Timothy White, a paleoanthropologist at Berkeley, is rightly famous for his work on hominin fossils, especially Lucy. And he’s done some good work against creationism as well: he was the scientist who most flummoxed the UK creationists in our television show “Conspiracy Road Trip“. The fundies just couldn’t get around his sequential presentation and explanation of hominin skulls (see the segment starting at 43:37).
And White has ample experience with a media that loves new stories about human evolution. (Neandertals copulating with H. sapiens sapiens! Denisovans! Hobbit people in Indonesia!) But I guess that experience has soured him, leading to his November 26 piece in the Guardian whose title tells the tale: “Why combining science and showmanship risks the future of research.”
It’s curiously garbled and splenetic, but the thesis is that showmanship—both scientists’ own participation in the media and the media’s distortion of science—is causing serious damage to “the credibility of scientists.”
Here’s what White objects to:
- Distortion of scientific findings by the media, which also neglects the hard work behind science in favor of “aha moments.” (One example he gives is a NOVA/National Geographic program implying that Darwin’s tree of life was wrong because there is gene flow between different lineages, including hominin linages like Neandertals and “modern” humans. Sound familiar? Remember the New Scientist cover?)
- Science may be done and published too quickly on the media’s time schedule, like the premature announcement of Darwinius masillae, a “missing link” between primate groups that proved to be bogus.
- Scientists can be seduced by the media, since publicity and media stardom can enhance their professional careers.
- “Peer review” by people on the Internet that bypasses “normal” peer review of papers in journals. As he writes:
“Do we really want to rely on cartoonists as peer reviewers, or Hollywood scriptwriters to replace documentarians? Do we really want authors, journal editors, and peer reviewers evaluating science with one eye trained on the 11 o’clock news?” (Look at the link, though.)
White argues that the consequences of the media/science mishmash are dire: “Our fates increasingly depend on science and technology. So there are some serious questions to ponder if broadcast and publication schedules distort knowledge production and dissemination in this mash-up of science and the modern media.” The article ends with a rather curmudgeonly tirade against the corruption of science:
In 1875, Mark Twain wrote to the legendary entertainer P.T. Barnum, noting that whereas his circus shows were stupendous, Mr. Barnum himself was “the biggest marvel.” Had Barnum’s over-the-top self-promotion and publicity stunts even worked on the ever-skeptical Twain? Barnum, of course, expertly exhibited many oddities in his shows. I haven’t researched whether his spectaculars ever featured a wheelbarrow’s worth of mixed bones. But given that he did exhibit a mermaid, a microcephalic, and Tom Thumb, it is unlikely that the showman would have passed on the opportunity.
Approaching 150 years later, the internet’s great speed and connectivity have disrupted many things, including review mechanisms in science, education, and journalism. We can accurately guess what old P.T. Barnum’s perspective would have been on the entertainment end of the present disruption spectrum—worship of the money, the advertising, and the spectaculars that we watch today on our phones, tablets and desktops. We certainly miss Mark Twain’s keen eye for corruption and human nature, and his talent for the right words to make fun of it all.
Given the deliberate, careful, sustained, and ultimately solid research and logic behind Charles Darwin’s most brilliant insights, it is not difficult to guess his reactions to this modern mash-up: emotions ranging between wonder and dismay.
While I have immense respect for White and his work, I simply can’t agree with his arguments. Yes, there are some downsides of the media/science romance, including television shows that present the occult or the dubious without criticism, or National Geographic‘s current infatuation with religious myth. But, by and large, most science shows and articles are pretty good. Witness David Attenborough, the new Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson, and the books of science “stars” like Brian Greene, Lisa Randall, Lawrence Krauss, Richard Dawkins, and E. O. Wilson.
Further, the reputation of scientists, at least in the US, is not falling. We remain at the same high level of public esteem as ever. Surveys show (see here, for instance) that “in the U.S., scientists and their organizations enjoy almost unrivaled respect, admiration, and cultural authority. Americans overwhelmingly trust scientists, support scientific funding, and believe in the promise of research and technology. Among institutions, only the military enjoys greater admiration and deference.” That was from a Pew Poll six years ago, but a National Science Foundation poll only a year ago found that “more than 90 percent of Americans think scientists are ‘helping to solve challenging problems’ and are ‘dedicated people who work for the good of humanity.'”
So what’s the problem? I don’t think there is one.
As far as I can see as a newly superannuated research scientist, being a media “star” can get one attention and dosh, but does very little for one’s scientific career. Remember when Carl Sagan failed to get into the National Academy of Sciences because he was a “popularizer”? He was immensely influential and a great public educator, but that snobbish body didn’t see what he did as a contribution to science. It’s still pretty much that way. I too learned that my popular books and writings had absolutely no influence on my professional advancement. But that was fine with me, for I saw the popularization as an enjoyable avocation and the science as a vocation.
Finally, bringing professional science reviewing into the public realm has way more upsides than downsides. First of all, internet review is FAST, and problems with papers can be noted and publicized far more quickly than they are if handled through normal professional channels. (Criticisms of published work that is submitted to journals often takes months to appear, and is often buried online.) Think of how fast we learned that Darwinius was bogus as a missing link, or that the so-called “arsenic-based life” in Mono Lake was due to contamination. That was days, not months.
The debunking of published science in these and other cases was done not just by blogging scientists, but by science-friendly amateurs and even journalists like Carl Zimmer.
As for unduly neglecting the tedious aspects of science, well, White has a point there. “Eureka moments” are rare, and most science ends in failure. (I estimate that in my own career, only about one-third of the projects I did panned out.) But people’s attention spans are limited, there’s lots of competition forit, and it’s better to show the Eurkena moments than to show nothing.
Looking at the plethora of science books in my nearby bookstore, seeing all the biologists, physicists and cosmologists who have become public figures, and seeing the respect that Americans have for science (evolution is a sad exception!), I just can’t get worked up about the “problems” highlighted by White. Yes, there may be some mutant children produced by the coitus between science and the media, but that’s more than outweighed by the many healthy offspring of that intercourse. The more public science, the better!
. . . But maybe I’m wrong:
Comments on chameleon tongue science post (up at 9 a.m.): 13
Comments on speaker in vagina playing Mozart to fetus post (up at 10:30 a.m.): 37
You had 30% success rate? That’s pretty damn good in my lab notebook!
There seems to be a tiny grain of truth in Mr. White’s complaint while overall it seems to be overstated.
The main thing that worries me is the premature acceptance of technology that seems too cool.
As such, Re White’s point
“Science may be done and published too quickly on the media’s time schedule, like the premature announcement of Darwinius masillae, a “missing link” between primate groups that proved to be bogus.”
Friends of mine in the aerospace industry tell me this is EXACTLY what caused the Challenger disaster in January of ’86. There were definite safety concerns about the O-rings, and it was due to media pressure that NASA was unwilling to further delay the launch!!
So while much of White seems a tad overwrought, that section definitely rang a chord with me.
My recollection of the Challenger tragedy no doubt is less than perfect, but IIRC, a mid-level Morton-Thiokol engineer made a good effort to try to get the rubber O-ring concern up the M-T chain of command, only to have it nipped in the bud by senior mgmt. types who declined to put the word out on a safety issue.
No doubt NASA is to be properly faulted. But surely Reagan administration uppity-ups are also to be faulted. Would that paragon of intellectually curiosity, Ronald Reagan (and his assigns), have ordered a halt to the launch if he could have been made to understand the effect of cold on rubber? It’s something a six-year-old could understand from playing with ice water and rubber, as so simply demonstrated by Richard Feynman on network TV. (If I correctly recall, inquiry committee chair Wm. Rogers tried to sway Feynman on the latter’s investigative modus operandi, and Feynman would absolutely have none of it.)
Reagan once said that intellectual curiosity should not be subsidized. (Something he apparently never put himself in a position to worry about, eh?)
It’s bloody politics and business and entertainment versus science and rationality.
What happened to the general with whom Feynman worked on the q-t?
When a general fears for his job, there has got to be some powerful covering up going on.
I think the politics of funding plays just as big a role is the media. Perhaps if politicians were more interested in funding programs because of their potential benefit instead of public perception, which the media both reflects and influences, NASA wouldn’t have felt that pressure.
The media could do better here though, irrespective of its dynamic with politicians. I think one of the best outcomes of the popularization of science is that the public learns how to think like a scientist, and that improves public discourse, gradually swinging the pendulum away from emotive ranting and toward rational discussion.
As for specific scientific endeavors, the content is usually going to involve such an expert level of understanding that the public isn’t going to be able to grasp the details. This is a sentiment reflected here on the occasional threads when Jerry asks readers why there aren’t more comments on the science posts. Here, the media could do a better job relaying the complexity of the issue and the importance of getting the science right. Had the media focus been on getting it right in the case of the Challenger rather than on whether it met an ill-conceived deadline, things could have gone differently.
I think it is for you in Science to determine the impact on science. I would not be able to say. But I would be very concerned about the overall direction of our media in this country and where it is headed. The reduction in real journalism and the quality within the media today is very poor. All of the television stations, newspapers and radio are being bought and controlled by a few corporations and that is bad news for everyone. Much of it is so bad it is not worth anything.
Most of the polling and surveys taken these days can be useless or of little value. Asking people in general how they feel about the military institution is kind of a trick question. Sure they all love it — give me a flag to wave when they march by. H.L. Mencken said – Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.
The piece on Oregon yesterday is up to 150 comments. On some things, everybody has opinions.
I think Tim White is just frustrated with the Paleo hominid field, where every new fossil find is claimed as a new hominid species. I also think he has fallen for the golden age myth (“we didn’t resort to such sensationalism back in my day.”) I do agree with his points though, even if I do not lose sleep over them. Science is self-correcting.
BTW, the linked dogonthemoon cartoon is hilarious.
The problem I see is Fox News. Instead of informing and educating the ignorant, they fabricate and show disrespect to science and scientists. That is why I call them Faux Noise.
How I hark for the days of True Noise &tm;
Damn. ⚗ U+x2697 Alembic
🚚 U+x1F69A Black Van
⚰ U+x26B0 Coffin.
⛧ U+x26E7 Inverted pentegram.
☕ U+x2615 Cuppa
🛀. U+x1F6C0 Bath
🍺 U+x1F37A Beer glass.
🍌 U+1F34C Banana (boots – Connelly)
I don’t have TradeMark in my collection.
Yet.
Now I do! ™
Even that got redefined to the CMB.
Re: chameleon tongue science vs speaker in vagina playing Mozart
Did you do that on purpose as an experiment?
PCC(E) is more subtle than that ; he’d have figured some way of splitting the readership (e.g. quadrisect on the 5th hex digit of the IP address of a request) into four classes “show them the Vagina then the Chameleon”, “Chameleon, vagina” ; “Vagina today, Chameleon tomorrow” and it’s inverse as controls.
Then all the options would have come up at the same time.
I’m not sure that WP can do that, but I wouldn’t put it past a canny programmer. You’d probably have to fork the blog while the experiment is running … It’d be hard to blind properly.
Whilst hard to do it would be a great tool. There would be ethical issues, however if the site had a running disclaimer, ie, this site occasionally splits contributors for the purpose of x,y and z?
Even THINKING about the ethics puts the site on a different ethical continent to, say FarceBook.
Actually, it just puts the site on an ethical continent. Unlike FarceBook.
By the way, you wouldn’t be Daedalus, would you?
Just a coincidence of name.
A worthwhile study, experiment for this site and others of similar ilk would be an analysis of territorial behaviour, and ingroup/outgroup development?
I think you see that on all sites with regular visitors. It’s far more benign here than in many other similar sites.
I am also aware of my bias towards accepting new theories, or changing ‘beliefs’ or ‘understandings’ based not on the content of the new material but on my assigning some credibility or ‘authority’ to the author.
Are you suggesting that the members of this site believe whatever Jerry says without regard to the evidence available to support his point of view?
No.
Broadly its a recognised phenomena.
Re comments, here’s my hypothesis: people are more likely to comment when there’s an opportunity to be funny or, if in a heightened emotional state, to “make a point” about a controversial topic. Science writing, which has changed my outlook on life so profoundly (when I can grok it), leaves me with no impulse to remark on it.
If it’s a topic that lends itself to jokes, the comment thread will be very long because we’re a joke-telling species.
If it’s a topic that lends itself to argument and debate, the comment thread will be long because SOMEBODY IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET.
If it’s a topic that lends itself to a an uncontroversial and better understanding of the world around us, no matter how fascinating, will have a short comment thread because “wow, that’s neat” doesn’t really seem like much of a contribution.
I feel like all of this maybe relates to the issues Tim White brings up, but I’m not sure how. Perhaps because I’m trying to think of a funny pun.
He may be casting light on a subject, but I can’t tell if it’s monochromatic light which reduces the information available to the reader, or weather it’s WHITE light …
Sorry – I blame my father, and he accepts the blame for encouraging me.
Arrrgh. “whether”
Everywhere you go, you always take it with you.
The Golden Rule of Punster says that one shan’t draw attention to the pun; it’s a CAPITOL offense!
Can you point me to a COLUMN on which your assertion of a CAPITAL offence and show me an imPEDIMENT to this style?
I’m not so much scraping the bottom of the barrel as digging a new stylobate.
Well said, Josh. I thought the chameleon post was fascinating, but didn’t have any comment to make, whereas the vagina music called out for flippant remarks.
I agree. White is over stating the problem. It almost sounds like he had a personal experience that goaded him into this reaction.
He has been shaking his fist at the Homo naledi coverage.
… which to be honest has complications and has certainly been difficult for some journalists to be able to get their heads around. The geology is subtle ; the speleology is a field unfamiliar to 99% of people and journalists, and the dating is less than simple too. I’m not surprised that there was a lot of inaccurate and overblown coverage.
I agree with you. The reporting on possible funeral customs for this small-brained hominin is pretty wild. I am also very skeptical of those claims. The dating is also problematic and it is frustrating when a find is described without dates. White also had some complaints about the anatomical analysis and says some features that supposedly distinguish H. naledi from H. erectus are actually found in both.
… all of which puts it square in the messy territory of pretty much all hominid archaeology, as well as the notoriously convoluted stratigraphy of any cave with floor deposits.
I am at a large international scientific conference right now. The abstract for my presentation seemed sexy enough that the society sponsoring the conference sent a writer to draw up a press release. And a reporter for Science magazine whom PCC knows has called me for background to use in writing a story about my presentation. And I have to admit that it’s a little exciting, That feeling would be easier to ignore if my department chair and the dean at my university did not also provide incentives for achieving this type of notoriety. In two weeks I have to send in my biennial salary review documents for the process that will — I hope — result in a salary increase next year and a slightly higher income for me and my wife and kids. That incentive is hard to ignore and it will probably make me put those media items near the top of my salary review documents. I’m not proud of that, and I’m not blameless either (I could just not say anything about this type of superficial publicity for my research). But it is still true that universities themselves are in part responsible for the growth of these incentives because the universities place value on this type of media coverage of research.
The number of comments re chameleon ballistic tongues vs VaginiPods is not surprising. I would say that they also differ in erudition in the opposite direction.
Popularizing science may be bad for science in general, but it’s great for us science nerds. Most of what I knew about evolution turned out to be wrong, but I had no idea how much I didn’t know until I read WEIT and it’s like that for a lot of other topics as well. Even if science is wrong sometimes and I’m still holding on to bad information, someone will challenge me and I’m better for it. Personally, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love some aspect of science. Maybe it’s because we all assume scientists are smart and if we know some science that makes us smart too.
In a word, or three, science is cool.
Tim has some points in that his examples are good examples of how the popular media distorts peoples’ expectations about science, and sensationalizes some bad science. This has much due to with the decline of real journalism, where reports copy other reports, and what is reported is pretty much dictated by the marketing department who count viewer eyes and keyboard clicks.
Scientists enjoy “respect”, but only so long as they’re not suggesting we need to do anything major for climate change, or running against religious beliefs in creation. And I suspect people “respect” scientists mostly because they see them as some combination of technicians, cure creators, and wonderful weirdos. In other words, as little more than technology wizards and sideshows.
Science and nature books take up a chunk of the bookstores, but for every Richard Dawkins explaining evolutionary principles, or Brian Greene making incomprehensible physics seem like second nature, there’s an E. O. Wilson ducking peer review to promote group selection, or a Rupert Sheldrake spreading a mockery of science itself. Pop science, pop psychology and the like have no equivalents of the peer review process that journals are forced to work under, so inevitably bad science – and sometimes just plain bullshit – can make it through the gate. And I wouldn’t be surprised if finding a good popular science book was like flipping a coin.
Lastly, White’s complaint about media dumbing-down and sensationalizing is neither new nor trivial. Almost a decade ago, Ben Goldacre was making the same points, using the media’s abuse of science reporting to explain the proliferation of such issues as the MMR vaccine scare and statistical illiteracy in the courtroom. Combine that with the replacement of professional reporting with churnalism models of news production, and I can see all too clearly where White is coming from.
Professional scientists desperately ought to get everyone else on their side because they represent one of the most thorough commitments to honesty and rationality the world has. Compromising this in order to fit the showmanship of a flash-in-the-pan, sensation-seeking media is like getting a horse to sit on a cart so he can pull it uphill.
I get your point, but when journalists get it wrong, who corrects them? Educating the public may not be what a scientist wants to do, but if there’s information out there and it’s wrong it has to be up to somebody to correct it, and that somebody has to know what they’re talking about and has to be able to get the information across.
Seems that White wants the public to be educated, but he doesn’t want to be involved when things go wrong.
I get your point, but when journalists get it wrong, who corrects them?
In theory, that would be the science correspondent, who acts as an intermediary between the researchers and the rest of the staff involved in production. They should have some background or education in the relevant fields.
In practice, this principle is undermined by the media’s need for attention and advertising revenue, so this kind of gatekeeper is either woefully ill-equipped to handle the science section well – perhaps even made to be so by editorial mandate – or simply not present. For example, the MMR hoax largely achieved its widespread attention because the majority of newspapers ignored any need for specialist science correspondents and instead used journalists with no training whatsoever to cover the stories.
Personally, I think there needs to be some kind of official watchdog that represents scientific institutions, at the very least to ensure that press releases aren’t magnets for garbled breakthrough stories. That, however, would almost certainly have to be a state-funded institution, as a private business would simply be too biased in favour of selling a product rather than hearing any unwelcome news on it. Just think of the scandals and malpractice that pharmaceutical companies have indulged in.
I don’t think you capture what White’s getting at in your last sentence. This isn’t a case of White disowning, say, a minor mistake in science reporting. He’s pointing out that the media is riddled with awful distortions, and not just because its needs are so different from those of science. Of course he wants to distance himself from that (or at least from that aspect of it). It would be like throwing your lot in with clowns.
Reread my last sentence and it was poorly written.
I agree the media is for whatever reason, riddled with distortions. I would hope however, that he and others would use their knowledge and position to correct those distortions.
Perhaps a watchdog group or dis-invitations to journalists who are known to mangle stories would help. I don’t have an answer, but there has to be a way to get the information across accurately.
White’s arguments appear to be motivated by his desire that the majority of people should be science educated.
Showmanship is not harmful to science. It’s generally boring and clearly insignificant to most scientists who can spot showmanship easily. It may even help more than it hurts by attracting a younger audience and advertising to sponsors outside of one’s normal checkbook balance.
At 1:10 PM PDT the score is Chameleon 19 Vagina 58 – I think it is because the ‘vaginal musica’ post provides so man opportunities for the inveterate punsters in your readership.
I’m gonna read the Tim White story, but haven’t yet. I wonder if it was initiated by the almost universal down vote he received for some of what he has said recently about how the H. naledi results were presented?
P.S. I’m almost getting used to having to fill in the “Required fields” for each post; thank goodness for autofill. No word from WordPress on fixing this minor irritant?
… for Freudian slits.
I saw that after posting and thought, “Oh, No!” and was going to make a brief post insisting it was not a play on words… too late – I chose to read the comments first. And LOL’d at your last bit.
If I said “there’s many a slip between clit and lip,” I’m sure you’d know what I mean.
I see White’s piece as very overblown, for much the reasons that PCC(E) does.
*Good* popularization of science is a boon to science. My formal education in science is in chemistry, a field that doesn’t draw much TV interest (except perhaps “Breaking Bad”); but I have been informed in the biological sciences/anthropology/paleontology by websites such as this and by some of the better TV programs (Shubin’s “Your Inner Fish” and Jacob Bronowski’s “The Ascent of Man” – both of which caused me to read the underlying books to learn more of the science, and James Burke’s “Connections”). Right now I’m reading David Deutsch’s “The Beginning of Infinity”, prompted by PCC(E)’s post on December 20 (“Is falsifiability essential to science?”), something I doubt I would have read otherwise.
And if White can’t enjoy the “First Dog on the Moon” cartoon, he has no sense of humor.
White does good work, is a good presenter and he doesn’t split species unnecessarily, all sympathetic traits. About 10 years ago he wrote something that resonated with me much later, that no paleontologist should expound on fossils they hadn’t yet hold in their hands. [Or something to that effect.]
Now I am dismayed.
– I read on John Hawks’s site that White himself now have claimed that H. naledi is clearly Erectus and shouldn’t merit its own fossil species name.
– I also watched the documentary again and found that, as I remembered it, they lump together fossil species, “[biological] species” and sometimes interbreeding populations and “groups”. [I had hoped Jerry should review that, but there has been a lot of discussion re Neanderthals here, and it suffice for me.] While White claims it is “used to describe … species lineages”.
I am not sure if White’s point about increased intertwined media coverage of science is enough to balance out the poisoning of the well hatchet piece the rest is.
It would rather have been nice to see White mention the entire context of the open source discussion about open source publication that the work on H. naledi is part of. Isn’t the rapid and massive outpouring of data to other scientists and to the paying public a potentially larger counter balance to give up some freedom for? Shouldn’t someone do the experiment?
And I think there is a lot more context here. There is a tradition of nationalism and fossil ownership where the release of 3D fossil scans (everyone can see the scanned H. naledi fossils online) doesn’t fit well. If digs risk damaging unique data, what would sitting on a rarely cast fossil do? Wouldn’t world wide cooperation better match resources and skills to the unique material? Et cetera.
Well, in the H. Neladi debate Hawks said some rather sharp critics that was partially targeted at White and somewhat on topic here.
“Some senior paleoanthropologists have unfortunately been accustomed to secretive practices…”
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/fossils/naledi/homo-naledi-homo-erectus-2015.html
It is wonderful to be able to read diverse, intelligent opinions about current science papers on the internet. Peer review usually consists of two or at most three scientists giving their opinions, and usually at least one of these reviewers is suggested by the author himself and may be a not-so-objective friend of the author. Internet gives voices to hundreds of potential reviewers. That is great news for science.
My reaction to Tim White’s plaint is that he should, in the words of a certain Cal-Berkeley alum, R*E*L*A*X..
Yes, just about any paper in any field now is announced via press release, and any fossil that can be claimed to be on the human line gets headline treatment. But hype aside, there seems little harm and much to be gained in getting these finds out, even if there are gaps to be filled by further study, and even if outside observers quickly spot errors in method or interpretation.
White is obviously most irritated by Lee Berger’s work and relationship to NG — he’s made similar complaints in the UCal magazine — but I have to think everyone in paleoanthropology, and every kibitzer like myself should welcome Berger’s adding a bigger-than-a-shoebox population sample of H.habilis-grade remains to our kit.
One complaint that White makes, but I think has been extended by others is the Berger approach — rushed by outside considerations — is dangerous because fossils are a rare and diminishing resource. Technically this is true, but meaningful only in only in limited circumstances — where there are few, and easily mapped caves, or a mappable and very limited fossil unit. Surface finds, in contrast, are constantly exposed, and soon destroyed, and there the limiting factor on supply would be trained eyes, the supply of which seems to connect with grants from the dreaded publicity machine.
The scarcity of hominin fossils has probably contributed to a Dead Sea scrolls approach [and White is NOT the example I have in mind here] where one scholar hoards a few bones for years before producing a monograph. Finally, at my age, I’m grateful to have the Berger approach make we just a bit wiser before my demise..
I’m glad you mention the Dead Sea scrolls – I was thinking of a comment about them in response to/agreement with Torbjörn Larsson’s comment #17. Those, as I understand it, were hidden away from view for years, with the only information being dribbled out by the holders (and of course, giving only their interpretations of the contents). And it’s not as if the holders were the only people capable of having an intelligent opinion on the topic: there were and are scholars in the field in many countries. Public science has the potential for rapid self-correction, because scientists with different points of view have access to the same data. PCC(E) mentions the “arsenic bacteria” case – there a group of people in different fields (chemists, biochemists, biologists) all were able to rapidly offer reasoned criticism of the conclusions drawn by Dr. Wolfe-Simon and her co-authors. Yes, it will sometimes be more heat than light, but that was always so.
I think White makes some worthwhile points. Those things he has listed really do happen but that does not mean that we have to accept them. I’m all for the popularization of science because we live in a scientific society and if you don’t know the basics, you’re missing out on participating fully in that society.
But, I think the thing that is most needed to be popularized is the methods of science and what it means to be a scientist because it’s these misconceptions that lead to bigger misunderstandings like “they” know the cure to cancer but “they” don’t tell us because “they” are making money. If people understand how science works, how research is done and how much money these researchers make compared to other professionals, they would realize how ridiculous that statement is (not to mention that scientists and researchers are humans with real human feelings and real human friends/family affected by cancer, not psychopaths).
Then there is the many bad ideas around disease cures – bad reasoning all around because people don’t understand how strict science really is and how bad ideas are filtered out so those disease cures you think are real just don’t make the cut because they’ve been looked at and discarded not because of some old school bias against new ideas but because the rigour of science showed the cures were bogus.
So, if I were to critique science communication, I would say that media hype and inaccuracies are a a problem, but one that does get corrected…the bigger issue is the overall ignorance surrounding science itself.
I agree strongly. Too often, the general consensus on science seems to be that it’s glorified engineering: a creator of space stations for future colonization, a creator of cures to current diseases, a creator of tools and chemicals for human application, a creator of psychological techniques for managing other people, etc.
This is important – not least of all because it can help people – but then those same people will probably go off to religion as “another way of knowing”, or indulge a pseudoscience or alternative medicine on the grounds that it’s “sciency” and therefore a part of science. And then they are no more forewarned or forearmed than they were before, against authority figures, cognitive biases, and statistical innumeracy in a court case deciding whether some nurse is guilty of killing patients.
Methods, principles, and a general appreciation of honesty and rationality are sorely needed.
An interesting article I just came upon that says similar.
Good one Diana.
White has long had a burr under his blanket–that’s just him.
Right after her paper came out I contacted Wolfe-Simon. If I remember correctly, the person writing the press-release had overstated her conclusions. It didn’t seem like back-pedaling at the time . . .
So the media pays superficial attention to science but fails to do it with proper attention to nuance, uncertainty and the tentative nature of new findings? Consider the alternatives:
1. The media doesn’t bother to cover science and the general population becomes more scientifically illiterate.
or
2.The media does it the way Tim White would like, and essentially reprints articles in full from Nature. Copyright issues aside, this would simply convince general readers that science is too hard to bother with, would fail to sell papers and magazines, would involve training and hiring journalists who understand such complexities and would be ruinously expensive, resulting in the failure of outlets that tried to publish this way.
Ultimately, we should be glad when science makes it into the lay press, and have to accept that it will not be performed perfectly. We all suffer from the Murray Gell-Mann amnesia effect and happily point out holes in articles about our own area of expertise, but accept the truth of articles on areas of which we are ignorant. This is inevitable and is simply the world unfolding as it should.
I agree, the more public science the better, but I also have a curmudgeonly reaction to some of the more egregious examples of ideologically induced bowdlerization I see occasionally. For example, check out the recent PBS special, “E. O. Wilson – Of Ants and Men.”
http://www.pbs.org/program/eo-wilson/
Pinker appears a little after 1:18 talking about replicators, and Wilson’s “ambivalence” about them. As you can guess, what follows is the PBS take on the group selection bombshells Wilson tossed out in his last two books. I doubt that the editors have more than a vague understanding of the intricacies of group selection, but Wilson’s claim that it is responsible for altruism and our other “good” traits, whereas selection at the gene level is responsible for selfishness and our other “bad” traits is enough for them. In the next few minutes they drag in Jon Haidt to defend Wilson, and then Wilson himself to explain his ideas. Finally, at 1:25, a stony faced “bad guy” Pinker turns up again to defend “the selfish gene.” The viewer is left with the impression that there is a scientific consensus about the victory of Wilson’s group selection and altruism over the “selfishness” of Dawkins, also portrayed with a scowl, and Pinker. When I see stuff like that I tend to go into full curmudgeon mode myself.
Some principles I’ve come to over the years
– I’m one of those who thinks what we need to desperately teach kids (and current adults, if we can) is methodology.
– Media can help with this, if done right.
– This yields my principle: flash and fun is *primarily* for didactic purposes once the matter makes textbooks (or rather their multimedia equivalent). State of the art research does not need media attention before it gets more settled. There’s then an intermediary case between the two (state of the art and textbook).
– Scientists and those with scientific educations should be rewarded for pursuing teaching as well as research (the trend for “teaching professors” at some universities is good that way, though more are needed).
– Journalists should study a subject matter to be journalists *about* in my view. (This is similar to education in the philosophy of science.)
Somewhere in all that convoluted prose, White has a point worth making, but he either bullied the editors with his vaunted reputation or . . . come to think of it, I can’t think of any other way he managed to overstuff his piece by a thousand or so extra words. If any mere mortal were to have submitted it, it would have been tossed into the dustbin immediately.
Unfortunate. It ain’t no Gettysburg address, by a long shot.
I have been stewing over the same issue, but have lost my tendency to dash off Op-Ed pieces since email has unleashed such a flood of submissions that, even when they do publish a piece they no longer pay even the paltry couple hundred bucks they used to back in the last millennium. Hell, they don’t even send you a tear sheet or a stock email anymore.
Researcher, curator, and academic relatives and friends have been sucked in by producers of pseudoscientific “reality” shows before, and they cringe every time someone says “I saw you on TV!” Never again. They will have to find new suckers to enthusiastically consent to an interview that can be butchered beyond recognition by ruthless, pea-brained editors. I even shot some footage for some of these scum-suckin’ pigs and didn’t get a dime for it. Thank God they didn’t include me in the credits!
Scientists, scholars, and all honest people should be forewarned to be on the lookout for these purveyors of pseudoscience lest their enthusiasm or narcissism lead them to fall victim to such subterfuge.
No doubt that’s what White was trying to do, and I have to give him full credit for that. Unfortunately, he babbled on too long for anybody other than a fan to bother reading beyond the first few hundred words.