This is the third time I’ve gotten the paper copy of the New York Times and read its “ScienceTimes” section, determining the proportion of all science articles that are about “pure” science that has nothing to do with our species, versus those articles about health, global warming, and the like that are relevant to human well-being. The previous two times I found a distressing surfeit of articles having to do with humans and a corresponding paucity of “pure science” pieces.
(I won’t be able to do this again for a while as I’m going on some trips: I get the Times in the student union, where they distribute copies to the university community.)
Sadly, the results this time are even worse, so that makes three out of three times I’ve had to chide the Times. But I emphasize again that this is just a quasi-random sample, so I can’t say anything about whether the paper is becoming less and less interested over time in articles that aren’t about humans. I suspect that’s the case, but it’s just a hunch.
The ScienceTimes comprises two sections: this Tuesday it was a three-page front section followed by a three-page “Well” section about human health (sometimes there is non-human stuff in “Well”). I counted all articles, big and small, in both sections. Here are the results:
Total articles: 18
Total articles not having to do with humans: 2 (one full article and two “half articles”)
These include an article on a museum exhibit demonstrating principles of Truchet tiles by letting people run mechanical beavers around on a track, with the track configured so that the beavers should never meet. I counted this as 50% of a “pure” science article, since most of it was about the difficulties that the National Museum of Mathematics was having with the exhibit. (The beavers kept running into each other.)
There was a very short Q&A piece asking why some carrots are cracked, and whether those were safe for us to eat (answer: probably, if you clean out the cracks). Feeling generous, I counted that as half a “pure science” article.
Finally, I counted as a full article a piece by James Gorman in the “Well” section on the Venus flytrap, showing that the plant can count: it doesn’t spring its trap unless two of its “hairs” are triggered within 20 seconds, but secretion of its digestive enzymes requires more than three hair flicks. That’s a very cool result, and the kind of stuff I love to read about. (Do read it yourself; it’s nice to see how plants can count.)
Sadly, the NYT, based on my admittedly scanty sample, apparently thinks that people want to read about humans and human-related science. So much the worse for the readers’ education. And so much the worse for the employment of science journalists.
Total proportion of “pure science” articles among all science articles: 2/18, or 11%.
That’s pathetic.
“Sadly, the NYT, based on my admittedly scanty sample, apparently thinks that people want to read about humans and human-related science.”
They’re right, though. As someone whose life has been dominated by learning about the natural world, which includes humans, I’m always dismayed when forced to realise that most other people simply do not give a s**t. Dismayed but understanding. The vast majority of people for the vast majority of human history have been interested in family, fiends, community, work, food, gossip, etc., etc. These are things worth our attention (well, maybe not gossip), but isn’t information about reality also worth a few minutes now and then?
Actually, more interested in friends than fiends. I really should read what I write BEFORE posting.
It’s just semantics, of course, but I don’t agree that the “natural world” includes modern humans. I think if it does then it drastically reduces the utility of the word “natural.”
I see the Times regularly, and there’s no doubt that Jerry’s right, and that it’s been that way for a long time. Maybe its getting worse, though. There was another story on plants and math, (not in the Times), that was interesting. Beyond counting, plants can do some pretty sophisticated arithmetic. Plants store up starch during the sunlight hours, then use it up during the night. From the abstract of, Arabidopsis plants perform arithmetic division to prevent starvation at night
“We find that the rate of decrease is adjusted to accommodate variation in the time of onset of darkness and starch content, such that reserves last almost precisely until dawn. Generation of these dynamics therefore requires an arithmetic division computation between the starch content and expected time to dawn.”
Interesting. How do they deal with artificial light at night, especially if it’s random?
They also seem to figure out calendar dates. I once had a maple sapling in a pot, which I stuck in a dark closet one winter. Come spring, it started growing leaves, in spite of the lack of light or temperature variations. How did it know?
Science journalism is poised to become “mob science”, or science of the 99%. The canonical one-percenters, PhD-level thinkers and doers will simply have to engage editors more strongly to put their ideas to the public.
NYT is being conditioned by the ‘HuffPo’ dynamics of trendability, likability, and human digestability. Retired folk, in particular, would rather hear why owning a pet will make them happier and live longer, than the suppression of chaotic dynamics in an optical resonator….even if the triumph of such a technology were to improve their internet bandwidths. It’s all black boxes that are not interesting to them.
I suppose why some carrots are cracked is b/c of rapid drops in water content (just guessing). This does not seem terribly important or interesting, however.
There are a lot of things to cover even if they are biased toward human interest to encourage sales.
The new technology of genome manipulation by CRISPR. The Zika virus. Those will educate and inform and sell papers.
Editors choose stories based on newsworthiness and what they expect will get the most readers, so no surprise there. So, they’ll run stories on any significant new discovery, such as a planet or a new species. They’d probably be interested in the zebra stripe story too, if it were submitted.
“Editors choose stories based on newsworthiness and what they expect will get the most readers, so no surprise there.”
Exactly. They have no choice.
Nonetheless, I seem to remember a time when there was more non-human science; and they’ve had some great science writers over the years.
Speaking of pure science, scientists have solved the problem of lost socks.
… no, not that kind. The biological kind, Xenoturbella. Once a Swedish find, it is now a multi-species genus with deep sea species, and a position as a sister to Nephrozoa, i.e. it is not Cnidaria.
The tree is more resolved yet again!
[ http://www.nature.com/articles/nature16545.epdf?referrer_access_token=mDRuPcMxEVefrGvOJlcRldRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PbKRvSxFy5X_inaW7o1MnJM-s5Y6HDDOoaq4Isc4tywqeUnemG3YHyMsoueCQ6nlYP2e9AuEvhVKilu5eVFmpRCMZk2ZlJPSk3SGh18nCOJZvg-m8nrh5w0Z7ieTfyK_HPmx-f7W4Ggwo3qsTVNLO9&tracking_referrer=www.bbc.com ]
Next problem: How does ‘socks’ eat? [See the paper.]
That is cool about plants counting. Venus flytrap is one of the insectivorous plants Darwin studied and wrote about.
Do any New York readers have a copy of the spoof NYT apparently handed out around the city a couple of days ago? The one that has the editors choking on feathers. I have a friend who collects Private Eyes and would like to add this to her collection of satire.