Science And The Premature Press Release

Dr. Dew writes: "The San Francisco Chronicle's story on misinterpreted research, erroneous claims, and the vagaries of cutting-edge science is an interesting read. Fortunately, it's less fun thinking about knowing it all, and more fun figuring out how to discover and learn the next thing."

Misconception

[forkspoon]

There is a general misconception in society about many topics in science. Releasing conclusions to early (leading to frequent retractions) adds quite a bit to this problem. People tend to trust science less because it seems like its constantly changing in fundamental ways that disprove all older ideas, which is partially true, but in fact is an essential part of the scientific process.

Thanks,

Travis
[e-mail]

Re:Misconception

[windi]

Yhea, but if scientists don't release they are seen as worthlesss and their funding is cut even more.

The problem is that in todays society, scientists are seen as a neccesary evil that should be gotten rid of, but they (meaning general society) knows that if they get rid of us, they will get no more nice cell phones and all the other small gadgets that make life easier for humanity.

Today, scientists don't have it easy. Just look at most, learning just for the sake of learning only plays a small role today, most researchers work either for the government or for businesses, and they have to release early and often, because otherwise either their fudning will be cut or they will be fired.

Just a mindless rant on the state of scietific research in todays society

Premature Press Release and fundraising

[VDM]

Apart from the basic features of the scientific process, press releases help in "remember" a particular scientist and/or Institute in the mind of people deciding about research grants. Unfortunately, part of the scientist's task now is filling grant forms before deadline, and then writing project reports, which are often screened by administrative people that's not reading scientific journals, but may recall a discovery seen on TV. (I speak mainly for EU research fundings, but I know how some US colleague work just before grant's deadlines...).
I'm not saying that scientists are cheating: it's just a survival technique, evolved for the current scientific world as it is.

SCIENCE MADE STUPID

[gwizah]

For further reading into this and other unexplained phoenomena concerning scientific research may I suggest: SCIENCE MADE STUPID [oz.net]

My Parents...

[Anonymous Coward]

My Parents no longer believe anything reported as Science.

I mean it, if a Scientific report came out that declaired the Internet does indeed exist they would sell their computer because obviously they haven't been accessing anything with it.

Never mind the massive collection of bookmarks they have.

peer review

[M-G]

This article points out one of the important aspects of scientific research: peer review. Claims made by one group of researchers are tested by others. This either validates the original results, raises questions about them, or shows them to be fraudulent.

It's becoming a bigger problem all the time...

[Doctor Fishboy]

There's been a lot of talk at coffee mornings in our astronomy department about "press release publishing", where scientific results that have not passed through peer review get column inches in the American broadsheet newspapers. Although new results are exciting and the urge to shout them from the mountaintop is strong, it's a very dangerous trend.

The majority of American science departments are trying to crack down on this, but I think it's only a matter of time before we get another "Cold fusion" fiasco in one of the sciences again, and that can't be good for anyone in the research fields concerned.

Why can't people just accept...

[Metox]

the fact that by it's very nature, research is to find out new things. Shouldn't it be expected that these new ideas are often modified before becoming "Fact". Most science deals with "Theory" which at it's core is merely a model that appears to fit the observed results.

Unfortunatly society at large is unable to grasp that rather unsolid concept. Society needs concrete things like, "this is a car, it's made out of steel".

Sure, discoveries are fun and exciting, and as the article states, are an intrinsic part of the scientific process. The other part being a review by the scientists peers.

Don't forget Andrew Wiles and his Fermat's Theorem proof. When he announced it, everyone considered him a genius, but when there was a problem with his proof, everyone immediatly turned on him and called him an idiot. Of course, I'm refering to society at large. His fellow mathematicians still considered it a brilliant peice of work. In this situation, Wiles was able to fix the problem and complete the proof. What is even more amazing, is that this new proof was even more beautiful and elegant than the first. Not to mention that it was almost half the previous ones size. Do you think society cared? No. Very few papers put the story of the fixed proof, which was more important than the first, on the front page. Most put a headline and a reference to an inner page.

This is a problem with our media controlled society. People don't do research on their own and don't bother to follow the stories that are important. They sit there and are spoon fed the News and assume that if it wasn't included, then it wasn't important.

This problem will continue to hurt the research community. Unless the research community doesn't care. Which in that case, it doesn't matter and everyone is happy that the mindless drones are mullified.