Bad Science in the Press

An anonymous reader writes " An editorial in The Guardian presents a good run down of what is wrong with science reporting today and tries to point out why this is. From the article: 'Why is science in the media so often pointless, simplistic, boring, or just plain wrong? Like a proper little Darwin, I've been collecting specimens, making careful observations, and now I'm ready to present my theory.'"

Science is complex.

[CyricZ]

Science is complex. More often than not very well-trained and experienced scientists get it completely wrong. That said, somebody with a minimal scientific background (ie. a Journalism major) will very often screw up more complicated scientific articles. But likewise, many scientists dislike writing such articles. So we end up with a situation where those in the know would rather not write, and those not in the know are the ones who do write. And the result is lousy scientific articles.

Re:Science is complex.

[dtdns]

BEDEVERE: And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped.

ARTHUR: This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere. Explain again how sheeps' bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.

Re:Science is complex.

[rimu guy]

Buy and read the New Scientist [newscientist.com] magazine. They cover complex scientific topics. And they convey them in clear (even readable) language. You will soon find that good science and good writing are not mutually exclusive.

--
VPS Hosting Anyone? [rimuhosting.com]

Re:Science is complex.

[orac2]

As a science journalist working for Another Science/Tech Publication, I can second that -- New Scientist is worth reading.

Re:Science is complex.

[Stridar]

I would add that The Economist is also usually a very good source for science news, even though it doesn't come with the frequency or pagecount to warrent calling The Economist a scientific publication.

Another recommendation

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

I'm a longtime and mostly happy subscriber to Science News [sciencenews.org]. It's weekly and seems to hire educated reporters.

Make this guy science editor at the Gaurdian.

[TapeCutter]

I like New Scientist but put more faith in Nature [nature.com] and Science [sciencemag.org]. There are also some good narrow focus ".org's" out there such as RealClimate [realclimate.org]

I also like the Gaurdian. From TFA, "What did you think of this article? Mail your responses to [e-mail] and include your name and address."

I think every slashdotter who agrees with TFA sentiments should take a couple of minutes to write and suggest that they promote the author to "science editor" (if they have one?). Be sure to include any relevant qualifications (eg:B.Sc, Dr, etc) in your title.

Re:Make this guy science editor at the Gaurdian.

[Savantissimo]

Scientific American has been frequently lousy for quite a while. The slide started in 1986 when Holtzbrinck Publishing Group bought it. Dennis Flanagan was the man who made the magazine great, editing it from the late '40s, when he and G. Piel bought the largely hobby and shop-oriented magazine. He presented serious science in a way that an educated layman could understand, never compromised accuracy for sales, and maintained the pratical orientation of the magazine with the Amateur Scientist column. The next editor, Jonathan Piel, who was the son of the long-time chairman and former co-owner, Gerard Piel, was not terribly good. John Rennie, the editor for the past 11 years, has really made the magazine into a more political version of Discover, and eliminated the Amateur Scientist and thus the idea that science was something that didn't belong just to the credentialed authorities.

New Scientist is definitely at a higher level than SA now.

Re:Science is complex.

[uncoveror]

Even if they didn't major in journalism, reporters usually avoided math and science, and understand nothing about either. Even sports writers make screw ups like referring to a .395 batting average as a "percentage".

Re:Science is complex.

[kassemi]

In high school I did some work with the Air Force Research Labs (they had some sort of student research program, which gave me access to loads of equipment and funding I would have gotten in no other way. We were working with aberration correction on optical equipment with holograms. A newspaper in the area sent a reporter to gather some information and write an article about what we were doing. We sat down with prepared diagrams, interesting samples and simple explainations as we gave notes to what seemed like a very intelligent reporter. The next week we read the article, and the reporter had missed everything entirely. They made it seem as if we had been doing research into a brand new field which we had invented. It gave us a warm feeling inside, but was obviously wrong. Mainstream news today isn't concerned with giving us accuracy, but rather about stirring the public, and keeping them asking questions that only their sources can answer. The only way to get accurate news in the science field we need to review the scientist's own, peer-reviewed papers. And even then, we need to be very skeptical until we see the research become popularly accurate.

Re:Science is complex.

[meta-monkey]

Hey, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

My favorite is the flurry of "Could it happen?" stories after some new sci-fi disaster movie is released. When it was "Deep Impact," and thoughtful scientists reflected on the chances Earth could be struck by a giant asteroid and what the aftermath would be like, that was one thing. The "could it happen" stories surrounding the release of "The Core," however, made me want to drill a hole to the center of my head :(

Re:Science is complex.

[Rei]

As a journalist, I resent that remark. We're very good at spotting pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment to make for my next piece; a scientist operating out of an annex of Grace Baptist Church is going to give a presentation on his electronium hat which harnesses the power of sunspots to produce cognitive radiation.

Much of the "bad science" is deliberate.

[Futurepower(R)]

"reporters usually avoided math and science"

Yes, but it seems to me that sometimes the scientists themselves give misleading information to journalists, possibly to make their work seem more important. Here's an example: Effort to Create Virtual Brain Begins [slashdot.org]. Here's another far worse example, in my opinion: Can Cell Phones Damage Our Eyes? [slashdot.org]. Here's my opinion about Dr. Henry Lai of the University of Washington: Distinguish between real science and junk science [slashdot.org].

Also, it seems to me that editors take advantage of readers by encouraging mis-interpretation so that they can get more readers. Here's an example of a story that didn't deserve attention: Report Claims Men More Intelligent Than Women [slashdot.org].

Re:Theory of the Professions

[SetupWeasel]

astrophysicists who don't know the constellations

Name one reason why an astrophysicist needs to know the constllations to be good at his or her job. Make it a good reason, because I studied astrophysics.

Re:Theory of the Professions

[hazem]

One reason (I'll let you decide if it's a good one) is that it can be used as a bridging point to talk to non-astrophysicists about what you do.

You can say you're studing gamma emissions at some location described by a bunch of numbers and letter (I have no idea how it's described, actually), or instead you say, "near the handle of the Big Dipper".

Sure, for the person you're talking to, they don't have any more real/useful information. But you've helped connect what you know to something they know, and from a PR point of view, that's more useful than you might imagine.

Part of the problem described in the article is that lay-people and scientist are separated by media that do a poor job of communicating between the two.

So, for that reason, I would say it's not a bad thing for an astrophysicist to know the constellations. Because while it has no real relevance to their work, it serves as a common context that serves as a bridge between them and everyone else.

Re:Theory of the Professions

[cloudmaster]

Most Anmerican people live in cities. Most American people don't pay attention in History class, and most don't have any idea what most of those things on the farm are for. Granted, I do, but I grew up on a farm. Most of the people who live in the cities with 75K+ people and who I've spoken to about farm implements of some type, those people generally don't have any idea what a plow is for (or a plough, if you wanna use eaxtrae lettears and have me read it to myself as "plawf"). I went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago recently, and most of the people around the farm exhibit had no idea what the Combine was. I've actualy spoken to people who have no idea what a cow or a pig is, or where meat comes from.

So yeah, referring to "the plow in the sky" (never mind that it's probably a moldboard v/s a chisel plow) probably is gonna confuse as many Americans as it helps. :p

Re:Science is complex.

[rebeka thomas]

Not only the science, but the interpreting of the results.
The world's bad reporters would have us believe tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people died and are in ill health because of chernobyl, but when it comes down to facts and reality 56 people are known to have died, and there are no profound negative impacts to the surrounding population.

Bad Science is all about getting attention for personal, political or financial gain.

Re:Science is complex.

[rebeka thomas]

Did you even read the link you gave? Quoting directly from it.

"By and large, however, we have not found profound negative health impacts to the rest of the population in surrounding areas, nor have we found widespread contamination that would continue to pose a substantial threat to human health, within a few exceptional, restricted areas"

Too many people react emotionally because they have been fed a diet of bad science from the beginning, and their belief systems override the facts they read every time. You are a prime example of this.

Re:Science is complex.

[king-manic]

That is the prevalent idealogy of Nordic Christianity. Anyone who dares to challenge your innate belief in the racial superiority of the "Aryan Race" (as Japan did) deserves to be murdered en-masse and demonized. Your ignorant and hatemongering statements will only be believed by other Nordic Christians, not by thinking people who have actually studied real history. They know that Japan was the only Asian country to have challenged the white lords. In order to do that, they had to be a bit nasty sometimes, but that behavior was motivated by pragmaticism and a long-term view of achieving Asian solidarity and freedom from being killed by white people. In the final analysis, Japan cared (and still cares) more about the future prosperity of Asia than any European/American. Better an Asian country be ruled by fellow Asian people than by a bunch of tyrranical, arbitrary and murderous thugs that Europeans and Americans were and still are.

Actually, I think they deserved it because I'm chinese. The europeans were never quiet as brutal as the japanese, except maybe the spanish.

And no, I'd rather british rule then japanese rule. The japanese were basically comitting genocide. 20 million chinese(WWII chinese civillian and miliarty loses.) deaths doesn't sound better to be then british subjigation. In one, you are oppressed but the other means you are no longer alive.

Re:Science is complex.

[cheesybagel]

This would not have happened under European/American dominance. Bear in mind that China and India were the most enlightened and advanced civilizations in the old world until the western powers came. Our standard of living was

Overrated. India was indeed advanced and had cities before Egypt (the primordial source of Minoan, hence Greek, hence Western civilization and culture), but they were stalled by the time the Greek civilization (the first great Western civilization) came to be and never got back on their feet. China's primordial history is mostly folktales and legend, unsubstanciated by arqueology. You can only say China was more advanced technologically from around the time of the Warring States period to the Mongol invasion.

considerably higher in the first millenium of the Christian era than any country in Europe. We were

You conveniently forgot the Byzantine Empire and the Republic of Venice, which were doing just fine at that time.

building empires and writing philosophy when they were burning witches and fighting absurd religious crusades. All this is verifable truth. Ask

The Dark Ages were less dark than some people seem to believe. Around that time came the Agricultural Revolution, with the invention of the enhanced steel plow which allowed to use horses instead of bovines, increasing productivity. Enhanced crop rotation and improved windmills, etc also came to be around this time. The Agricultural Revolution set the stage for the later Renaissance period by freeing people from the work in the fields (the Romans had slaves to do that).

yourself then, why is it that Asian countries suffer from such abjectpoverty today?

Most of it is self-inflicted. Ask your dead Emperor which ordered the burning down of fleets like the one Zheng He used. He wanted control over the populace, and did not intend the rise of a rich and independent merchant class to come to be.

The answer to this question is complex, and many factors contribute, but the one that stands out above all else in relative priority is the Caucasian horde. It is the white man that is primarily responsible, by strip-mining our lands, stealing our crops, defaming our culture and heritage, raping our women, spreading their savage religion among us like a disease and generally imposing regimes based on brigandage and horror.

What a lot of bull. Why is it that people always try to pin the blame for their own problems on someone else? Here in Europe we had continual wars against each other, and yet we managed to push forward, picking up the pieces and surpassing the previous height everytime.

If you contrast the atrocities committed by the British, Germans,French, and Americans in Asia over the period of 300 years versus the people killed by the Japanese over a few years, you will see that what the Japanese have done is very little in comparison to the systematic organized persecution by the white man.

What makes you think that the Japanese would have left it there? There is no proof they did, quite the opposite.

cost/benefit ratios

[SuperBanana]

More often than not very well-trained and experienced scientists get it completely wrong.

GOOD scientists don't purposefully make statements that are absolute. Good scientists are guarded and pick their words carefully.

That said, somebody with a minimal scientific background (ie. a Journalism major) will very often screw up more complicated scientific articles.

Quite on the contrary. It is the same reason you only get reports about murders and status updates on Bennifer- media, on all levels (at least in the US) is owned increasingly by large holding groups. Holding groups do one thing well: try to squeeze every penny.

Scientific articles require more legwork, and that means fewer stories per person per day. "Entertainment" stories practically pay for themselves (free plane tickets, free hotel stays, free footage, free access to a popular star). Murders are easy to cover- listen to the scanner, show up and stand there for the live-on-scene footage, maybe interview a hysterical family member or friend. Tada, done. Celebs and blood sell; nerdy stories that are hard to research won't.

Science also doesn't jive with the "cover all viewpoints" they teach in journalism 101 (case and point, "intelligent design" vs. Evolution. Evolution is something the church gave up on decades ago, and the rest of the world knows is fact- but the American press feels "Intelligent Design" deserves presentation on equal grounds and parrots the President when he says it deserves "consideration".)

Actually, here's something scary

[Moraelin]

"Evolution is something the church gave up on decades ago, and the rest of the world knows is fact- but the American press feels "Intelligent Design" deserves presentation on equal grounds and parrots the President when he says it deserves "consideration"."

Well, actually here's a link to a poll that contradicts the "the rest of the world knows is fact" assertion:

Natural selection fighting to survive in the US [theregister.co.uk]

It's scary, really. Basically only 26% of those polled actually believed Darwin. (Ranging from 27% among the whites to as low as 14% among the blacks.)

To make ignorance even scarier, even in this group, 15% of them said that life existed from day 0 and never changed, and 10% said evolution was guided by some supreme being. Makes me wonder if they even have a clue wtf they're talking about, if they think "evolution" means life staying unchanged.

So, anyway, now let's subtract those 25% (10% + 15%, since both are really are creationists or ID fans in disguise) from that 26% group, and you're left with 26 * 0.75 = 19.5% who actually do believe in the real evolution theory. That's it. Less than 1 person in 5.

So with all due respect, I'd challenge that assertion that "everyone else knows evolution is a fact". It may be so for you and me and our equally nerdy, educated friends, but if we're talking the bulk of the population, less than 1 in 5 are anywhere _near_ sharing that point of view.

Also 64% supported teaching Intelligent Design in schools.

So basically when the press is giving ID equal opportunity, rest assured that it's not just for Dubya's sake. It's really cattering to those 80.5% who actually do believe in creationism or ID, or those 64% who are obviously ignorant enough to not be able to tell the difference between science and pseudo-science babble.

Seriously, whenever I start thinking that maybe we nerds are just elitist with our snotty attitude about the ignorant, uneducated masses... such a study comes along and proves it in hard numbers and percentages that we _are_ right, after all. The majority really _is_ that dumb and uneducated.

Re:Actually, here's something scary

[Mike1024]

It's scary, really. Basically only 26% of those polled actually believed Darwin.

To me, it seems a bit odd that you chose that statistic. Consider the original report [people-press.org]. It says:

Life on earth has:
* Existed in it's present form from the beginning ot time: 42%
* Evolved over time: 48%
* Don't know: 10%

Granted, some people believe evolution was guided by God, but if they're Christians (and there are a lot of christians in the US), that seems like a fine way to reconcile scientific fact with thier beliefs.

What I thought was interesting was that a clear majority thought republicans were more likely to protect religious values while democrats were more likely to protect individual freedoms.... and the people who hold these views elected a republican president.

It's an interesting study, and I advise anyone interested to look at it.

Michael

Re:Newsflash

[Moraelin]

That's a very insightful point, but I don't think the USA has a monopoly on stupidity or anything. It's just that this time we have data from the USA.

You may notice for example that TFA is from "www.guardian.co.uk". There's a reason for that last part of the domain name. And if you browse through their past list of articles in the "Bad Science" category, you'll notice that most of the bad science examples they pick on are from UK tabloids, not USA ones.

And I can tell you first hand that here, that meaning in Germany, there are plenty of dumb and uneducated people too.

And you know how previously I've mentioned having some first-hand experience with the Eastern Block, before the fall of the Iron Curtain? Much as I've commended their education system as IMHO superior to the feel-good education of the western world, the flip side is that they too had their own dumb people. People who argued that the downfall of their communist system was wasting money on having engineers and economists, instead of having everyone get a hammer or a sickle and do some real work already.

So, yes, there will be a lot of variation in what the percentages are among countries, and whether the anti-science gang will be good ol' bible-thumping christians or rally around some other bogus stuff. Yes, maybe the dumb uneducated people in other countries don't rally around ID like in the USA, but they _will_ rally around some other comfortable pseudo-science and/or excuse to mock and ridicule the real science.

Of course, this is all just IMHO. I don't have hard numbers or percentages to base it on.

Re:cost/benefit ratios

[JonathanBoyd]

GOOD scientists don't purposefully make statements that are absolute. Good scientists are guarded and pick their words carefully.

Evolution is something the church gave up on decades ago, and the rest of the world knows is fact

Irony.

Ah, a good old ignorant

[Moraelin]

Nope, you just use a fallacy without even understanding what it means. To quote from the text on Wikipedia you linked to:

"this is a fallacy if the predicate ("putting sugar on porridge") is not actually contradictory for the accepted definition of the subject ("Scotsman"), or if the definition of the subject is silently adjusted after the fact to make the rebuttal work.

Some elements or actions are exclusively contradictory to the subject, and therefore aren't fallacies. The statement "No true vegetarian would eat a beef steak" is not fallacious because it follows from the accepted definition of "vegetarian""

Same here, lemming. "Science" and "scientist" actually do mean observing a certain mindset and methodology. Science has no absolute truth, and it has nothing that is above being a "theory". Nothing ever in science is beyond being questioned and improved, no matter how old and established it may be.

E.g., even Newton's mechanics aren't absolute, but just approximations that are good enough in a given range. If you move outside that range where the error is small enough, you need something else. E.g., relativist mechanics for high speed, and quantum mechanics for extremely low mass and/or distances.

So yes, science _is_ just as mutually-exclusive to absolute truths, as being a vegetarian is to eatin meat. So, no, that fallacy doesn't apply here.

The only thing I'd challenge is just his use of "GOOD scientists". There is no such thing as "GOOD scientists" and "BAD scientists". You're either a scientist or you aren't. The ones who have absolute unchalengeable truths and 100% certainties aren't "BAD scientists", they're just not scientists at all. They love dressing their dogma in pseudo-science babble and masquerading as "scientists" too, but they just aren't.

"It doesn't matter how overwhelmingly anybody manages to demonstrate that science, as a profession and social institution, has some significant shortcomings (many of which we could improve); you will insist on judging it in terms of your fantasy of what a "good scientist" should be, and not in terms of what scientists are in real life."

I haven't seen any overwhelming demonstration so far, other than some bullshit rants from people that don't even understand what science is. I see a bunch of quacks and charlatans trying to redefine science to mean some bullshit fantasy that they're comfortable fighting against.

And I've yet to see any scientists actually rejecting a logical way to improve. The ones I see rejected are bullshit "improvements" aimed at destroying and perverting it into yet another obedient servant to someone's pet dogma or into marketting for someone's snake-oil.

Invariably it's based on such bullshit, massive ignorance, and fallacies as:

- "It's just a theory!" Classic example of a Verbal Fallacy: it plays on the two different meanings of the word "theory".

- "But science doesn't have the definitive answers to everything!" Yes, of course, by the very definition of science. But that doesn't mean that any bullshit based on _no_ verifiable evidence or logic is automatically equal.

- "But science doesn't describe the real universe, it describes an idealized one." No, actually it does study and describe the real one. What all those idealizations are about is just knowing your intended margin of error, and what influences are too small to get you outside that or even not an influence at all. (E.g., if you're calculating how many hours a train needs between Washington DC and LA at 200 mph, you can safely ignore the train's colour.) But then we'll do an actual experiment and see if that idealization describes reality well enough. If not, it's time to start ignoring less factors or come up with a different theory.

- "But science is just another religion! It's all about believing all those theories and laws instead!" Nope, it's all about reproductible, verifiable evidence to those. Noone asks you to unconditionably believe that the theory of gravit

I don't think it's just that

[Moraelin]

As TFA pointed out:

1. It's not about articles written by actual scientists, and not about articles published in real scientific journals. It's the mainstream media that makes a mockery of science.

2. There is a group that seems to be on a crusade to present science as just hocus-pocus babble, as some new religion where self-serving high-priests spout obfuscated nonsense, and where if you asked 10 different scientists about any topic you'd get 11 different conflicting theories.

The article blames it on humanities students, but personally I think that's pointing the finger at the wrong group. In my personal limited observation -- but bear in mind that it's no scientific sample or anything, and generally it's just "IMHO" -- it's just a case of the dumb and uneducated feeling a _need_ to drag everyone back to their level, and articles that catter to that dumb and uneducated majority.

The article itself skirts with that answer when it says that those articles treat you like you're dumb and couldn't possibly understand any real scientific terminology or statistics. Well, bingo. Because they're written for people who don't, and who _want_ some positive reinforcement that the muck of mediocrity (and sub-mediocrity) is cool- That any kind of academic achievement, humanities included, is (A) just some nonsense techno-bable, (B) irrelevant in the real world, (C) a scam, and usually (D) all the above.

And a lot of publications are basically just prom-queens. They'll print what sells. That means what their intended audience wants to hear. If that audience wants to hear that the nerds they mocked in school still didn't really achieve anything, and nowadays are a bunch of quacks and witch-doctors bickering over whose techno-babble religion is better, they'll publish just that.

(Before I go any further, let me mention though that by "education", I don't only mean strictly school. I also mean, in fact even _especially_ mean studying on your own, above and beyond just sitting and daydreaming in class. So if you've made the effort to learn something and improve yourself, even without an university degree, you're _not_ the category I'm talking about.)

And outside magazines, it gets even worse. Every single example is taken out of context and polished into shining proof that education is irrelevant, and sitting on your ass in front of the TV is just as good. Examples you occasionally see even on slashdot include:

- Start with the fact IQ test results are irrelevant for a lot of jobs, and indeed many would even question if they measure "intelligence", or that something as complex as the many aspects of human intelligence can be squeezed into a single number. But then extrapolate it to mean that _intelligence_ as such as irrelevant to any real jobs, or indeed a _handicap_ in the real world.

(In the words of a Slashdot poster in a recent post, the less intelligent have more other (presumably better) advantages, like empathising better with each other, since they're the majority. And, I quote, "So the next time, someone praised you for being intelligent and well-off....just bear these in mind.....seriously, it may not be a good thing in my not-so-honorable opinion ;P")

- Take some speech of someone rich and successful, e.g., Steve Jobs, and cut out of context the part where he mentioned he quit college. But conveniently ommit that he also says that he went to study on his own the things that interested him. So we're talking someone who still worked hard at improving himself, _not_ an example of a couch-potato that made it bigger.

Or even going as far as making up a fake speech of such a successful person where he calls college students losers again and again. (See the fake Larry Ellison speech being occasionally waved around.)

- That some prominent scientific figure, e.g., Einstein seems to be the favourite poster child, didn't do that well in school either, so it's ok for us to sleep in maths and physics classes too. But conveniently mi

Re:I don't think it's just that

[mwrm]

That some prominent scientific figure, e.g., Einstein seems to be the favourite poster child, didn't do that well in school either

While Einstein left his secondary school early without qualifications, it was not because of academic slackness. His work in primary school had been excellent. Here his mother writes to her sister:

"Yesterday Albert received his grades, he was again number one, and his report card was brilliant."

He went on to a further education college to obtain the qualifications for university entrance. He got fairly high marks here (top in maths and physics, etc).

Some of the "Eintein did badly at school" reputation comes from the difference in Swiss and German marking systems. Switzerland where Einstein studied used 6 as the best grade and 1 as the worst grade. Germany used 1 as the best and 6 as the worst. In time his results of 5 and 6 (good results in Switzerland) were transposed into the German system, making them seem bad. I'm not sure, but I did hear that Switzerland now uses the German system, thus compounding the problem.

Re:Science is complex.

[NanoGator]

" That alone should reveal that even trying to write about science is a wasted effort."

Um, no, all it reveals is that some people find entertainment in it. I wouldn't mind but you're using a rather un-scientific method to determine whether or not scientific articles are ever going to show up in newspapers.

Re:Science is complex.

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans believe in so much nonsense that a new dark age can't be far off.

It is pretty annoying to see /.'ers get irked up about Science yet will ignore history as a method of study. When you use the term "dark age" as an analogy for modern times you have to compare the likenesses and differences between the two time periods.

First of all it is embedded in popular culture that the dark ages were times of superstition and religion. This is refuted by modern historians. Have a google search for yourself and find out. The term "dark ages" when used today by modern historians bespeaks that we really don't have much information about the early middle ages. That is all.

Secondly, if we are using the term "dark ages" as a historical analogy where are the likenesses and differences? Is there a difference between science then and now? What about religion? How does our society differ from the FUD of the "dark ages" that you think "can't be far off"? Do some independent thinking for yourself and analyse these questions and you'll probably find that the Media blows a lot of this out of proportion. Relatively speaking, the U.S. population has a pretty open Christian community that respects a lot of views. It isn't like the past. Today is completely different. Tomorrow more so.

Re:Science is complex.

[Overly Critical Guy]

This is something that has bugged me about the media. There is an anti-Christian and anti-South portrayal in nearly all popular media and all news stories. If you go to a Southern town in a movie, there will be rednecks with pickup trucks and getting into barfights or beating their wives. Christians are the punchlines of jokes, and their beliefs are actively mocked and parodied. The media is also anti-father. You rarely find a good father figure in movies or television or news stories. Either he's non-existent, or he's a deadbeat who left years ago, or a wifebeater, etc.

The media is also extremely racist, though they'd never fathom it. If a white girl disappears, it's national news. Lots of peopel disappear in our nation, but heaven forbid the white blonde girl in Aruba go missing. Meanwhile, a black girl could disappear, and no journalists would be around to cover it (see little black girl Rilya Wilson who just disappeared without a trace in Florida, who only Bill O'Reilly of all people covered).

I'm not from the South and I'm not a Christian, but these biases, which are just silently accepted by everyone because they're used to seeing them, make me sick. I'm just tired of it. I wish there were clear, direct, independent journalists to get some ACTUAL NEWS OF THINGS GOING ON IN THE WORLD. Not ratings-makers. I don't want to hear about "day 10 of Camp Casey." Please, tell me what is going on in the world. I know there is more out there.

Re:Christian persecution

[Stiletto]

One beef I have with your (relatively well thought out) post:

Upwords of 90% of the USA claims to be Christian. Many of our national holidays are Christian-based. Christians control all three branches of our federal government, and most state and local governments. Christian symbolism, including churches, crosses, billboards with Christian messages, etc., appear almost everywhere in the country virtually unopposed.

I don't think it's fair to complain about Christians being the butt of a few jokes. I wish my particular religious group was this persecuted.

Re:Christian persecution

[JemalCole]

Jon Stewart totally skewered the "Oh, we Christians are so persecuted myth" when mock-opined, "and maybe someday we'll have a Christian president. Or 43 of them consecutively."

Maybe if Christians aren't smart enough to realize that they are the government and they are the media, they deserve some persecution.

Re:Science is complex.

[Digital Vomit]

As I've said many times before, behind every stereotype, every prejudice, lies a kernel of truth. Are all southerners wife beaters? No. But that stereotype didn't just magically appear. Are all Christians a bunch of fundies who want to disavow the theory of evolution? No, but there are enough who do that this stereotype gets perpetuated.

This is, class, is a textbook example of the mindset behind the the bigot. Take special note of the positive moderation on the post.

Re:Science is complex.

[Anonymous Coward]

The European Dark Ages were a time of political fragmentation (fall of the Roman Empire), repeated waves of invasion by foreign entities (Vandals, Huns, Vikings, etc), de-urbanization, loss of knowledge and learning (destruction of the Akadamies), religious persecution (Christians wiping out Pagans) and lots of other "Dark" stuff, which is why it is called the Dark Ages. They were followed by the Middle Ages, a time of political unification (rise of proto-national kingdoms), learning (re-introduction of k

Re:Science is complex.

[Chris Mattern]

Vikings, fall of the Roman Empire? you have our timeline screwed up. Roman Empire fell before the Dark ages. They converted to catholism in about the same era I would presume. Viking was no more as the Dark ages began. As the scandinavian population was forced to convert to christianity by their kings who thought a people united by christianity instead of living as tribes feuding with each other would be alot easier to controll and become rich of. These two events happened in around the same time about 400 to 600 AD. Coinsidently a few more centuries and we got the Dark ages. Wonder why everyone became Christians before the Dark ages?

Nope, sorry, your chronology is 100% wrong. The traditional date for the fall of Rome is 476, when the last Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by a Gothic chieftan, who instead of putting up another puppet emperor simply crowned himself King of Italy. Conversion of the Northlands to Christianity didn't even *begin* until the 800s, and wasn't completed until the 1100s. The coming of Christianity to the Vikings marks the end of the Dark Ages, not the beginning.

Chris Mattern

Re:Science is complex.

[Guppy06]

"Nearly every media outlet in the US has an astrology column."

They also have comics, usually in the same section. Does that mean most Americans believe a certain beagle has regular encounters with the Red Baron?

I don't have statistics on the matter, but most of the times I know of people reading a horroscope it is for amusement and entertainment, gossipy stuff. I think you're the one here reading too much into it.

Re:Science is complex.

[Jonathan]

I don't have statistics on the matter, but most of the times I know of people reading a horroscope it is for amusement and entertainment, gossipy stuff. I think you're the one here reading too much into it.

It would be nice to think so, but take a look at your local Barnes & Noble -- chances are you'll find that the New Age section is larger than the Science section. People unfortunately take astrology and things like that seriously.

Re:Science is complex.

[chthonicdaemon]

Isaac Newton was a firm believer in alchemy. Strangely, he still managed to do good science. Unfortunately one's belief in things other than the clinical hand of science is not a good indicator of scientific prowess -- athiests do not make better scientists than scientologists/pagans/christians/etc automatically.

Re:Science is complex.

[tjstork]

As opposed to some new age crystal rock worshippers overseas or up north? At least my Volcano God promises me something when I die. Your Mother Earth hurricanes you, volcanoes you, gives you Zilch and you go prancing around because you think buying too much stuff offends her.

Earth is a rock, get over it. Don't let a stupid frog stop you from building the freeway,

Re:Science is complex.

[flyingsquid]

It is just that easy to be wrong.

I think it goes deeper than that. I think there is a failure by many in the press- in particular the "humanities graduates" that the article rails against- to understand the scientific method and believe in things like objective truth. "There are just so many perceptions and viewpoints, all equally valid," goes the postmodernist thinking, so they give "equal time" to them all, never mind whether one is completely unsupported by evidence. It's not just an issue in science: you see the same bullshit when a politician says that black is white and down is up but the press lacks the brains or testicles to call them on it.

The other major problem is that increasingly, news is seen as a form of entertainment. If this is the case, then whether your report is true or not is secondary to whether it tells a good story. For this reason, science journalists love to report on controversies where they don't exist. A compelling narrative needs conflict; "scientists unanimous: all support theory" might be accurate, but it just isn't as exciting as "scientists bitterly divided, killing each other with bare hands over theory".

And as far as bad science journalism, I'd like to point out that journals like _Science_ and _Nature_ actually contribute to this by frequently publishing attention-grabbing bad science, just because they know it will get coverage.

On Teaching Science to the Media

[jtangen]

There are many efforts directed at educating scientists about the journalistic process, but fewer that aim to educate journalists about science. One of the arguments for the imbalance is that it is more efficient for scientists to learn about media constraints than it would be for journalists to learn about science. Some argue that a lack of scientific knowledge on a journalist's behalf may actually benefit their interpretation of science publications, allowing the author to be less biased when translating the information for public consumption. Others believe that introducing science journalists to the scientific process will help to correct inaccuracies and omissions of important information in the media.

Re:On Teaching Science to the Media

[Herkum01]

This reminds me a of a Simpsons episode were Lisa Simpson steals all the Teachers Editions of the school books. Without the teachers editions, none of the teachers had any answers.

The point? As a teacher who is dependent upon a book to give them the answers is not really much of a teacher; neither is a journalist that does learn the facts about what they are reporting. Readers do expect them to be experts but we certainly do not expect them to be totally dependent upon sources of dubious value or insight.

Re:On Teaching Science to the Media

[M. Baranczak]

To expect them to become scientific experts, as well as journalistic masters and mistresses, is somewhat extreme.

Lets say you hire someone to write about baseball. You wouldn't expect him (yeah, I did say 'him': most women have better things to do with their lives) to actually play the game at a Major-League level, but you would expect him to have a command of certain basic knowledge, like, for example, the rules of the game. What the article is saying (and I completely agree) is that this expectation is no

I disagree ...

[oostevo]

The author says that:

"It is my hypothesis that in their choice of stories, and the way they cover them, the media create a parody of science, for their own means. They then attack this parody as if they were critiquing science. This week we take the gloves off and do some serious typing."

Granted my sample space of random, anecdotal evidence is probably much smaller than his, but he seems to attribute the poor reporting to some sort of grand conspiracy, or at least malice.

From what I've seen of bad science reporting (my professors often give examples in lecture for us to laugh at), the cause is nowhere near as malevolent -- it's simply writers who are not educated enough about science and the methods of discovery that surround it trying to simplify for their readers a scientific breakthrough like they'd simplify a speech or debate.

And they just don't understand it anywhere near enough to avoid cropping out hugely important parts.

What is willful ignorance

[vena]

...if not malice?

Not to mention that, as the AC above touched on, they serve two masters -- one of whom pays their salary, and it's not you and me. It's not like there's any big backlash against their reporting of science, but as much as some of us may think we've evolved beyond it, there is still a lot of distrust, ignorance, and general animosity towards science in the world. The media exploits this for ratings, it's not a new accusation by any means. And when it keeps people ignorant, it's malicious in my book.

Re:I disagree ...

[bm_luethke]

You are making the mistake many do in looking at bias - there doesn't *have* to be a coordinated effort for what the original article wrote to be true. In fact it's very very rare and usually not productive/widespread for it to be coordinated. It's too transparent.

You need look no further than slashdot - it's moderation tends to be heavily biased in many topics. I can assure you (and a little looking around will confirm it if you do not already know) that there is no controlling entity that seeks to impliment this bias. Yet there is still a VERY strong bias for pretty much similar reasons through many of slashdots readers.

It's like an ant colony where there is no "hive mind" to control things. Each participant does it's thing and the whole ends up being something specific.

It can be that a very few want this and hire people who are like minded (that is usually self sustaining - you usually only hire people you think are correct). It may be that the nature of the job pushes people who think that way into the field. It may be just random chance that one day went over the saturation point - it could have went anyway and just chose that one. There are many other explaination than "Grand conspiracy" - group think happens all the time with no controlling authority or grand conspiracy.

Personally I think the original authors are correct. At least in my experiance (in real life and when I was in the university) 3/4 (and note the 3/4 - there were some very nice very broadly educated people there also) of the humanties distrusted science and journalist students were mostly humanaties people (rare person who is really interested in science but chooses to do non-science for a living - nature of the job chooses people who think that way). If they believe that to be reality, thier editors believe that to be reality, then it's just the nature of the beast.

Just as there is no grand conspiracy to make science minded people think and write that the "Earth is 4000 years old people" are crazy (and our writings are VERY biased against them because we think they are, at best, wrong), so too does the average journalist do that. That's why if you want news about science you need to look to specialised journalist - not the times, cnn, fox, abc, nbc, or whatever general news rag (and don't look at a science journal for general news - they are usually pretty poor at it).

If you want decent scientific articles..

[CyricZ]

.. stick with the science journals! At least there the articles will have been written by scientists, rather than mainstream media journalists. Let the everyday individual read the consumer newspaper and magazine articles, while people looking for correctness can go right to the source.

Re:If you want decent scientific articles..

[pete6677]

Exactly. Mainstream journalism, by design, was never meant to be a reliable source for scientific information. It was meant to inform the masses by creating excitement which generates interest and therefore sells papers. Science isn't always interesting to the masses.

Another problem with mainstream journalism, and some pseudo-scientific publications may fall victim to this as well, is puff pieces that are written by PR firms. Much of what you read in the mainstream news, especially in the "Lifestyles" secti

Re:If you want decent scientific articles..

[dido]

I remember an essay by Paul Graham: "The Submarine [paulgraham.com]", where he discusses the effect of PR firms on journalism in general. Extrapolating from Graham's article, it seems like an honest blog by someone genuinely interested in scientific topics might be a better place to get good science news than mainstream media. Heck, in many of the science articles here on /. it seems that some of the comments make for better science reporting than the articles themselves.

Read "The Economist"

[mbkennel]

A mainstream news magazine which can, in fact, get science generally correct.

As well as most of their other reporting. They have a clear editorial bias, but it is at least open, and mostly rational unlike the Wall Street Journal (editorials).

Yes, I am a professional scientist myself, and I have fairly high standards on this. The Economist does well, sometimes the NYTimes science reporter, and few others.

Re:If you want decent scientific articles..

[Lars Arvestad]

If you have access to them, the big "science tabloids", Nature and Science, have very good summaries and explanations of their most important articles. You'd be surprised. It is now so strange, really, because they have a large reader base from very many disciplines and these people (usually scientists) want to know and understand what happens in other fields without having to have a PhD in those fields.

You can probably find them in your local college library. Have a look!

people are lazy and stupid

[roman_mir]

and that's about it.

Re:people are lazy and stupid

[ameline]

Close, but I think much is explained by the following two axioms; 1: Thinking is hard 2: People are lazy So people are stupid and uninformed *because* they are lazy.

But I read...

[curteck]

...a scientific article stating that 73.3% of all scientific studies and statistics are wrong...

Applies to everything, not just science...

[magarity]

Reporters who have never touched a rifle report on the military, reporters who grew up in the city report on farming, reporters who never broke a sweat at heavy labor report on construction projects...
 
Actually, this is a lot like public primary education where teachers without specialties in any field teach specific specialty classes.

Re:Applies to everything, not just science...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The difference is that journalists covering those other fields they know nothing about are expected to do their homework and, by the time they finish writing the story, know something about it. They don't always succeed, of course, but the editors' and readers' expectation is that they'll at least try. When it comes to reporting on science, OTOH ... well, TFA has it exactly right.

One point that's touched on in TFA, but perhaps not given enough attention, is the spurious idea of "balance," usually personif

Doesn't always matter.

[jd]

I'd be wary of a crime reporter who "kept current" by robbing the bank every time they went on location.

A science reporter doesn't have to know the subject, but they DO need to know how to do critical thinking. (Which, IMHO, is important for any journalist who wants to have integrity.)

Most importantly, they need to know:

• How certain are the scientists of their result?
  
  • 
    Statistics will usually be given with a percentage, which indicates the highest confidence level that can be given to the results. Because of the curious nature of statistics, these are given as the area of the tail on the stats chart, not the body, so the LOWER the percentage the better. A 5% confidence limit is generally regarded as evidence of a total LACK of confidence. You really want 1% or better. You'll see some results, though, with a confidence limit of 10% or even 20%.
    
  
  
• How well-designed was the research? (ie: How ambiguous was it?)
  
  • 
    The "null hypothesis" (what you are trying to disprove) should be something clearly-defined, with well-known bounds. It's preferable that the "null hypothesis" is whatever would be either whatever the system would naturally gravitate towards, or the norm, whichever you know better.
    

    
    In non-statistical studies, you use basically the same method. You assume that whatever you are testing shows nothing at all different, and attempt to falsify this hypothesis. It is extremely dangerous to go looking for something specific, because you'll normally find it - even when it's not there.
    

  
  
• Were the scientists unduly influenced? Did they have a disposition towards a certain result?
  
  • 
    You can pay a scientist - or anyone else - to say anything you like, if you've enough money. What they say, then, is important only if they have credibility as an impartial observer. As most science, these days, is funded by corporations, this is unbelievably scarce. However, paid-for work has zero credibility unless it can be verified by an impartial observer. At which point, it is still the impartial observer who matters, anyway.
    
  
  
• Do the results actually say what the scientist(s) say they do?
  
  • 
    This one is hard to guague, if you're not in the field, but you can look for tell-tale signs of a problem. If you can't see the methods used, if they didn't keep logs or lab notes of what they did, if they are vague about how you get from the data to the conclusions - these should tip off any competent journalist that something isn't right.
    
  
  

Re:Doesn't always matter.

[orac2]

This one is hard to guague, if you're not in the field, but you can look for tell-tale signs of a problem. If you can't see the methods used, if they didn't keep logs or lab notes of what they did, if they are vague about how you get from the data to the conclusions - these should tip off any competent journalist that something isn't right.

I think that you make some excellent points, but I'm afraid that ferreting out the state of logs, raw data, notebooks, etc (even to verify that they do in fact exist in a

Re:Doesn't always matter.

[Decaff]

You can pay a scientist - or anyone else - to say anything you like, if you've enough money.

Not my definition of a scientist.

What they say, then, is important only if they have credibility as an impartial observer. As most science, these days, is funded by corporations, this is unbelievably scarce. However, paid-for work has zero credibility unless it can be verified by an impartial observer.

This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is for and how it works. Virtually all scientists do science for one reason - to discover things. They will use whatever funding they can get in order to do this, but this does not result in them producing false results - what would be the point? Corporations pay scientists in order to discover things. If they wanted biased results they could simply make them up! Furthermore, any scientist caught deliberately publishing false or biased data would find their career cut short.

Of course paid-for science (like any other) has to be verified, but to suggest that it has 'zero credibility' is to seriously misrepresent science and scientists.

Re:Applies to everything, not just science...

[martinX]

Not where I come from. The country report is done by people from the bush. City reporters wouldn't understand the issues, so they wouldn't ask the right questions, they'd write incomplete stories that wouldn't fly...

To address your examples specifically, not everything in the military is about rifles. Oftentime, what happens in the military can be the same sort of thing that can happen working for any other larger employer: people are concerned about pay, health care, retirement benefits, etc. If commentary

Ooooh, that's a tough one

[supabeast!]

"Why is science in the media so often pointless, simplistic, boring, or just plain wrong?"

Because those things get ratings. Nobody wants to hear the truth - to most people it's boring and threatening.

exactly! Ever see life good, terrorism overrated?

[sien]

It isn't just science journalism.

Newspapers hype everything and do their best take things out of context.

A few headlines that would show that this is not the case:

• Bush average president, but life good anyway
• Terrorism overestimated to keep Pentagon funding, chance of dying from terrorist hugely less than that from auto accident.
• US not major player in dispute, but analysts claim everything result of US.
• Technology keeps on gradually improving but nothing really huge happening this year
• Unemployemnt wi

Science is not News

[Velox_SwiftFox]

It resolves things. Jornalism is about exciting people into anxiety about whatever important (preferably unsolveable) problems or stupid crap is available at the time to do it with.

Anyone's got this guy's email address?

[sasha328]

It looks like he's found:

So far I have captured the formulae for: the perfect way to eat ice cream (AxTpxTm/FtxAt +VxLTxSpxW/Tt=3d20), the perfect TV sitcom (C=3d[(RxD)+V]xF/A+S), the perfect boiled egg, love...

Wow. Icecream and Love. What else would anyone want in life?

The wrong guys write.

[postbigbang]

About 80% of the zines on the stands are owned by just a half dozen publishers these days. Their job is to sell zines, not benefit scientific understanding, unless their readership has some decided and saleable interest.

Journalists, bless them, aren't often scientifically trained. Look at the poor quality of the computer industry zines of the late 90's and early 00's. Most them are gone, and good riddance, These guys were better at covering sports than bus architectures and burgeoning CPU and OS monopolies. Getting scientists to write cogent articles for people that aren't buying an academic/discipline article is really tough. They get no recognition for that, just some cash. Only a few scientists can cross over to mainstream writing and be successful more than their research career gave them. So, there's a good reason why we don't get good science writing: publishers don't understand the need for quality; researchers are busy publishing in journals within their disciplines, and journalists make rotten scientists-- but better beer drinkers.

Re:The wrong guys write.

[DerekLyons]

About 80% of the zines on the stands are owned by just a half dozen publishers these days. Their job is to sell zines, not benefit scientific understanding, unless their readership has some decided and saleable interest.

The mistake many people make is in thinking that the current situation represents some change from a golden past - it doesn't. Even if all the magazines on the stands were each owned by an individual publisher, they'd still be mostly interested in selling magazines and making a profit.

Because Aliens Cause Global Warming...

[WombatControl]

Michael Chricton had an excellent piece on the decline of science reporting in an address at Caltech [crichton-official.com]. His observations should be required reading because they get to the heart of what's wrong with "science" these days. (I use science in quote marks because it's only tangentally related to real science.) A sample:

Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends.

That is why it is so important for the future of science that the line between what science can say with certainty, and what it cannot, be drawn clearly-and defended.

Hell, I remember as a kid reading "50 Things You Can Do To Save The Earth" or some other such claptrap that argued that some massive amount of the rainforest disappared every day - and a little multiplication found that if such a figure were true the rainforest (and all forests on Earth) would have disappared in a year.

Whether "intelligent design" or "global warming", science is being used as a tool of politics - which is something it is not and never should be.

Re:Because Aliens Cause Global Warming...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

It's always kind of amusing to see Crichton held up as a model of scientific thinking when, in fact, he's built a career on playing to people's worst (and silliest) fears about science. AFAICT, he's just as anti-science as the most rabid creationist, only in a different way.

Comparable?!

[246o1]

Let's see if this is right: 1) Michael Crichton's remarks on science in the media should be required reading/hearing. 2) Intelligent design, which is predicated on the assumption that nothing is knowable (the acceptance of extra-natural forces in nature rejects the knowability of all natural science), is of equivalent validity to global warming (as Crichton tried to argue in his last bit of pandering pulp). The difference between the two theories, besides the fact that they are often on different sides of a political divide in America (no doubt the reason you chose them as your examples), is that one of them is science, the other is fundamentally un-science. Intelligent design is not only unproven, it is un-provable and also not dis-provable. Global warming, while still a topic of debate among a certain fringe, is as scientific in its predictions and foundations as any environmental science can be. While many physicists and the like may look down on environmental science, they'll be wishing they'd listended a little more closely when their coastal homes get destroyed.

Re: Aliens do NOT cause global warming!

[Omnifarious]

It is caused by the Flying Spaghetti Monster as punishment for the fact that too few of us wear pirate regalia in his honor. The evidence on this [venganza.org] is very clear.

Crichton = Hack novelist spreading F.U.D.

[StefanJ]

Here's a nice analysis of the dubious claims made by Crichton in his speeches and in the footnotes of his novel State of Fear.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74 [realclimate.org]

Re:Because Aliens Cause Global Warming...

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>Whether "intelligent design" or "global warming", science is being used as a tool of politics - which is something it is not and never should be.

You can't do this by reading the mainstream press, but on the web you can disentangle scientific information from politics by reading what climatologists think [realclimate.org]. That site draws a sharp line between political questions (should we ratify the Kyoto treaty?) and scientific questions (why do ice ages end before CO2 levels go up?).

Re:Because Aliens Cause Global Warming...

[ari_j]

Domain name: realclimate.net

Registrant Contact:
Environmental Media Services
Betsy Ensley ([e-mail])
+1.2024636670
Fax: none
1320 18th St, NW
5th Floor
Washington, DC 20036
US

Looks political to me.

2 things were spot on

[i_should_be_working]

1) 'Breakthroughs' overhyped as if they're about to change everything. We see this all the time on /. 'Breakthrough in quantum-computing/ nanotechnology/ quantum-cryptography' The stories are overhyped 'cause it gets readers. Then here we get a bunch of armchair scientists hypothesising about the terahertz fast, petabyte large, unhackable computer everyone will have next year.

2) The media focusing on one or two scientists as if they have the ultimate say in how things are. Ignoring the fact that scientists aren't some monolithic beast with one scientist at the head.

I get the distinct impression

[JChung2006]

that the article's author just got dumped by his "humanity graduate student" significant other.

Actually not that hard to understand

[Reality Master 101]

You can apply this to any subject of journalism, not just science. There is no grand conspiracy, as the poster seems to think.

Journalists exist to be published. That is their function -- that's what they love, to see their name in print. They don't really care what they say exactly; they only care that their article pleases their editors, which in turn sells more newspapers or magazines.

I got a real education when I lived next door to a fairly high-up Sports Illustrated reporter. In watching him do his work, he would basically try and find an angle, and then shape the facts to fit his angle. Technically, he wouldn't "lie", but he would definitely flake and form things to give the impression that he'd decided to write ahead of time. That was generally for background pieces that he would write, but even for sporting events he followed that formula. He would write his article before the event had even finished, sometimes with multiple endings in case things went for one outcome or another (this is Standard Operating Procedure in the industry).

In realizing his "algorithm" to producing articles, I began to look at other journalist articles. And lo and behold -- I saw the same sort of pattern. When you realize this, you can see the "angle" they've decided to write, and the pattern shows up like a flashing red light. All the successful ones do this. They decide ahead of time what would make an exciting article to write.

This is why people get misquoted all the time. It's because when a journalist talks to someone, they aren't interested in what that person has to say, they want specific quotes that they can use to back up whatever they are writing.

Re:Actually not that hard to understand

[aussersterne]

I work in "the industry" (media/journalism/publishing) and I can tell you that it's nothing to do with wanting your name in print.

The fact is that this is capitalism, not some grand inquisition for the truth. No paper will flat-out lie because that would ultimately hurt sales, but papers and media outlets do and will push the truth as close as possible to sex, violence, or rock and role in a bid to increase sales.

You can't say "well, my writing will have integrity and I won't sensationalize" because then you simply won't sell while your competitors' editions about the end of the world being caused by radioactive cheerleaders are selling like hotcakes, and soon your paper won't be in business anyway.

The general attitude of our culture has a lot to do with sales, too. The buying public does not like harsh realities. They won't buy truth. They want to be "inspired." They want stories that tell them that they are in control--that if you just "believe" in something, it will happen, or that love conquers anything, or that the affair they're having is okay because 75% of the other people in the country are also having one, etc.

Basically, because we live in a capitalistic economy, copy must sell in order to continue to be written. Fiction and reader-affirmation sells. Truth and harsh facts don't.

The publication, not the college major, is the key

[orac2]

I think the type of publication is a very significant contributor to the prevalance of Bad Science reporting, even more so than the article's thesis of "Humanties Majors run amok."

If you look at many general interest news publications, whether they be monthly magazines or daily papers, you'll find they don't often even have a dedicated science reporter. Even when they claim to, it's really a "Health" reporter, who's often much more likely to cover the latest exercise craze or green tea fad than actual metabolic research from the NIH (incidently, at least one major science journalism prize now specifically excludes "health" articles for this reason.) Even when they do have science reporters, the Guardian's article makes a good point: unlike the financial or politics pages, the science beat reporter must assume no, or very little, prior knowledge of science, and this is enforced by their editors. While this may (sadly) be a perfectly reasonable thing to do, as scientific literacy among the public is appalling, you can see how it's a vicious cycle kind of thing. And it's the rare general interest publication indeed that would have more than one staff reporter or editor dedicated to covering science.

But I think there's still good science journalism out there, in the science and tech magazines, like New Scientist or Discover. Not only can you assume the audience knows what the terms "volt" or "DNA" mean, you can get much more space to give a real explanation of what's going on. While stories are still supposed to be timely, they're not usually tied to the daIly press release cycle either. And this type of publication is much more likley to employ people with science backgrounds. Here I should state my possible bias: I'm a science journalist for a monthly emerging technology magazine with a university education in experimental physics! But I should say that one of our best writers here, if not the best, was an English major in college. But after a few years now on the semiconductor beat he probably knows more about, say, dielectrics, than I ever did, not least because he had the time to learn, time often in short supply when one is the sole science reporter on a newsstand publication, and so have to cover the entire scientific waterfront. Reporters for science/tech publications can usually focus on a few areas at a time and really learn them in depth, and that makes a huge difference.

This is why I feel the publication makes a much bigger difference than some seething secret Romantic resentment from journalists to the quality of science reporting. It's the publishers and editors which set the standards for articles, not individual reporters, after all.

Humanics

[Doc Ruby]

The real problem is the perpetuation of a war between "science" and "humanities" students/grads/researchers/writers. Even this Guardian article points its (stereotypical) criticism at "humanities" people, implicitly defending "science" people. Humanities writers, including many "social scientists" like historians (and especially the underlooked lawyers in that class), are just as antipathetic.

The division itself is a disservice to each profession. Scientists have to communicate science with humans, even other scientists. And humanities workers, even mere newpaper reporters, are governed by physical laws of evidence, causality, statistics. We're all in it together. And we all have to realize that we've each got our own languages, from mathematics to hiphop, that are just ways of representing the real world we're all struggling to understand and share with each other. Prioritizing one of those aspects is no excuse for neglecting competence in another. And seeing the struggle as scientist against humanist discards the real struggle, against misunderstanding and ignorance, thereby working for the enemy.

Science, media, politics and hype

[Ogemaniac]

Unfortunately, science via the media is almost worthless, and there is a pretty broad consensus around here from what I can tell. It is even worse when politics are involved. Here is my reasoning as to why.

1: Scientists who work in a particular field are self-selected to work in that field. Of course a cancer researcher thinks fighting cancer is important, or a global warming researcher thinks protecting the environment is important. This is not meant to attack these people, but I hope that you realize that one should take account of this when listening to their opinions. The result of this is one layer of hype for their research.

2. The second layer of hype is funding. If you want money to cure cancer, save the planet, or build better Legos, well, the first step is to scream bloody murder about how big the problem is and how wonderful your solution is. Like it or not, but scientists have every reason to hype their research - and as a research scientist myself, I can assure you that this is the way things really happen. This is a second layer of hype.

3: Then we get to the media, which receives this already-double-hyped information from the scientists. Well, what is the media's job? Selling information...and we all know their basic strategy is....hype!. So the "science" the average Joe reads in the newspaper is now triple-hyped.

4: Finally, we get to the big issue - politics. Most politicians get their information not directly from scientists, but from various media sources, lobby groups, and think tanks. But as noted, this information is already triple-hyped. Do you want to guess what the politician does? He/she then selects the information that best backs his or her position, and then hypes it.

By the time your favorite politician spews anything related to "science", you can be rest assured that it has been hyped so many times that it now bears no resemblance to anything approximating fact, and should be duly ignored. Before you start finger pointing, please get over the fact that both parties do it and are equally as bad (research anything related to Republicans vs Global Warming, or Democrats vs genetics/race/sex for all the anti-science details).

US Centric Post

[rolfwind]

Perhaps it has to do with our daily TV & pop Magazine (Times, Life) and Newspapers that assume we're stupid and write/talk/present things to us as if we're at the 6th grade level.

If that's all you see, read, or hear 90% of the time - it will eventually filter down into your communication unless you actively prevent it. It will eventually spread to all media.

The british newspapers, I'm told, write at a 12th grade level.

If you ever watched the Daily Show where they showed the difference between George Bush's Social Security town hall meetings and the one PM Tony Blair did before his election - you will see the stark contrast in how the media treats it's viewers - intelligent adults vs. idiotic grown children.

(In short, it was 1000000 x more confrontational with people asking intelligent questions versus here where everybody had to kiss GWB's balls to ask a stupid & simplistic question)

I tried to find the clip but I can't find it.

Re:US Centric Post

[BlightThePower]

Interesting. I think I recognise your point although I should say its a little unfair to expect a US president to be able to cope with the situation Tony Blair put himself in. As you might see on C-SPAN (I'm told) Blair stands up answers direct questions for opposition MPs every week. Every week. And he's more or less in jail if he gets caught lying as well. So by the standard he has grown used to, a public Q&A session for Blair is a holiday. British voters demand a level of oratory from their politicia

Re:US Centric Post

[rolfwind]

Actually I would think that difference only underlines as a product of my domestic media and it's weakness and not an inherent difference between our peoples.

Our media willingly plays softball with politician X - they get invited to the news conference or WhiteHouse or some such as a reward.

If the media banded together and refused the politicians coverage that the politicians so desperately seek - politicians would be willing to answer hardball questions.

But they are let off the hook and the spin gets out t

Re:US Centric Post

[skwang]

One should point out that George W. Bush's Social Security town hall meeting was a scripted event. That is to say the audience members were screened beforehand and the questions known to all. While President Bush had to give real answers and the questions were real (albeit softball) the whole event stank of spin. I didn't take it seriously and neither should you.

The vicious circle of reporting

[BlightThePower]

As a scientist myself I'm very unhappy about the way the reporting of science has created a vicious circle. Journalists misreport science, the article comes up with some arguments as to why but in the end I'm tempted to think it has a lot to do with trying to summarise very complex things when you don't entirely understand them. But scientists are also to blame here; there is a general lack of both ability and interest in communicating our work more widely (the phrase "media don" is considered pretty offensive in certain circles). Unfortunately the kind of climate the journalists have created for us makes this venture even less appealing than it was in the first place. The eventual result is that people like myself don't like talking to journalists because we don't want to be involved in perpetrating a load of hype and making ourselves look unscrupulous in the eyes of our peers. The answer is probably getting scientists to try to write their own "popular" articles directly and to facilitate this would require that the systems that measure academic performance in terms of publication in impact-rated journals begins to pay some sort of recognition to activities of wider dissemination. Right now, you could be on the news once a week and have your own TV show discussing your work and it would do less (technically at least) to help you keep your academic job than publishing a two-page note in the back of an obscure journal. You might say that an academics job is to produce new research, not go on the TV. I think this is where the real question lies; what role should a scientist be occupying in the 21st century?

Why is astronomy good?

[Fractal Dice]

What interests me is how good astronomy reporting seems to be compared to all other science reporting. It faces the same guantlet as other articles, avoids the math and loves to fear-monger possible disasters, but somehow it seems to communicate the more-or-less current theories in a way that seems understandable, interesting, even inspiring.

Is it a difference in how the media approaches the subject? Astronomy seems to have an aura of purity (biology seems to only be reported to create ecological or evolutionary flamewars; medicine research sounds more like infomercials than news; engineering ... well, doesn't exist in the media). Have astronomers learned how to package their data/analysis in nice neat packages?

This article is bad science

[sam_handelman]

He begins by claiming - and at this point no one familiar with it will argue - that science journalism is in a sorry state. He provides ample evidence of this, should anyone be inclined to disagree, and it is persuasive, as far as that goes.

The article then descends into a completely unsupported, purely imaginary tirade against the humanities, romanticism, "cultural relatvism"(by which he means what exactly?) and the hatred of science.

He ascribes to each and every philosopher, the entire community of writers, artists and historians, and of course journalists, a heart full of secret malice arising from the repressed awareness that they have made a fundamental mistake in turning their back on reason and objectivity, which they reject absolutely.

Does he have any evidence to back this, shall I put it lightly, extreme claim? He seems to believe it follows logically from the existence of bad science journalism, and maybe some anecdotal experiences he may have had (but doesn't much discuss) with jouranlists (N=1?)

While we're making up sinister motivations, he couldn't get anyone in the humanities to sleep with him in college, so they all must hate science. Especially this particular "science communicator" woman, who, despite the fact that he is good-looking, has turned him down. I offer this up purely to demonstrate how ridiculous his assertions are.

The article contributes in some small way to the (already overwhelming) body of evidence for the low quality of science journalism, and promotes a reasonable, but not particularly enlightening, classification scheme for bad science stories.

But does he go through the articles he has collected as "specimens" in any systematic way? Does he actually check the educational background of the authors? Try to find real causal relationships?

No, just like the bad science journalism he lambasts, he presents THE REASON that bad science journalism exists and expects us to believe it's true.

At the very end there is a tantalizing mention of the process by which university press releases are converted into news articles, along with some unsubstantiated claims (which I do not think are true, but I'd like to see some hard numbers) about the qualifications of the individuals involved at various stages of the process. If he'd thoroughly investigated that, reported what he'd found, and then given some kind discussion of that finding, maybe this would be an article worth reading.

Alarmist science journalism and misinformation

[xPsi]

Here is an except from an article entitled 'Doomsday Fears at RHIC' [findarticles.com] published in the Skeptical Inquirer in 1999 that addresses some of these issues of science reporting (more from the alarmist misinformation than pure ignorance or apathy side). The main article was originally discussing the various doomsday scenarios that were bandied about when the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider was about to be turned on.

On one level, the answer is obvious: scientists, members of the media, and the public, using open lines of communication, need to work together to combat ignorance. However, the tension between the three sectors is clear. One can't help but wonder if the public and the media perceive scientists to be so righteous and arrogant that, out of spite, they simply want them to be wrong. And let's face it, some scientists clearly enjoy the wall of mystique and complexity surrounding their fields of expertise.

Personality conflicts aside, if a member of the public reads an article from a major news source that quotes experts who claim doomsday is nigh, this should be a cause for rational alarm. Public safety is clearly important. However, individuals should act responsibly on such concerns. People have a right to demand accurate media reporting, but they also have a right to demand clear and unpretentious explanations directly from experts--especially when safety is a concern. Physicist Daniel Cebra, director of the Nuclear Group at the University of California at Davis, and active member in the RHIC project at BNL, personally phoned a number of openly worried members of his small community to calm fears after seeing their letters in the local paper. These individuals demanded a response from an expert and got it. This kind of outreach can only improve the relationship between the public and the scientific community.

However, if a scientist generates a media event by using phrases that are flippant, "brutally frank," or unintentionally alarmist, they probably need to rephrase themselves to match the language of their listeners. Mismatches between colloquial and technical language are at the source of much turmoil between science and the media. For example, scientists often speak differently from nonscientists when it comes to assessing degrees of probability. When expressing a "scientific opinion," without the direct benefit of experiment, most scientists are open to possibilities and enjoy using their imaginations as much as anyone else. A priori, truly unquestionably impossible things are indeed rare. If one discovers something that is really absolutely impossible, that's important and you remember it. Everything else can be categorized in varying degrees of possibility ranging over many orders of magnitude between probability equals zero and one. Considerable room for smallness exists between those two numbers. There is an art to assessing such probabilities responsibly and appreciating "effective impossibility" when you see it. But there is also an art, which many scientists seem to lack, to expressing impossibility to nonscientists; scientists feel guilty saying something is unquestioningly impossible. Consequently, ask a scientist if something is "possible" you may be asking for trouble. Be prepared to have all of your fears and fantasies confirmed with a heavily qualified "yes, but.[ldots]"

In turn, scientists should expect the public and the media to be able to apply basic critical thinking skills in order to process important information. Complex and heavily qualified answers from scientists are usually nor the forte of the public nor the media. Shades of possibility are generally ignored. Depending on the audience, events tend to be divided sharply between two choices: "possible" and impossible. In our cynical culture, raised on Murphy's Law, many interpret the word "possible" to mean "if the outcome is bad, it will happen; if the outcome is good, it won't." Many responsible atte

Re:Bad Science? More like bad politics!

[MightyMartian]

I don't think Conservatives are stupid or Liberals are smart. I do think that the US conservative movement has spent too much time whoring itself to anti-intellectual religionists who haven't managed to wake up out of the Dark Ages and realize that science, unlike they're small-minded, superstitious world view, actually produces results. The United States did not become a superpower through prayer, it got there because it produced or imported researchers. Perhaps when the Conservative movement gets up the guts to tell the Evangelicals, including GWB, that being Conservative doesn't mean having to deny reality that doesn't fit with a Biblical interpretation which could best be described as simply idiotic.

On the other hand, I've seen a number of liberals who buy into crystals, magnets, feng shui, chiropracty and all other sorts of nonsense, and that sort of thing is just as harmful as anything any Young Earth Creationist or Intelligent Design advocate is going to pass off as Truth.

Don't you think science education is best served by keeping psuedo-science and barely veiled religious dogma out of the classroom?

Re:Bad Science? More like bad politics!

[CyricZ]

Don't worry. Science will still progress. It will just be in places like China and Europe, where actual scientific progress and achievement is considered more important than appealing to everybody's religious belief system.

Re:Bad Science? More like bad politics!

[alan_dershowitz]

It may take a second to political belief systems, however. How long did China insinuate the moon landings were a hoax? As for Europe, lots of good research comes out of there...but then, so does lots of bullshit like anti-gravity and zero-point energy.

Re:Bad Science? More like bad politics!

[Stridar]

I would have to disagree. Science will continue in the US due to the excellent graduate programs, university systems, and corporate relationships between them.

And it will continue where ever it is unabetted by political--as opposed to any moral--influence. China for instance, has much too much political influence over their education systems to be the next springboard of discovery. As a result, Chinese students practically flee to the US after completing university. It is such a problem that in China, if one accepts admission to any graduate school within China all their identification will be seized by the government in an effort to insure you do not emmigrate. This does not help incubate a research community.

As for Europe, of course they are already sustaining a great research community,; however, governmental control is too prevalent to keep the top tier talent there. They simply can not pay enough to keep top tier researchers from emmigrating to US universities. And so their growth is not as great as in the US.

But if we are placing bets on the next large research community to complement the US, I'd have bet on India. IIT is producing, and attracting back to India, top tier talent.

Re:Bad Science? More like bad politics!

[BlightThePower]

Theres more to it than money, its a question of the climate in which one does their work. If you are a stem cell researcher for example, it doesn't really matter when Caltech or whoever might put on the table, it simply not worth it to end up on the margins of your field because of uncertain political climate to do with your work. I think you can see that for every inch the present US administration has ratcheted up restrictions, canny European countries have relaxed theirs in reply. In the end being a rese

Re:Bad Science? More like bad politics!

[meta-monkey]

I don't think political leanings are good indicator of scientific knowledge. Operatives on both sides butcher science for their own benefits, and the level headed, again on both sides, shake their heads.

For instance, religionists consult unqualified doctors or anecdotes from relatives to "prove" Terry Shiavo is not a vegetable, because it fits in with their world view that euthanasia is wrong. Other conservatives and libertarians just don't give a fuck.

Some socialists and anti-capitalists far exagerate t

Re:Bad Science? More like bad politics!

[MightyMartian]

Translation: "All that other stuff is crapola, except my favorite pseudo-science!"

Ah my, that was good for a laugh.

Re:Bad Science? More like bad politics!

[meta-monkey]

Not so much...what you're talking about is "interior decorating" and "ergonomics." Those are generally art forms, with a few "best practice" rules. Feng shui, on the other hand, is mystical mumbo-jumbo that employs spirits, energy flows, and all kinds of other garbage.

There's a big difference between "let's paint the wall in the dining nook burnt umber to tie it into the cabinets in the kitchen, and hang drapes to match the couches" and "your ancestors will bring you peace because a red-brown dining nook

Re:Irony.

[zippthorne]

I thought we agreed not to worry so much about the difference between "hypothesis" and "theory" so we wouldn't have to use the "hypothesis of evolution" to destroy the "opiate of the people" and create our socialist paradise.

Re:Like a proper little Darwin

[Anthony]

So you've read Darwin's works then. Which parts were you refering to?

Re:Like a proper little Darwin

[coaxial]

Like a proper little Darwin

Well there's a start to your bad science right there.

That is so true. Darwin is just a trick to remove morality from education. I for one believe in the Intellgent Design theory of Bad Science in the Media. See, there's a few large media conglomerates [cjr.org]. "Media gods," if you will. Now these media gods are powerful, but they constantly vie for even more power [pbs.org].

Now, these media gods, are aren't true gods. They're more like lesser gods. So they pay tribute [opensecrets.org] to more powerful gods [rnc.org]. These media gods, aren't the only lesser gods. There's also energy gods, gun gods [sourcewatch.org], even church gods [cc.org], or "god gods" if you will. Now you would think that this pantheon of lesser gods would be self-interested, but they're not, well not completely. Some of the media gods [wikipedia.org] actually subscribe to the same agenda as the other gods and
actively promote it [outfoxed.org].
This celestrial mutual admiration uses the media and public's ignorance of science to mask their crass manipulation of facts [slashdot.org] to further their economic and furthering of their sociological agenda [slashdot.org].

Now these media gods, along with the with lesser gods, have taken a page out of Baudelaire's book. Using their considerable resources [mediaresearch.org] have attempted to convince the world that they don't exist. [everything2.com] Of course, they sometimes slip up and admit [makethemaccountable.com] to the charade [huppi.com].

The saddest thing about this, is that this post didn't come off as crackpotty as I intended.