s not going to win any awards but it’s something that other researchers might want to know. Might as well get it on the record just in case.
The problem is “science journalism” that likes to dig up mundane things like this and turn it into clickbait.
It’s not just science journalism. If a certain stakeholder wants a fake result to become public knowledge they pay for a study too small for a likely significant outcome, then they pay for fake journals to either publish: “possible connection between X and Y” or “no proven connection between X and Y” (whatever result suits them) and then wait for actual science journals and regular news if it’s clickbait enough to publish the same story.