Comments on: Should science journalists take sides?

By: Strider

Strider — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 16:50:18 +0000

This is why I don’t listen to NPR any longer. I tired of their false balance journalism.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 15:28:42 +0000

This is a great piece! It inspired me to a taxonomic description of science communicators, I hope you don’t mind me posting it: http://traversingtherazor.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/what-species-variant-of-science-communicator-are-you/

By: kkloor

kkloor — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 19:59:01 +0000

Bart, the current criticism of science journalism has a one-size-fits all feel to it. My attempt to broaden the perspective and introduce some recent history:

http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/10/01/whacking-science-journalists/

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:09:48 +0000

Have seen that and yes, it’s brilliant. Although the 8th commenter looks like a right idiot.

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 12:23:48 +0000

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/sep/24/1 – you might enjoy it.

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 10:15:49 +0000

There's a wonderful example in the Telegraph today of the modern art of science stenography. Headline proclaims: "Alien life certain to exist on Earth-like planet, scientists say". The standfirst adds: "The chances of alien life existing on a newly-discovered Earth-like planet are 100 per cent, an astronomer has claimed. " A classic example of the "I just write this crap down" school of "journalism".

By: Bart Verheggen

Bart Verheggen — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:58:30 +0000

Excellent post, thank you!

Keith, I got here via a link left at your site. I think this post lais out much of Michael Tobis’ problems with science journalism as well (though possibly in a less adversarial way).

By: Maurizio Morabito

Maurizio Morabito — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 09:42:37 +0000

Oh well…I still have the impression that, faced with a choice between “proclaiming the truth” and “critical thinking”, Ed is going to side with the latter. Time will tell.

By: Keith Douglas

Keith Douglas — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:14:04 +0000

It might also do to remember there can be a useful distinction drawn between impartiality and objectivity. Here’s an example from everyday life. Suppose my friend Raven breaks her arm. I can care more for her injury than (say) some sports figure because she’s (as the saying goes) “nearer and dearer to me”. But yet I still want the most effective treatment for her injury. I don’t want someone to consult their navel lint as to what “feels right”, but instead to investigate and find the truth of the matter, regardless of what they think or feel to begin with.

By: Maurizio Morabito

Maurizio Morabito — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 07:23:08 +0000

In words, you don’t belong to Team Science, but in deeds?

Let’s say it’s 1946 and you find out that an obscure guy improbably called Reg Sprigg is claiming the Ediacara Hills show pre-Cambrian complex life-forms. Since you’re going to “take the side of truth”, how will your blog be structured? Keep in mind that (in 1946) scientifically knowledgeable people “know” that (a) there were no complex life-forms before the Cambrian and (b) Sprigg’s rocks might be early Cambrian themselves.

IMNSHO if your starting point is to be “knowledgeable enough to make a decent stab at uncovering the truth”, there is no way you will recognise the (revolutionary) importance of Sprigg’s work. In other words, with “truth” firmly in focus you are seriously at risk of transforming scientific blogging into a reminder about contemporary orthodoxy: i.e., you are at risk of becoming a member of Team Science.

I think it’d be far wiser to to be “knowledgeable enough to make a decent stab at…analysing and critiquing, placing into context and so on”. After all that’s the power of the scientific method: it frees us from fixating on the “truth”, because it’s the method that is slowly but steadily uncovering (bits of) the “objective truth”, not any one of us in particular.