Slashdot Mirror
How Journalists Distort Science with Balance
The scientist's job is to discover truth about the natural world, and the journalist's is to report the world's events accurately. Why are these two professions so often at odds? Chris Mooney discusses how journalism fails science in this month's Columbia Journalism Review. If you applauded Jon Stewart's plea to "stop hurting America," Mooney's analysis will strike a chord; the he-said-she-said approach to truth fails in all kinds of venues. (via: WorldChanging)
This reminds me of This American Life episode 265, from May of this year, entitled Fake Science, which includes, in Act Four, "Fake science can be fun. Fake science can make people happy," which I think would make an excellent t-shirt iron-on. In Act One of the show, a reporter gets into a delightfully heated exchange with a Bush Administration wonk who defends the appointment of a highly dubious lead industry shill to a prominent position on a federal commission on lead safety, while genuine experts get passed over. You can almost hear the vein throbbing on the guy's forehead when the reporter catches him a flagrant lie about the appointee's ties to the lead industry. Have a listen... it's free.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
The more you realize journalists are wrong. It doesn't matter what the subject is, the vast majority of journalists have no clue what they're talking about. Yes, there are exceptions, but they are few and far between. Once you realize they're wrong about things you know, it leaves everything else they say about subjects you're less familiar with in doubt.
It's a pity most people still consider Fox25 the "most reliable news source". And maybe it is too...as long as you're mostly concerned with the social lives of celebrities and your neighborhood pet accidents.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Back in the 60's, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said of segregation, "The biggest enemy we have today in America is the public secular news media." They would report the two sides for or against segregation, which was really an argument for the status quo.
In reality its the rise of the stupid contrarian, the individual who is unwilling to accept the obvious but instead clings to the often illogical notion that there is always a deeper answer that only they see, which will eventually lead to acceptance of they themselves as visionaries. Blogs in particular have made life very easy for the Stupid Contrarian, as well as popular media like CSI. Scott Peterson in particular will walk free because jurors are convinced now by popular media that not only is there always DNA evidence for a crime, it is now a necessary precondition for guilt...because heck, they always find it in the last five minutes of CSI.
...is to get you to tune in at 11. You give them way too much credit. They stir the pot, scare the parents, overhype the cancer cure or weight loss drug, or show soldiers with puppy dogs as the need arises.
I beleive that it is against human nature for journalists to NOT put their own spin into a story. They may not even recognize the slant in their own writtings.
It's be a good change if executives at amjor media outlets recognized this and put in check/balances for articles rather than hiring a bunch of people who have the same belief structure.
"Fair and balanced" may have a real meaning. Perhaps public non-profit organizations such as NPR could gain back some of their legitimacy.
...yup...
Journalism is enertainment for profit and sciense is well, SCIENCE!
-- "Life's not fair, but the root password helps."
Balance doesn't mean that if one person speaks the truth for 10 minutes, you have to have another person to lie for 10 minutes.
He made himself look like ass who knew everything.
Pish Posh! What's science ever done for me anyway? Like I have time for this, I need to get back to my web surfing and remember to take my antibiotics, as I'm recovering from surgery in my air conditioned home. Science is for geeks anyway.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Truth is often indeed subjective, but the mere existence of a differing opinion doesn't automatically make that opinion valuable or credible.
Remember the whole MTBE nonsense out here in california. Somehow the polititans used this fake science to convince all the environmental extremists that it would be a good thing to hire very expensive chemical companies to polute our environment very badly.
In the end, the environmentalists, for all their support, were discredited even more (what the hell were the ecofreaks doing, passing laws forcing oil companies to polute) then the chemical company sponsors (from who you'd expect such actions).
All becasue some "balance" in the early reporting said that well, we don't know what the additive will do to the water polution, but it might help the air polution.
Why do you think he got fired from Time, and vowed never to do "fishwrap" journalism?
Sometimes seventeen/Syllables aren't enough to/Express a complete
Lets also not forget that business often sponsors research that puts certain products in a good light. Journalists love printing that kinda stuff.
"Wine is good for you"
"Coffee is good for you"
etc...
It's all distorted science to keep share prices up.
"The scientist's job is to discover truth about the natural world"
That is simply not true. The scientist's job is to either disprove a statement, or find evidence to support that statement. Proving things, or finding so-called truths about the world is absolutely NOT what a scientist does.
If you find a truth or an irrefutable fact or absolutely prove something, then you're a priest, not a scientist.
Bill Maher once said: "Let us not become so tolerant that we tolerate intolerance" (not sure if the phrase is his own). I think it applies very well to this topic. However many journalists are still trying to remain true to a credo of balance, are now plagued with these episodes of hyperbolic need to represent both sides of the story. In essence, they become so balanced that they try and balance issues which are incomparably unbalanced in the first place.
One of which must be a corporate or government shill.
Sometimes seventeen/Syllables aren't enough to/Express a complete
There was someone who knew how to make science understandable and fun. Probably no one since Bunsen Honeydew attracted people to get down and dirty with science.
In the end the media is just a reflection of their audience, a government the reflection of their constituency. And Jon Stewart? Isn't his request to "stop hurting America" kind of like a butcher preaching to the slaughterhouse? I mean, Stewart is the person who coined the phrase, "terrorism isn't a noun".
All this is just liberal stuff, cuz I got a book what was wrote by neolithic sheep herders what says it's the truth. Besides that, journalists are the people who couldn't pass calc, chem or physics 101.
Vote Quimby!
As radical as it may seem, perhaps the journalists studied enough history in College to remember all the times when the general view of accepted science was horribly wrong. We're pretty sure now that the world is neither flat nor at the center of the universe.
Back in the day, scientists couldn't say anything that disagreed with the church because they'd loose their funding, credibility, and probably their lives.
Today, scientists can't say anything that appears to agree with the church, because they'll loose their funding, their credibility and possibly their lives.
Maybe the reporters have it right
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
The scientist's job is to discover truth about the natural world, and the journalist's is to report the world's events accurately.
Indiana Jones said it best:
The scientist's job is to discover *FACTS* about the natural world, not truth. There's a difference. Interpreting those facts may give you some insight into an underlying truth, but that requires a human insight, something beyond the application of the scientific method to an investigation.
In short, the way I see it there are six questions you can ask about stuff that happens: Who, what, where, when, how and why. The first five are the domain of science. The last is not, because it requires that there are alternative possibilities, and as we all know, nature doesn't cheat.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Truth is often indeed subjective, but the mere existence of a differing opinion doesn't automatically make that opinion valuable or credible.
Yes! Yes! Yes! I carouse about in orgiastic delight! You speak TRUTH, my brother, a truth that those who disdain intellectualism and science itself have used to their advantage for many years now! A balanced report on global warming is not presenting whether or not it is occuring, but the degree and rapidity of it. A balanced report on evolution is not between Richard Dawkins and Mullah James Dobson. It's between Dawkins and Gould.
Siddhartha Buddha, man, I think what you said should be emblazoned upon the forehead of every journalist on the planet.
And then we should have Rupert Murdoch drawn and quartered, set fire to the Fox News building, and then have a BBQ of Rush Limbaugh. But that's just me.
I think the discrepency here is that the journalist's job is to report the world's events in whatever way sells the best. The "truth about the natural world" is usually too dry or unsensational to pique the interest of the general public, so journalists revert to focusing on and magnifying one particular aspect of something, which of course results in a lot of bias and half-truths.
Then apply this same logic to those other articles that you don't know anything about - you can simply presume that somewhere out there somebody else is criticising that other article for exactly the same reasons.
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
It's not just journalists. The same goes for the sciences too. Learn up hard about any given subject, and you soon realize that most of the people in the field are selfish twits who hold all sorts of ideas that go against what is blindingly obvious.
It's very easy to dole out critique to journalists, a lot harder to actually be one. I write for a living, in a newspaper. My chosen field is IT and tech, and I feel like I have very good grip about the stuff. But I can't write an article like "Explorer sux0rs!, Firefox pwns j00", it has to ta in consideration every side of the subject. Not to mention that the MS lawyers would have a defamitation suit field day if I make the slightest mistake.
but consider the number of people that have walked off death row after it was found that the original "evidence" against them was bogus as proved by the new "evidence" (DNA).
Truth is a bitch. I have far less faith in science and scientists than I used to. In the late 70's academics were telling us we'd be out of fossil fuels in 10 years. And what about the continuing nonsense about what's okay and what's not okay to eat? Every damn thing causes cancer apparently.
I'm not ready to tune out the contrarians just yet.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
"...the stupid contrarian, the individual who is unwilling to accept the obvious but instead clings to the often illogical notion that there is always a deeper answer..."
That sounds to me like the hallmark of 'GroupThink', which is not a good thing. I am willing to tolerate contrarian, even "stupid contrarian" thinking, because quite often the contrarians do indeed wind up being the "visionaries" you so derride. No one says you have to belive them. Why advocate their suppression?
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
The #1 leading cause of cancer, is life.
I generally agree with the article, but just to be the trouble-maker - what exactly are Mr. Chris Mooney's credentials for critiquing reporting on science? According to his bio (http://www.chriscmooney.com/about.asp) he studied English and his only background is in Journalism. There's no indication he has ever studied science except as a journalist and layman, there is no indication he's made any formal or credible study of the history or philosophy of science. There's every indication that he would happily rip someone for citing, in the context of a scientific dispute, the opinion of an individual of his own credentials. I don't see that this article really lives up to the very standard of evidence it purports to advocate. It isn't enough to simply say "all the REAL scientists know this is the way it is." If there is to be a higher order of accuracy in scientific reporting it is going to take more than this guy is dishing up to sell it to the overwhelmingly scientifically illterate general populace.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
...the journalist's is to report the world's events accurately.
The journalist's job is draw more eyes to the paper/tv station that they work for. Why do you think that USA Today has been so successful?...it's because of all the pretty colors & graphics, not because of the content or accuracy. If the statement above were true, than we'd be seeing the corrections on the front page.
Just another day in Paradise
For a country that produces so much good high-quality science, I suppose it's not absurd that where the science conflicts with redneck extreme religious nutters' views and with ignorant right-wing shock jocks' cheek sucking polemic, you'll get some leakage of nonsense by normally sane editors and the like.
Besides, if you were to put all sides of an argument into all news articles, you'd find your column inches quadrupling and your revenues dropping like a stone.
Did he inhale?
And only I know why.
This has been going on for as long as "news" has been supported by advertising. "News" shows pay more attention to the latest study that shows how X can [cause|reduce the risk of] cancer even though it's a single study that hasn't undergone peer review and invariably ends with "more research is necessary" because it gets people to watch.
.... now.
"What you don't know about 'Y' can kill you!" -- Fear sells.
That everyone has an opinion does not mean each opinion is equally valid. The New Dark Age starts
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
The Right is fond of saying that the media has a liberal bias, and they are right to a small extent. The media and the entertainment industry (funny how similar those two can be) is slightly left of center on certain social issues. Can you imagine an episode of Friends or Boston Public or 60 minutes concluding that abortion is wrong, or that environmental regulations are too strict?
But the conservative Right is more wrong than right. Media is driven by profit first and foremost, not by some "liberal bias". Gilette and Time Warner and Vivendi would rather see their stock go up than seriously investigate the truth. The truth doesn't necessarily translate into profit, especially when it challenges the status quo.
Mooney's article is dead on. In order to appear balanced--that is, in order to keep viewers/readers/listeners happy--that is, in order to make a profit, the news media cannot come down on one side or the other, when the truth is to the side (and not in the middle).
This is why I actually enjoy getting my news from places like Mother Jones (left) and the National Review (right). Media sources that are ideologically oriented, rather than "balanced", are often able to report arguments or issues that the mainstream media would avoid.
"Senator A called upon the nation to do X. Said the Senator, "Lie 1, lie 2, lie 3." In response, Senator B said this was all wrong. As he put it, "Lie 4, lie 5, lie 6."
That's balanced, all right, but hardly accurate. All the journalist did was repeat lies from both sides. How is that supposed to help the reader, other than to let them know the latest "talking points" (that is, lies) from both sides of the aisle? But as soon as you suggest that the journalist point out the lies, you get drowned in cries of "partisanship!" Uh, yeah, right. That's exactly what we DO want: Someone partisan for truth and accuracy, and against lies and spin.
Oh sure, truth is subjective at times, so you can go in circles arguing whose truth to espouse. That's OK, you can get various takes on the truth of a situation from various rags. Read them all and you'll get a much clearer picture than we get in today's world where the mainstream media has been cowed into not pushing anything other than the lies from both sides.
Check the CJR's Campaign Desk. It's a little like FactCheck.org, but focusing on journalistic hoo-ha rather than politician's hoo-ha. And they've been decrying "balance" where none exists throughout the campaign.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
I remember a stock market crooks who claimed they could make "commercial quantities of hydrogen gas from a small amount of electrcity". The crooks sucked in some stupid journalists who beleived this bogus claim and wrote articles distributed nationally. The stock was pumped up to $14 per share making the crooks millionaires. Later the company was delisted after securities regulators took notice!
http://www.kfuo.org/mp3/Issues4/Nov_10c.mp3
That link is about the connection with aboriton to breast cancer.
What if the person who is concerned by junk science is blinded by his or her lack of balance?
Just get all the information out there. A journalist should try to be objective. That doesn't mean letting any crank with an opposing view get time in an article. But more information is not a problem.
Stop being concerned about the ignorant masses. You may be the biased and ignorant "expert" and not know it.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Hmm...my fault. The header to my comment was supposed to read: "Balanced" is not equal to Accurate, but I guess it stripped the symbols I used instead of the words "is not equal to."
If sources are all that are presented without analysis, set up in a fight of loudness, we literally have teams to root for and no concept of the possible lies and inconsistent fantasies one may have and the other may not.
"Reality TV News". Incredibly cheap. Easy to commentate. Easy to "not get into trouble" but at its core it caustic: opinions and fantasies are given equal time with facts and failures, hoping they will "sort themselves out".
Some exists in the Other Party, but big examples are obvious. A commentator said that Bush and others now have just left one word off the PR concept of "Plausible Deniability". It doesn't need to be Plausible anymore. Iraq. Budget concerns. Health costs. Going to Mars without any money. Ignoring Korea and claiming "action."
Of course, most of all, Science is treated as a "opinion field" instead of a factual discipline of proof-required self-censoring societies.
Nietzsche is dead - God
I think the article is absolutely right... but I would put it this way: if 99% of the scientific community accept a theory and 1% does not, then I wouldn't agree that an article that gives both sides equal footing is balanced at all.
The root of the problem is when large and powerful organizations with political interests set themselves up and declare that they are a valid part of the scientific community when they're not. And here, there's no fault with the journalists, who don't have the background to separate legitimate scientific organizations from pseudo-scientific ones.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
The real problem I think is television news; perhaps this is the effect of condensing a story down to a 30 second sound byte?
This is one of the most interesting pieces I've read on /., and I'm a scientist. The author, who is a journalist, argues that the journalistic desire to capture "both sides" of an issue is fundamentally inappropriate when applied to science. I've sensed a problem for a long time, but this is the clearest explanation I've seen.
So how do we fix the problem?
It's odd to hear conservatives talk about a liberal media bias. The media is to the status quo what Rob Enderle is to Microsoft.
In other words, you'd like the media to do your thinking for you, by deciding for you which opinions you're exposed to. Or, more likely, you've already been exposed to Pat Michaels, Richard Lindzen, and James Dobson, decided they're beyond the pale, and now you'd like to do the thinking for other people, using the media as your proxy.
How wonderfully...something. I was going to say "liberal", but that's hardly an accurate word to use for such absurd elitism.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
you can find some folks with very outlandish views who have been proven wrong, but the views they have often seem to appeal to those with certain agendas (like journalists).
Whoa, wait a minute. I hope there aren't very many journalists with agendas, 'cuz that would make them activists, not journalists.
But I guess that just depends on how cynical you are...
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
Science is mostly about a kind of concensus. If there is no concensus, then it is more like a vote. Rather than just present two sides, journalists should perhaps take a poll. For example, say something like, "The Foobar Times found 8 experts on the subject, and only one, Dr. Knox, gave any credibility to the idea."
It may require a bit more to describe the possible biases. For example: "8 scientists felt that human activity was the most probable cause of global warming, and 4 felt it was probably natural or or were undecided. It should be noted that 2 of these 4 work for the patroleum industry."
The problem is that wider surveys and background checks are probably too expensive for most journalists on small stories. But, if they want to do it right they have to put forth the effort.
Table-ized A.I.
That link is about the connection with aboriton to breast cancer from a biased non-science site...
Did he inhale?
Journalists are my second most favourite type of people next to Editors.
Please may I have my modding rights back now?
Please?
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
I'm a scientist, and there is constant pressure to boil everything down into an "elevator message", the sort of one-sentence thing you tell someone on an elevator when asked what you do or what you're advocating (e.g. "Cigarettes cause cancer."). The problem with this is that real science worth doing can rarely be summarized this way without losing important details!
Unfortunately, the media doesn't want to hear things like "Global climate is very complex, and the impact of industry must be studied in detail because we don't really understand how sensitive a complex system is to big changes in certain parameters." That's boring . What they want to hear is "Global warming is dooming humanity!" or "Global warming is nothing to worry about!". Both of those get more attention and sell more product. Presenting both of these points of view in the same article makes for an exciting "debate", creates controversy deliberately, and again makes everyone's advertisers happy.
The competitive pressure for the sound bite, the quick statement that gets your attention even if it's not remotely accurate or true, is killing real journalism, science, and generally most intelligent public discourse about complicated issues.
The biggest complaint I have is that journalists and science writers dumb down the details of a story. It's not clear whether they do it for editorial reasons (the reader would just be confused by numbers anyway) or because the writer doesn't understand, or is lazy.
There are a lot of people who have what I call a "Scientific American" level of understanding. We took physics in college, but we aren't working physicists, for example. We can understand most topics if put in context, but it's a little beyond us to fully understand an article in some specialized journal.
A second complaint is that writers tends to accept the assumptions that mosts scientists do. They don't challenge the framework, but simply accept the groupthink. If a contrarian scientist comes along, they may cover the story but it's usually followed by someone saying the guy is a wacko for challenging the crowd.
So call me contrarian if you want, but just give me the numbers. The opinion of the crowd wouldn't matter as much as it does if writers gave more of the details and let us draw our own conclusions.
sigs, as if you care.
The link in the main posting about all this cites an article about some wacko that wants to push some agenda putting under the guise of "science". The author of the article comes down on this pretty hard, and I agree.
Problem is, it's not like one side or the other does this. They both do it.
Take global warming. Same deal. Both sides have issues about this, and neither wants to pay any attention to the other. Each calls the other side "a bunch of nuts", another both sides are dead set against listening to the other. Examples like this go on and on.
Yeah, well....great. Throwing political agendas into all of this isn't getting anyone anywhere, and will just gloss over the real problems. People that are "1000%" positive about things need to take a giant step back and re-evaluate what they're doing, because that kind of attitude is not helping anyone.
I swear the best thing that could happen is to get real objective scientists doing work, and leave the politics out of it.
Taking sides has already screwed up journalism pretty badly, it's a shame to see science going down the same path.
1. Many Americans avoid science like the plague and a newspaper with many science stories sells less than those with sports and entertainment. Additionally science literacy in the US is poor at best. That means that many reporters and editors don't understand what they are reporting and and as a result don't do the subject justice. They may even give junk science equal weight.
2. Some science topics are so politicized (such as abortion, stem cell research, global warming, evolution) that any reporting is criticized with giving one side more weight than the other no matter how careful the reporter is. That leads to editors avoiding in depth analysis of these subjects.
3. Many science topics require a lot of space for in depth analysis and newspapers would rather give space to articles on topics that sell better. Also, they will cut off a story to make space for some fluff story, thereby leaving out the most important parts. Science journalists need to write with these space constraints in mind; put the most salient points up front before readers and editors stop reading. This is unlike in scientific journals where the entire article must be read to understand the point being made.
This is the same reason that our adversarial legal system also falls flat. Having two skilled attorneys argue each side of a case just proves which is the better debater, not which is 'right' or 'true'.
Unfortunately, I can't think of any better system. Having someone in power decide (Judge, King, etc) is worse.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
As a "skeptic" I found both Jon's comments on Crossfire and this article to be enjoyable -- in the sense that here's someone saying what we've known to be true for years.
If any of you feel this way, you might enjoy some fine skeptical sites such as:
The James Randi Educational Foundation
http://www.randi.org/
Committe for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
http://www.csicop.org/
Bad Astronomy
http://www.badastronomy.com/
If you don't believe in DNA evidence, then you're a stupid contrarian.
You better be pretty damn sure that someone is guilty if you're going to execute them for a crime, and if valid and trustworthy DNA evidence to the contrary doesn't lead you to have a "reasonable doubt" then you are not a reasonable person.
Education is the silver bullet.
Perhaps the journalist could counter by finding another crackpot doctor. Crackpots are not hard to find, are they?
"Dr. Foo claims that abortions cause breast cancer. However, Dr. Bar claims that abortions increase IQ and reduce the chance of brain cancer. It should be pointed out that both of these views appear to be outside of the mainstream."
Table-ized A.I.
what happened to research for the research's sake? for the knowledge? curious and brilliant kids could potentially be swayed away from doing pure sciences because they only read how useless pure sciences are in the articles.
engineering can't advance on their own. pure science is the basis of all scientific advancement. usefulness can't be measured by singular measure of being available in the "real" world. there are many research results that are useful in much subtler ways.
This happens over and over again. You hear it a lot on the news capsules they do on the radio (and a lot of people hear). Any group with who knows what agenda can issue a press release and the media just parrots it.
Another recent case is the report by The Lancet that US troops have killed 100,000 civilians. This number is being reported everywhere as a recorded facts, as if there's a book somewhere with every name dutifully recorded. The Antibushites use it as if it were an article of faith and an unimpeachable fact, despite that every other estimate made everywhere else is an order or two of magnitude lower.
If you download the actual report, however, you see it's just complete bullshit. It was a statistical analysis, extrapolated from 63 (yes, sixty three, and a biased sample of 63 at that) death certificates, and the 95% confidence interval, even with their data massaging, ranges from 8000 to 192,000.
From the report itself:
"We obtained January, 2003, population estimates for each of Iraq's 18 Governorates from the Ministry of Health. No attempt was made to adjust these numbers for recent displacement or immigration."
Translation: our data has no connection with reality at all! In engineering, we call that a "wild ass guess" or, at other times, a "proposal."
Here's further anaylsis: http://www.chicagoboyz.net/archives/002543.html
So, yeah, it sucks when journalists can't report real science well, but that's a much lesser problem than journalists reporting poor science poorly. I've seen various activists hold press conferences and spout all sorts of fantasy figures, and not a single reporter questions any of them. No one asks "how were these figures obtained". They just scribble it down and regurgitate it later.
This is just one of many reasons I hope for the ELE asteroid. Humanity's capacity for self delusion is depressing.
--- Ban humanity.
Larry Krauss addressed this eight years ago in an excellent editorial for the NYTimes entitled "In Defense of Nonsense," which I reproduce below:
-----
July 29, 1996
In Defense of Nonsense
By Lawrence Krauss
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Four months ago, when his Presidential campaign still seemed viable, Patrick Buchanan appeared on a national television program and argued in favor of creationism. This, by itself, is not so remarkable, given some of Mr. Buchanan's other views.
What seemed more significant, however, was that the same national media that questioned other Buchanan campaign planks like trade protectionism and limits on immigration did not produce a major article or editorial proclaiming the candidate's views on evolution to be simple nonsense.
Why is this the case? Could it be that the fallacies inherent in a strict creationist viewpoint are so self-evident that they were deemed not to deserve comment? I think not. Indeed, when a serious candidate for the highest office of the most powerful nation on earth holds such views you would think that this commentary would automatically become "newsworthy."
Rather, what seems to have taken hold is a growing hesitancy among both journalists and scholars to state openly that some viewpoints are not subject to debate: they are simply wrong. They might point out flaws, but journalists also feel great pressure to report on both sides of a "debate."
Part of the reason is that few journalists naturally feel comfortable enough on scientific matters to make pronouncements. But there is another good reason for such hesitancy. In a truly democratic society, one might argue, everything is open to debate.
Who has the authority to deem certain ideas incorrect or flawed? Indeed, appeal to authority is as much an anathema to scientists as it is to many on the academic left who worry about the authority of the "scientific establishment."
What is so wonderful about scientific truth, however, is that the authority which determines whether there can be debate or not does not reside in some fraternity of scientists; nor is it divine.
The authority rests with experiment.
It is perhaps the most immutable but most widely misunderstood property of modern science: a proposition can never be proved to be absolutely true. There can always be some experiment lurking around the corner to require alteration of any model of reality.
What is unequivocal, however, is falseness. A theory whose predictions fail the test of experiment is always wrong, period, end of story.
The earth isn't flat, because you can travel around it, period, end of story.
This misunderstanding is at the heart of much scholarly debate in recent months, including the amusing hoax that a New York University physicist, Alan Sokal, played at the expense of the editors of the journal Social Text. The postmodernist journal published a bogus article that Professor Sokal had written as a satire of some social science criticism of the nature of scientific knowledge.
It was aimed at those in the humanities who study the social context of science, but whom he argued could not discern empirically falsifiable models from meaningless nonsense.
The editors, on the other hand, argued that publication was based in part on their notion that the community of scholars depends on the goodwill of the participants -- namely they had assumed Professor Sokal had something to say.
They too have a point.
The great paranormal debunker and magician, the Amazing Randi, has shown time and again that earnest researchers can be duped by those who would have been willing to answer "yes" to the question "are you lying?" but who were never asked.
We must always be skeptical. Being skeptical, however does not get in the way of the search for objective truths.
It merely assists in the uncovering of falsehoods.
Another popular misunderstanding of the nature of truth and falsehood in modern scie
Slashdotters and others continue to believe there is/was no bias in the media against Bush. I had one guy actually argue with me that journalists are "more exposed to the facts" than the public and that's why they tried to help Kerry.
The media can't even get basic science right. So why do people trust them for political coverage? Reading Newsweek's inside scoop on the Kerry campaign, you learn about Kerry's damaging indecision and obsession with talking to advisors on his cell phone, and you learn that he didn't release his war diary because it reveals that he met with terrorists in Paris. Isn't it rather odd that all that didn't come out before the election? And yet the media tried it's hardest to even go so far as to forge documents to attack old National Guard Service. And yet people give CBSNews a pass to this day for it--if FoxNews had done that to Kerry, everyonen would be chewing their heads off.
News editors instructed their journalists to refer to the Swift Boat Vets as "unsubstantiated claims" and yet the Kerry campaign was forced to acknowledge that Kerry wasn't in Cambodia on Christmas and that he may have earned a Purple Heart due to self-inflicted wounds. And yet the mainstream media buried that story and continued to claim the Swift Boat Vets were "exaggerating."
Moral of the story--you can't trust the media for ANYTHING.
Was it Dilbert who asked, "When did ignorance become a point of view?"
Education is the silver bullet.
Let's see:
The scientists are in search of verifiable, scientific truth, which is contained in repeatable experimentation and proven theorems.
The media are in the business of reporting truth, in all its interpretations(including what may be truth for one person, but not for others)
Balanced journalism can report the opinions as truth(provided they properly qualify it, which they do inaccurately far too often, when they bother to at all)
If the media only reported scientific truth, they might as well just translate the original scientific paper into plain english(it's closer to technical writing, not reporting) since the original paper is a report... It reports what happened in the experiment, and the theory behind it, and what conclusions one can draw within the constraints of the margins of error.
There's not much room for scientific reporters anymore, simply because they become translators. And it's a very very unexciting aspect of science, once all the theories get proven(after all, most proven theories take decades to be disproved, the ones that do get disproved at all).
It could theoretically be exciting to report on the process of "proving" a theory, provided you jazzed it up, and that can lead to all sorts of adverse consequences for the truth that just got proven. After all, when you jazz up the consequences/corollary of a theorem that just got proven, you can change its "truth value" from true to false.
The garden variety journalists seem to have a very hard time with that concept, the fact that if a theorem is true, given an exacting set of conditions/details(which get erased by the process of transforming to english) it can become false if those conditions are relaxed(after all, it's scientific truth, how could it be false?). But science only works with "whole truths" and "detailed truths" and those don't always translate well into modern languages.
Yes, it is a biased site. And that's why they are interested in the topic in the first place. Do you want a site with no interest in the topic to do the interview?
They interview a real doctor who gives facts and discusses different medical studies.
You can have bias and still be right. You must attack and deal with *arguments*.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
There was a dilbert in which Dilbert tells dogbert he's thinking of getting acupuncture. Dogbert says "the theory here is pooking yourself with needles make you feel better."
Dilbert "When you put it like that it sounds stupid"
Dogbert "sometimes sarcasm can make you think more clearly"
Its true of news too
Keep this in mind:
When you talk about the Holocaust, a journalist who tries to inject "balance" into his story has to represent the KKK's view that the Holocaust never happened.
Education is the silver bullet.
According to a Nov. 2, 1994 Journal of the National Cancer Institute paper abstract:
For more references, see this biased geocities page.By omitting this important relationship, the Columbia editorial is itself biased.
Journalists can't be experts on all the subject matters that they are expected to cover and it is not always easy to differentiate what it is "true" when presented by reasonably credible people (like the vi versus emacs argument). Also, history has shown us what has prevailed as "scientific fact" at a certain period in time has later been proven to be total BS, just like the idea of the earth being flat seemed reasonable to most people at one time. Most journalists are not going to spend an whole lot of time researching a subject that is a minor story, especially when it would require presenting a short science lesson just for the audience to understand the view points. So they simply present all the opinons they can find and let you sort it out for yourself.
That show is far from balanced. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbare, etc. are public Democrats. Jon Stewart openly endorsed Kerry.
When they did skits on Kerry, it was making fun of his appearance or something. But Bush criticisms were policy criticisms.
Colbare actually told Ralph Nader on the show, "Anyone but Bush."
Give me a break. Even STEWART HIMSELF tells people not to use his show as a balanced outlet for news. So why do people continue to do so? I don't get it.
At least they have TV shows that teach you how to improve health and manage your budged and stuff like that. No more COPS or sensationalist side of things.
But again, blood and crime sell better than boring health... right??
===== "Every head is a different world so don't invade mine you FREAK!" smartSAGA said
Parent is on-topic and informative, not "offtopic".
So they'll only use minority opinions by a 'doctor'. ["I'm a doctor, trust me,..." etc.etc.]. If I saw these studies referenced in the Lancet or Nature, they might be more believeable.
Did he inhale?
I was going to say "liberal", but that's hardly an accurate word to use for such absurd elitism.
Last time I checked, 'liberal' would be inaccurate to describe elitism of any degree. You should invest in a dictionary that's not written by Ann Coulter.
now you'd like to do the thinking for other people, using the media as your proxy.
If you think that the scenario you outline is limited to liberals, you are seriously deluded. Everybody twists facts to support their positions. Everybody.
I'd rather have reporters than journalists myself.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
This article is -full- of scientific and philosophical nonsense. Not to mention political propaganda.
Kuhn published _The Nature of Scientific Revolutions_ decades ago, and you still find very narrowly-educated technicians (I can't call them scientists, they don't know what science -is-) who have no clue, and think that whatever the current dominant operating paradigm is, will always be, that scientific truth is determined by a poll of colleagues.
What rot!
Apparently, you're saying the media should only report one side of an argument.
Did you know there is plenty of evidence to show "global warming" is a cyclic event tied to the solar cycle? In fact, the ozone layer hole grew for 20 years, shrank for 20 years, and grew again. Correlating with the solar cycles.
Did you know there is plenty of evidence (or lack of) to show Scott Peterson, just MIGHT not have killed his wife and kid? Even I think he did it, but you can't rule anything out because then you'd be reaching a premature conclusion--THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE of the goals of science which are to not rule out anything and to examine all evidence to find a conclusion.
How can you be fair and objective if you don't report every side? I'm firmly convinced that liberals, for instance, don't like Fox News because they dare report conservative viewpoints without contempt and give them the same air time that liberal viewpoints get. Heaven forbid Ann Coulter get the same airtime George Soros gets on CNN! Liberals are used to CNN and the mainstream media where journalists label others as "conservative" but never use the word "liberal." I've never heard them say "liberal group MoveOn.org" but I've heard them say "conservative right-wing group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." What's the difference?
The point of my post is to debunk the notion that there is always subjectivity and that the minority is always right. Some times facts simpy exist. It requires a certain degree of intelligence to accept facts and not attempt to out-think them. The Stupid Contrarian never will get to this point - you can raise the temperature 10 degrees in December and they will still claim no global warming exists. Why? Because secretly they hope someone smarter than them will prove this and they will be able to claim the genius status of being the first to recognize it. Or maybe they are just a**holes who will never give in due to their own politics or perspective.
To paraphrase Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark:
Science is about the search for fact. If you want truth, take a philosophy course.
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
A classic pattern of the stupid contrarian is that they confuse the theoretically possible with what reasonably can be expected. In the Scott Peterson case we see people seriously considering that a Satanic cult was behind the murders. It is possible isn't it? Sure, its also possible that Martians came down and committed the crime and then high-tailed it back home. It is theoretically possible. Since we cannot say Martians did not do it beyond a shadow of all theoretical possibility, we must acquit. Thus thinks the Stupid Contrarian.
The Boston Globe was recently guilty of misinterpreting scientific data. They claimed that Massachusetts and other liberal blue states had lower divorce rates than the rest of the nation.
It was a popular story, and was picked up by many many others around the internet. But the study was flawed. They thought the data was saying one thing, but it never was. The divorce rate data they used had the amount of divorces per 1000 in the state. Not divorce rates as a percentage of marriage rates, which is necessary to make the claims they made. So of course Massachusetts will have a low divorce rate per 1000, because they have a low marriage rate per 1000.
Unfortunately, this concept never dawned on the mathematically inept Globe. They ran the story, and it has been recycled over and over since. So now, many people incorrectly hold to the notion that their states marriages are stronger and divorce less than other opposing states.
One final note. A few of us tried to figure out correct divorce rates compared to marriage rates. The data out there isn't perfect...but it appears that Massachusetts divorce rate is about the same as most Southern states.
Let's look at this from the reverse. Let's imagine that the article, after bringing up the link to breast cancer to abortion, then spent the next 451 paragraphs discussing every, possible health risk of NOT having an abortion. Whould you be in favor of that article? In case you are curious: a legal abortion is much safer than a full term pregnancy. Don't get me started on the risks to all life on this planet from overpopulation. ;-)
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
I agree with the general thrust of TFA, but I think that it gives short shrift to one of the real difficulties: that of trying to explain frequently very complex theories to the non-specialist. I'm a professional scientist, and am frequently asked to talk to the public (typically intelligent but naive in the sense of 'uninformed'). I find preparing this kind of talk MUCH more difficult and time consuming than that required for presenting to my scientific peers. There is just a vast amount of assumed knowledge implicit in any professional talk. Little to none of that background is understood by the general population (journalists included). Try to explain genome research if your audience only has a basic knowledge of DNA, with no concept of introns, exons, splice variations, or regulatory elements. So I spend half my time just trying to get my audience up to speed. This is why I have nothing but repect for those few scientist who CAN do this well. You may not like his "billions and billions", but Carl Sagan could communicate his ideas on cosmology to a naive (but intelligent) audience.
There have certainly been times when accepted science was wrong and some maverick was right. Galileo comes to mind, as do Newton and Einstein.
But for every Galileo, there are a thousand nutballs who are convinced that Science is holding them back to defend its orthodoxy. No matter how carefully you explain the flaws and inconsistencies in their theory, they'll insist you've been blinded or are perhaps conspiring against them. They are often completely ignorant of current practice, insisting that to come to the right answer you must necessarily come from Outside the System. If you disagree you must be Oppressing Them, and that like Galileo they will be proven right after they're dead.
It must drive practicing scientists insane, especially the physicists, who are probably deluged with papers proving Einstein wrong with math no more complicated than algebra.
I'm not saying that there is no more room in science for revolutionaries and mavericks. Accepted theory in any field is well known to be incomplete at least, and possibly wrong. But it's time-consuming to reply to people who have no training in the field. The best revolutionaries come from inside, not from outside, because they have the language with which to explain to their colleagues what the new theory means.
Yeah, you could be right. You could be Galileo; you could have a completely new theory that upsets everything I believe in. But the odds are against you.
"It's all distorted science to keep share prices up."
So were's "Sex is good for you"?
jamie writes, "The scientist's job is to discover truth about the natural world, and the journalist's is to report the world's events accurately."
/. bit of news coming to us with false premise
The scientists job is to get hissef compensated in exchange for modeling observation in a consistant manner.
The journalists job is to get hissef compensated for words.
There is a wide range of accuracy in science and journalism. The educated and intellectual demand and pay for a high degree of accuracy, thereby supporting what might be known as 'good' science and 'good' journalism. Although on the journalism front our intellectuals seem just as willing to support the journalist who is clever in the use of language. At the other end of the spectrum we have the likes of Archimedes Plutonium who tells us that nuclear fusion will never work and The Weekly World News where I just learned that Osama's penile implant is stuck in the 'ON' position!
SO there you have it. Another
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
Which is why I decided against it, despite the parent poster's sig where he claimed the mantle of same.
If you think that the scenario you outline is limited to liberals...
If you think I said any such thing, you should seriously go back and read what I actually posted, and not read what you imagine I posted, or worse, post based what you imagine I was thinking. Seriously.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Just one minor point: Lancet is not necessarily a definitive, credible source of information, but no doubt it's better than many websites.
No man's an island, unless he's had too much to drink and wets the bed.
They call that balance, everything has had the same amount of time. What they really need to do is balance according to the weighting:
Viewpoint B gets 50% coverage since 50% of scientists believe it. Viewpoint A only gets a one line mention because nobody but this one guy over here believes it.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Really, Science doesn't need any help from Journalism in the distortion department.
The scientific community has it's own politics, party lines, misinformation and smear campaigns, more interested in keeping their theories considered "the way" that things happen, than in any constant search for truth and fact.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Apologies for this, but I'm tired of the Slashdot editors suppressing this sort of thing. Think of it as balanced journalism. Hehehe
e sults1.htm
29 precincts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, reported votes cast IN EXCESS of the number of registered voters - at least 93,136 extra votes total. And the numbers are right there on the official Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website:
Check out the numbers for the following precincts:
Bay Village - 13,710 registered voters / 18,663 ballots cast
Beachwood - 9,943 registered voters / 13,939 ballots cast
Bedford - 9,942 registered voters / 14,465 ballots cast
Bedford Heights - 8,142 registered voters / 13,512 ballots cast
Brooklyn - 8,016 registered voters / 12,303 ballots cast
Brooklyn Heights - 1,144 registered voters / 1,869 ballots cast
Chagrin Falls Village - 3,557 registered voters / 4,860 ballots cast
Cuyahoga Heights - 570 registered voters / 1,382 ballots cast
Fairview Park - 13,342 registered voters / 18,472 ballots cast
Highland Hills Village - 760 registered voters / 8,822 ballots cast
Independence - 5,735 registered voters / 6,226 ballots cast
Mayfield Village - 2,764 registered voters / 3,145 ballots cast
Middleburg Heights - 12,173 registered voters / 14,854 ballots cast
Moreland Hills Village - 2,990 registered voters / 4,616 ballots cast
North Olmstead - 25,794 registered voters / 25,887 ballots cast
Olmstead Falls - 6,538 registered voters / 7,328 ballots cast
Pepper Pike - 5,131 registered voters / 6,479 ballots cast
Rocky River - 16,600 registered voters / 20,070 ballots cast
Solon (WD6) - 2,292 registered voters / 4,300 ballots cast
South Euclid - 16,902 registered voters / 16,917 ballots cast
Strongsville (WD3) - 7,806 registered voters / 12,108 ballots cast
University Heights - 10,072 registered voters / 11,982 ballots cast
Valley View Village - 1,787 registered voters / 3,409 ballots cast
Warrensville Heights - 10,562 registered voters / 15,039 ballots cast
Woodmere Village - 558 registered voters / 8,854 ballots cast
Bedford (CSD) - 22,777 registered voters / 27,856 ballots cast
Independence (LSD) - 5,735 registered voters / 6,226 ballots cast
Orange (CSD) - 11,640 registered voters / 22,931 ballots cast
Warrensville (CSD) - 12,218 registered voters / 15,822 ballots cast
The Republicans are so BUSTED.
*** Data taken from the Official Cuyahoga County Board of Elections web page: http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/results/currentr
Both figures are on the same webpage but not side by side like this. The registered voter totals are at the top of page, where there is also a link labeled "Ballots Cast", which will take you directly to the final election results. You can click or scroll back and forth to compare the figures for each of the precincts listed above. I have checked some of the figures in the list and they were correct, but don't take my word for it - check them out yourself.
Once again, this is the official website of the Cuyahoga county election board, providing irrefutable evidence that the vote was off by at least 93,000. Kerry lost Ohio by approximately 130,000, so this is not an insignificant figure that can be ignored, particularly when there are numerous other indications of voter fraud in Ohio and elsewhere. I think the only possible alternative is to invalidate the entire Ohio election, if not the entire national election.
The 'stupid' contrarians aren't necessarily, and it is stupid to think otherwise.
Cases in point:
a) when did the theory of tectonic plates originate although being dismissed despite evidence from the 'fringe' (1912)? When was it accepted (~1965)? ( coincidentally, after the death of its originator.) Here is a more
telling commentary on the acceptance of that theory.
b) how many scientists believed in brontosaurus (they were wrong)? How about the fringe group that believed in the warm-blooded-ness of dinosaurs?
c) how come when Thomas Gold's theories on the deep biosphere and the origins of petroleum come up, the 'concensus' is touted as dismissing him. And yet it is rarely mentioned that Russian and European scientists have accepted and built up considerable evidence that he's right. Now that he's dead you will see a swing to acceptance of his theories (by the North American consensus makers) which has already begun.
You seem to suggest that only the contrarian does not accept the popular 'consensus' or the 'obvious'. In fact, the consensus may be just as polluted by the politics of the field and its journals. The 'obvious' simply is no measure of reality (quantum physics anyone?).
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
"Why do you think that USA Today has been so successful?...it's because of all the pretty colors & graphics, not because of the content or accuracy."
With the implication that pretty colors and graphics can't represent accurate content.
It takes skill to say so much, with so little.
This is obviously a troll, however I decided to reply. My father was a lawyer and my mother was a physician and they both insisted that I choose one of their careers. In order to please them I should have become either a lawyer or a doctor. They were horrified when I told them that I decided to become a theoretical physicist. Their argument? money! They told me that their professions are a sure recipe for geting rich and that as a scientist, especially a theoretical physicist I'll be always poor. I told them that I found both their professions extremely boring, Now they are both retired but but back then they both had waiting rooms with patients (clients) waiting for them, every day was the same, client after client, patient after patient, even I had to wait to speak to them. I thought I would die if I had to choose such boring jobs. I thought that being a lawyer was a bit better than a doctor, because now an then my father left his office and went to court other offices, etc.
Anyway twenty years ago I decided to become a theoretical physicist even though that decision meant I would be poor my whole life. I never looked back, it was the right decision for me.
For almost any subject, there are more than two diametric opposed positions, however, more often than not, we are only presented those extremist positions. We all understand the rationales for doing this, and meekly accept that we are being poorly served by the fifth estate. Rarely are we presented good science, more often we are presented science with an agenda.
Sad, but too often true. Think about the Greenhouse effect argument. Particularly the early days of that concern. Typically the media, in it's quest to appear impartial would present the scientific opinions of two individuals whose science while perhaps conducted with the best methodologies available, is interpreted through the agenda of some individual. How good is the data you are receiving? How good can it be after being filtered by the researchers bias? But wait, then someone typically performs analysis and evaluation of that data, further whetting the results against an agenda. This data is then typically presented to the leading proponent of that agenda, who further distorts the facts, and lastly to a member of the media, who performs the last and most serious distortion of all, by combining that data with the other extremist position. Great entertainment, not so good on the defense of truth. So for Greenhouse effect, we get the selected science to further the agendas of a crook and crackpot. Somewhere along the way something is lost.
But don't despair totally. It appears that there are responsible scientists in the world, and they labor mightily to correct these situations, but the damage is done. But by this time the damage is done. The populace has lost interest in the issue, and presenting the facts rarely recaptures it.
I don't know that we can eliminate these issues. I do think the first step is admitting we have a problem. In the case of Greenhouse effect, the major effect has been to prevent us from accomplishing anything. Those extreme positions sell papers, or get Neilson ratings, but they leave the public with a feeling that nothing could be done, and nothing is farther from the truth. By centering public discussion on the impossible extremes, the media encourages us to ignore the braod spectrum of the possible which exists between them.
Can this ever change? Hard to see how, sensationalism sells.
Of course, things are a bit more complex, the media may appear to be impartial, but if so, it is only because there is a balance between the agendas of those individuals and organizations who collectively form "the media."
I blame Joesph Goebbels and Adolph Hitler. There has to be a better way then yelling long and loud the lies at the ends of the spectrum while ignoring the essential truths often found in the middle.
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
All it takes is a single example to invalidate a general assertation. My wife had breast cancer _after_ the birth of her second son. [and was able to obtain then experimental 'lumpectomy' treatment, in place of the standard 'radical masectomy'] Cancer incidence as a whole may be attributable to some mix of toxins, age [at discovery, at childbirth], screening and dozens of other variables.
Caution: Do not stare into laser with remaining eye.
Does anyone really believe that in the long run Exxon/Mobil will be better off when the world wakes up to what they've been doing?
(Scientific) News ("truth") is distorted by many factors.
a) scientist may have an agenda
b) journalist may have an agenda
c) editor/news organization may have an agenda
d) the publishing process introduces errors (miscommunication, over simplification, space restrictions, deadline restrictions, etc.)
e) the nature of "scientific truth" itself, which runs cycles:
+ "old truth" (common belief by the scientific community at large) becomes a dogma, with star science establishment, which has not only conviction but strong interest to maintain the current "scientific truth status quo".
+ "new truth" emerges by discovery, doubt or whatever methods.
+ "War of truths" exist when the "old truth" and the "new truth" confronts. It's not simply the confrontation of some "absolut truth" - it's confrontation between the science establishment and the "revolutionary", who questions automatically not only the "old truth", but everybody who was vocal supporter of the "old truth" - and who are generally in key decision making positions at the moment.
+ "new truth" wins. Change of science establishment.
Cycle restarts.
f) the fact that there is really not absolut "scientific truth".
There are facts, which are valid in some context, but may not be valid in other contexts.
Truth is context sensitive.
Live with it.
Just an other Random Idea.
The point being that journalists should use some sort of rational criteria when determining which opinions to include on a given piece. For example, if I were doing a piece on the existence of extra-terrestrials, I would go out and do research on what opinions on the subject existed. Likely, I'd come up with a list that would include: "there are no aliens because God says so," "given probability and what we know of the universe, it is unlikely there are aliens," "given probability and what we know of the universe, it is likely there are aliens," "They could, I guess," and "aliens exist and abducted me last night."
In investigating each of these opinions, it would quickly come out that several of the opinions have little in the way of facts behind them. What evidence is there that aliens abducted some guy from Kansas? Does "because god says so" qualify as evidence for or against the existence of aliens? Further, and opinion like "they could exist, I guess" isn't really worth much, is it? What does that opinion add to the discussion?
Now that the opinions have been filtered a bit, we are left with those opinions which have some backing and credibility. There are still multiple sides to the argument, and there is still debate about facts, evidence and probabilities.
Think this is elitest? Fine. Let's add those filtered opinions back into our story. But do we give those opinions equal time? Do we spend as much time on "because God says" as we do on the guy who has poured years of research into a given subject as we do for the "they could, I guess" opinion? Why?
Others might say, "give the ideas a share of time based on popularity of the ideas." Ick! That seems a pretty lame set of criteria to me. That would mean that we'd probably give the "because God says" crowd more time than the "aliens abducted me!" crowd, even though neither group has any evidence backing them up.
What I'd ask of journalists is to give various ideas time based on the credibility of those ideas. This is obviously subjective and puts a big burden on journalists to do their research and use objective criteria for considering each idea. But then again, isn't that what most people EXPECT journalists to do? The sad fact, is that popularity seems to be the most common set of criteria for reporting on a subject. When has popularity EVER been an indicator of truth?
Given this, if I were doing a program on existence of aliens, I'd focus heavily on the scientific opinions using probability, astronomy, and physics, and make passing mention of the God and abduction ideas.
Taft
"The media is becoming lazy when it comes to really getting to the truth of the matter. Instead of getting to the facts, they figure it's good enough just to give two sides of a story.
Sometimes I think if President Bush came out and said the world was flat, the next day, the headlines would read 'Shape of Earth? Opinions Differ!' "
Wow, what an explicitly non-response response -- virtually un-differentiable from a rant that the media isn't liberal enough. Or rather a general complaint that liberalism should triumph when it comes in conflict with reality. In which case you can cry me a river and float away on it.
But taking it on face value, it is also inconsistent.
it's just a shill group looking to discredit any media organization that dares to print something that sounds even vaguely liberal.
is contradicted by...
They count instances of supposed bias by determining if both sides of an argument were presented.
I'm not going to presume to excuse them for their selection process, but by all means the falsified Bush Memo's presented by CBS is the hands down winner of disinformative journalism.
You see, when it comes down to it, I don't care what you call "liberal" or what you call "right wing". Jamie's article alone sets the president for factual representation when he considers if it is scientific or not. And as far as I'm concerned that is the only dimension I care about when it comes to journalism.
You're right on W.R.T. evolution, considering that both Dawkins and Gould (R.I.P.) are decades-long internationally recognized experts in their fields. I believe you didn't handle the "global warming" thing fully, since there are *credible* opposing views.
Where evolution has been successfully used (c.f. disease resistance and accumulation of mutations, etc.) and its predictions essentially validated, there isn't much question there. Those who "don't believe in evolution" simply have their heads in the sand. However, until the recent arctic report, the human contribution to possible climate change was still somewhat arguable, though evidence was mounting. (With the arrival of the arctic temperature change report, "global warming" is headed for similar levels of assurance...)
The bottom line really is that journalists have a responsibility to detect *and report* on the current consensus of recognized scientific authorities. When there is a disagreement from the "contrarians", those arguments may be brought forward, with the clear disclaimer that they are out of the mainstream of scientific consensus, and their credibility should be measured accordingly. There *are* occasions when the contrarians are right. (I refer the reader to the treatment of proponents of plate tectonics until their eventual validation. They were considered to be *total crackpots* for many years.)
Your last paragraph is over the top though I am sure it was meant mostly in jest. While I think Murdoch/Fox/Rush are doing *everybody* a disservice, and could even be contributing to genuine disaster with their blatant and public stupidity, your last paragraph probably pisses off many who need persuading about the value of (steadily improving) scientific consensus.
Just where is the evidence that having an abortion is "safer" than carrying your child to full term?
And where is the evidence that the earth is overpopulated or moving in that direction?
Abortion kills a human being and is
harmful to women.
Notice the stories that were represented:
Whether his fact checking is correct or not, or if the individual examples cited were convincing to his point, is not relevant to my point. There was a lean there: religious people are not newsworthy. The author's coverage of the global warming controversies was much more salient and thorough in my opion because it did not involve religious issues which the author obviously has a problem with.
John Carroll's comment that claimed Gold's story vindicated critics who accuse the LA Times of liberal bias could be correctly applied to this article's media analysis as well.
As for Jon Stewart on Crossfire... "Stop hurting America?" Are you serious? He was self-righteous, sanctimonious and rude. How was that helping America? Basically, if you didn't agree with him and his political leanings, you were hurting America. In addition, he refused to acknowledge he had a responsibility to ask Kerry tough questions while acknowledging that he would vote for Kerry and that everybody else is partisan. The hypocricy was astounding. He excuses himself because his show is comedy, but this doesn't stop him from supporting some political agendas, in my opinion. If Jon Stewart doesn't like Crossfire and feels that a better forum is needed for intelligent political discourse and debate then he should use his clout to make such a forum. That's the American way, isn't it? Instead, he wishes to silence the voices he doesn't like to hear. How openminded is that?
As a side note, I used to be a BIG Jon Stewart fan, but once he jumped onboard the Kerry campaign he lost his humorous objectivity and became a partisan - just like the people he mocked. His election night coverage show was painful. Whereas his supporting cast was trenchant and hilarious, Stewart whined about Democrats huddling up north together with him in fear of the rest of the nation. I suppose he was trying to be funny, and perhaps if he hadn't been so partisan and emotionally involved with the election's outcome he might have succeeded. But I, a registered unaffiliate with any party, found him dull, pitiful and biased - like the linked article.
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
While what is quoted here...Truth is often indeed subjective... is absolutely correct, the rest just doesn't follow--at least to me.
Science changes--sometimes drastically--over time. How full of ourselves we would have to be to think that just because a particular point of view doesn't make much sense in the current way of thinking that it won't be scientifically preferred down the road.
Science has been dramatically wrong in the past. It will be again.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhh
No, my point was that the parent's sig didn't match his rhetoric. Call yourself a liberal democrat all you like, but don't be surprised when someone else comes along and notes that your actions don't match your self-description.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Isn't it odd how everyone else is an idiot while you're full of understanding about the world?
Isn't it interesting how all journalists are wrong and that anyone sitting behind a computer has more insight into what's right all the time?
Yes, journalists make mistakes. Probably not as often as you think. On the other hand, perhaps they make mistakes as often as programmers do. Journalists also have incredible restraints, such as time or column inch limitations in which to get the idea across. Yes, it's good to be skeptical and I've seen inaccurate portrayals of things I know about as well, but by and large the reportage of tech issues I've seen in the mainstream has been reasonably on target.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Given that more scientists and reporters live today than ever before, I can easily imagine a percentage of them willing to "research" anything for money. And these are just the outright liars. In addition, think about the "schizophrenic" scientists that are, say, anti-war, while doing research with DARPA funding.
And it's the same for reporters: most of them dream of winning a Pulitzer, but the ones that end up at Fox have to live, too...
That's the problem, the journalists usually don't see it at all. Most science reporting I hear through the news is horrible. I'm not just talking about the kind of horribleness that results when Joe Reporter tries to distill quantum entanglement into a one sentance explanation that Joe Sixpack can nod along with and "understand". Rather, there seems to be a flawed notion amongst journalists (IMO) that all sides of an issue have equally valid arguments.
If you want to demonstrate journalistic depth by presenting the numerous and complex issues around a subject, great! But please provide the proper context for Joe Average that captures the fact that positions A and B are from the leaders of the field for the last 30 years and positions C, D, and E are from the minority lunatic fringe that jumped into the game last summer.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
Also we should not forget that if 95% of the scientists believe something it doesn't mean that that is the truth either.
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
If you want to change the world, go into medicine rather than journalism. It isn't the reporter's job to change the world, only to describe it accurately and fairly as all parties see it.
I don't recall anyone saying in the 70's that we would be out of fossil fuels in 10 years. Perahps you could site a reference? What I do recall is that people said that there was a limited amount of fossil fuels to be mined. There was some dispute about exactly when we would run out of different fuels. A lot of the deviations in answers had more to do with advances in petroleum extraction techniques than with differences regarding the amount of petroleum in the ground. For a detailed analysis, try the book Hubert's Peak
Thanks to South Park, this is now known as the "Chewbacca Defense".
TODO: Insert witty sig
Surely wanting a particular outcome is not confined to industry.
I would like to see a real discussion on the abortion breast cancer link or not. There are various studies on both sides (and I think there are some showing an increased risk), but in the sound bites or short articles, they don't cover the controversy. Also note that the original article didn't report, it dissed the studies - "alledged link", "so-called counseling". Cause or increased risk? Of course the reporter could have simply cited N studies M of which indicate a link, N-M don't. A lot of "mainstream scientists" are both liberal and not epidemiologists. A meterologist might have an opinion on the ABC matter but that doesn't make it informed.
Then "global warming". The problem is that the climatological models aren't predictive, yet they are the "evidence" "we are all going to die in 50 years" (panic sells, or better known as FUD, which most readers here seem to dislike when it is against something they support). Scientists don't get grants to study nonissues.
There have been many books written about the problem - The Apocalyptics by Edith Effron (remember when "everything caused cancer"), and two by Dixie Lee Ray on environmental extremeism (if you worship GAIA you should still separate church from state).
Politicized science is a serious evil. If there are risks to abortion, they should be disclosed, but instead it becomes a pro-life/pro-abort discussion. If there are environmental concerns, it ends up being the tree-huggers v.s. the strip-miners. Totally polarized and no one really wants to know the truth because it might not be on their side.
I don't know how to depoliticize science - though removing federal funds might help (so it wouldn't depend on politicians to fund pet results).
This seems to be the way in literature and the social sciences. 'Hard' science with facts, evidence, repeatable experiment with few variables, and prediction of future outsomes seems to be free of it, journalism does not.
If there were bookies odds on each outcome there would be little bias, and/or a way to make a killing for those in the know.
Be Free: Free Software Tuition
That said I think the Right is often wrong on Science issues and the Left is often wrong on policy issues. Because the Left embraces Science and its provable conclusions, it often feels the power of truth extends to its social agenda or worldview as well. Many is the time I've heard people on the Left say things like "These are the people the believe _blank_", so because they are wrong in one area they must be wrong in all areas.
The Left will keep doing something in a failing way because the goal is noble.
The Right never admits to American shortcomings, and is therefore unable to ever take corrective action.
The Left thinks there is a massive conspiracy to keep the poor down, and that the Rich want a world with only hyper-wealthy (themselves) and dirt-poor slaves.
The Right thinks their views of right, wrong, and morality are absolute, and poor people are in their state from their poor moral upbringing.
Jokers to Left of me, clowns to the Right of me.
Letter To Iran
It's amazing, sometimes, how often people will say that news reports do a very poor job of reporting on the things the speaker knows about--and then the speaker will go ahead and trust news reports on things the speaker doesn't know about.
In an "Evaluating Information" tutorial that I used to teach several years ago, I wrote in the manual:
===
Newspapers are one of the worst places to go for source information. Few newspapers research any more than their biggest features. The rest are reproduced nearly verbatim from press releases, press wires, and, believe it or not, e-mail chain letters.
Even those feature articles which are researched by reporters are tainted by the newspaper's need for controversy. The official policy will usually mention "balance", but the way balance works usually makes evaluation of the information difficult. "Balance" means finding the same number of experts in opposition as are in support.
For example, suppose a newspaper decides to do a feature article about standing beneath doors in earthquakes. There are about a thousand experts in the field of earthquake survival, suppose, and two of them oppose standing beneath doorways. In the name of balance, most newspaper articles will present an interview with no more than two supporting experts to 'balance' the only two opposing experts they could find.
Suppose, now, that no earthquake survival experts oppose standing in doorways. In the interests of balance, the newspaper reporter will find a non-expert and treat this person as an expert, in order to balance the report. They might, for example, choose a doctor at a hospital. This doctor will claim that everyone who has presented themselves at the hospital for standing in a doorway has been injured. You might think this sounds silly, but the next time you're reading a newspaper or watching a news show in which a doctor is being interviewed for something other than their specialty, look at it in this perspective. Is the doctor basically saying that everyone who comes to the emergency room has an emergency?
===
This is a long-standing problem. It's become quite a bit more obvious now that it is easier to hear from experts who complain about bias--but even that can become a russian doll-like nest of "balance" acts.
Jerry
Carl Sagan couldn't have said it better himself.
Sometimes a dissenting voice speaks more factually, but that is often not the case when information flows freely in an environment where discourse is open and valued. It's only when we hinder discussion that we get ourselves in trouble -- did we not learn that back in the days of Newton and Copernicus?
When I say, "don't lose faith in science and scientists," there are a couple things working here. First, when I say science I'm talking about deliberate and informed application of the scientific method. When I say scientists, I mean the scientific community as a whole and over the long run.
I am not saying that someone should accept that the scientific community or any one scientist is always right. After all, that would run contrary to the basic tenets of science.
Sounds great in theory - in practice, what you get is what has now been stamped with the /. seal of approval up above, where you simply define opposing points of view as "irrational", and concurring points of view as "rational". We don't bother to discuss why "no aliens because God said so" is an inadequate theory or explanation - and indeed, you didn't - we simply dismiss it as a priori irrational, and vow never to discuss it. So no matter how whacked-out some point of view is, the net effect is to prevent people from investigating it and coming to that conclusion on their own.
Forget silliness like aliens for a moment - the point is that we are permitting some people to define Pat Michaels and Richard Lindzen and James Dobson as irrational based on the fact that they disagree with them, and nobody bothers to actually investigate what they're saying after that point. And yes, it's incredibly elitist to do that, because what's really being said is "You there, peasant! I have been exposed to the opinions of the contrarians, and yet I disagree with them! But because you are not as smart and wise and 'insighful' as I am, you must not be allowed to do this thing that I have done, for you may be misled where I was not. Therefore, for your own good, I will define for you the parameters of legitimate discourse, for I fear that your lack of intelligence will prevent you from coming to the 'correct' conclusion, as defined by me."
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
FYI, I dont have sigs on, so your comment was completely out of the blue for me. Here's how it appeared to me:
and now you'd like to do the thinking for other people, using the media as your proxy. How wonderfully...something. I was going to say "liberal"
So, to me, you were saying "It is a liberal goal to try to control the media to influence people's thoughts." What I said was that not only was it not liberal by any definition, but that everybody does this.
This was a local station backed up by some pretty big heavy weights in the media?
What it really says is, why do we assign ANY credibility of the old time media?
After all we saw what CBS did this election with the Guard papers AND the draft issue. We are even seeing some of this now with ABC and the voting issues. One of the most famous issues of the past was with the exploding pick up trucks. Yet people still watch Network TV and the newshows.
The first rule of the media is to make money and that unfortunately overrules the fact based reporting way way too often.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
And this is why Google News has becomy my entire news source specifically because it is a nice way to see how a bunch of world papers covered something and try to figure out what may have happened from all of the various slants you get.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Correct, I just wanted to point out that in many cases the wide held opinion was just plain wrong, as it was the case with the Sun orbiting the Earth belief....
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Ah. The OP's sig reads Liberal Democrat, NRA member. "Truth is my god, and Justice his bride." Aside from that, I agree that people of all sorts try to spin facts in order to put a positive face on their preferred agenda, and that this behavior is not exclusive to any particular political persuasion. ;)
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
I just heard some sad news on CNN - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was declared dead in a Paris hospital this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't approve of his work, there's no denying his contributions to the Palestinian cause. Truly a middle eastern icon.
After reading the cover teaser "Was Darwin Wrong?", I was absolutely expecting articles of exactly the sort described in this story. One article by a scientist arguing the validity of evolution, and one by some guy apologetically describing creationism and other pseudoscience.
Instead, the article opens with a teaser page asking the same question. Following that is a page with a giant screaming "NO". I laughed my ass off. And nowhere to be found was the sad little counterpoint article -- the magazine actually had the guts to commit to a single point of view.
The best thing now will be reading the letters to the editor in 2 months. The fundamentalists will be calling for blood, and it'll be interesting to see how the editors respond.
It is possible to 'loose' your credibility or funding, using 'loose' in a similar sense to 'let loose the dogs'.
College, however, is still not a proper noun, and the correct verb for grandparent's sentence would certainly be 'lose'.
I wish I had enough funding to be able to 'loose' it, though. These days, I don't even have enough to be able to lose it.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
God I wish I had mod points. Yay for you.
I was a journalist for 7 years before I started doing what I do now. Thats the clearest damn comment on the situation I have ever heard.
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
Do journalists purposely distort science to "balance" out their article or simply because they don't understand? I find that journalism today is severely lacking in its research and very biased. Often, they just use their own perception to explain things they don't understand. I notice this very much in high-tech articles that cover computers and operating systems (with most of them being Windows apologists). Quite often they cite facts that are totally incorrect that could be corrected by a few minutes of Googling. Lazy, they are. Ignorant, they might be.
This trend is extended to many aspects of news these days too, namely politics, current affair, international relations. They rely on soundbites, taking things out of context, and never fully justify their hyphotheses or implication of 'truthfulness' of their articles. It's one thing to employ such method in Entertainment or Sport sections, but news of campaign, politics, etc. affect people's life very much.
Quality journalism is very rare these days.
Right. Most real papers have dedicated reporters (or even editors) for all kinds of fields. The problem is not lack of familiarity. The reporters are trying to write for readers who are not experts. A certain amount of simplification is required. 30 seconds is an eternity on a broadcast TV news program. Sound bytes are more like 8 seconds and even their in-depth coverage may only go to 30 seconds.
the journalist's is to report the world's events accurately
I am sorry but if you think this the job of a journalist, you are misinformed. Their actual job appears to be to create controversy on topics that will interest the public so that newspapers and air time can be sold, as well as actually directing public viewpoint and controlling how people view their world. '
The media tends to present a very gruesome picture of the world. Interestingly enough, people lap it up. I guess the general public feels comforted when they elect information authorities who tell them what to be afraid of.
Journalists often think, a correct, but therefore "onesided" article about a scientific fact/discovery etc. is too boring. So they introduce an artificial "controversial" that doesn't exist in the first place. E.g. f a "controversial" scientific topic has a 98:2 ratio for one side, you will still read about the remaining 2 percent who have a different opinion.
I agree with you, but think the problem is even bigger. It is a natural (though perhaps not inevitable) consequence of the consumer society that we now live in. We are constantly bombarded with sales, so much so that our first instinct towards any message is that it must be a sale; and anything that is a sale is also propoganda. In a world of pure propoganda, statements that are True, that demand belief in and of themselves, can barely exist if they can exist at all. Truth itself becomes a product; and in this country, we never buy a product before shopping around. To address your comment about ignoring detail: why pay attention to details when everything is just a sale anyway? To a certain degree, I think this is what happened in this election (disclaimer: I am a Kerry supporter.) By the end, there were so many lies and exaggerations flying around, from both sides, that people didn't know whom to believe anymore. Instead, they just went with whom they preferred, with their "gut", which was the President they had bonded with in a very real way during and after 911. There was nothing terribly rational about it; by why bother being rational when you can't get your hands on any facts anyway. The same is true with global warming. I think that for many, the thinking goes: when these scientists all have alterior motives anyway (grants, personal beliefs, etc.) who knows who the heck you can believe until there is a great ponderance of evidences, and even then, who knows (there are still plenty of people who are convinced by, say, intelligent design theory partly because they believe that there are reputable biologists who also are convinced.) Reality becomes like the Burger King commercial: as you like it. (I probably quoted that wrong!) If I may digress for a moment, contrary to the opinion apparently expressed by the electorate, I don't believe the biggest cultural problem this country (USA) faces is a lack of aknowledgement of God; I think it's a lack of acknowledgement of Truth.
As goofy as the story might be, that it's "worthy of reporting" that abortions cause cancer, even though an overwhelming number of scientists claim otherwise, one device was available up until 1987 to address situations like this.
The Fairness Doctrine would have allowed those who disagree with the story airtime to present their own point of view. Unfortunately Reagan and the Republicans killed the Fairness Doctrine many years ago.
If you're old enough, you probably remember a time when network news had a carefully-delineated editorial section of their broadcast. It was usually at the end of the show and someone would come on and say their editorial and the station would air a message like, "If you disagree you're invited to come on the air with your own opinion." The existence of guidelines allowing opposition groups to counter news reports forced the mainstream media to be more objective in their reporting. All that went out the window when the Fairness Doctrine was erased.
I object less to goofy stories, than I do the fact that if you disagree, you don't have any substantive recourse to express your point of view to the same audience. There is no "discussion" on these issues any more. It's really a shame this very useful set of FCC rules were gutted.
There is no legitimate reason to not have the Fairness Doctrine in effect unless you don't respect the value of hearing two sides to a story. Those who say the law would be counterproductive are exclusively the ones who are happy with the fact that their agenda is being pushed and don't want the people to hear any contrary opinions.
Let's lobby to bring back the Fairness Doctrine and give groups equal time to counter the biased media.
Mod parent for insight.
What is the job of a journalist? Is that person merely creating a log of events by recording lie1, lie2? I submit that the real responsibility of the journalist is to investigate Senator X and Senator Y's statements, providing background for the reader (viewer, etc) to see whatever truth might lie behind all of those statements.
If the journalist was doing his job, not only would the raw statements be presented, but so would the factual foundations (or lack thereof) of them be given. Of course, doing this adequately requires that the journalist obtain a significant degree of understanding of the underlying topics.
There are a few fields -- software development, law, accounting -- in which the practicioner must know not only the field itself, but also a separate field to which it's applied (e.g., building an order entry system, judging a patent, budgeting at a hospital). Perhaps that the talent necessary to embrace all of this makes those really qualified to do so quite rare.
I think its important to remember that the most newspaper coverage about science treats scientists with kid gloves. There's a ritual each week, when Science, Nature, and PNAS comes out -- the mainstream press sees the palette of stories, chooses a few accessable ones, and writes articles about them. In the vast majority of cases, the story translates the science into public-speak, and quotes a few other scientists who are in violent agreement with the main result of the paper. Most weekly science features (example: San Francisco Chronicle's Monday science feature story) follow the same pattern.
It's only the science stories where there's a controversial social issue embedded in the story that reporters go into "balanced mode". And the odds of a randomly chosen research agenda falling into that bin is really low ... it
takes funded opposition to light the fuse, in
most cases.
Compare this fate to economists, who can't catch a break when it comes to newspaper stories -- the story always beings with the "dismal science" and the "find me a one handed economist" gags, and ends up mocking the economist with a reduction to absurdity argument. Physical science has it easy by comparison.
I am grateful. This is an analysis I could not write myself but with which I entirely agree and which I welcom and will pass on to teachers and co-workers in science. It is worth re-emphasizing that not ALL journalism screws its readers with warped perspectives and fried formats. The journals in which scientists find news of each others advances [and mistakes] are mostly peer reviewed and edited by scientifically informed journalists. They do not often fall prey to the lousy reporting that you get when you assume you will have no audiance unless you keep the length to 8 to 10 seconds, have dramatic video or stills and don't use big words or, god forbid, an equation. Moving down-market to Science News, a weekly review of science developments generally based on news in more scholarly pubs, you can see how they avoid over-emphasizing or underplaying the importance of the news they report. There are always quotes from other researchers in the specialty, not associated with the work or publication being reported, in which the alternatives or perspective are presented. One imagines the writers at Science News all have a huge rollodex organzied by scientific topics that allows them to double check the significance of any story with other researhers in the field. Why the hell can't mass media do the same?
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Jacob's Shadow by Andrew Hammond
Chapter 27
It was late when he got back. Everything black and quiet. Jacog killed the lights but didn't take the key out of the ignition. He reached into his pocket and took out a little box with an LCD display, thumbed a button and the radio tranciever captured the last few hours worth of motion sensor logs from the building. He'd done some favors for friends in the Shop -- or whatever it was they were calling it this week -- and they'd installed it to spec for him.
As he walked to the door he was still arranging all the pieces in his head. Sure way to get his ass taken down, but he couldn't help it. Something was missing. Didn't fit. Allie hunched over in the bathroom, that needle dangling from between her toes. Katsuya shifting a half million yen before the currency market closed. The radio station Samuel had turned him on to, the with the little girl repeating all those numbers in sequence. And somewhere in the middle...
Jacob stopped, looked up at the night sky. He'd been assuming that there were two sides to this game and both were playing to win. But what if... what if there was someone else, and they wanted to see both sides lose?
I need to go play Deus Ex again...
they were called "spiv philosophers", sort of like early lawyers. When the aristocracy realized the power words had over the population at large, they hired scholars to argue their positions using philosophy. Intellectual dishonesty is worse than a cancer, in any age.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
A lot of people seem to be missing the real problem here. Let's say journalists only report one side - which would, of course, be the "right" side. Except...right according to whom? The journalist who is NOT trained in the field (or they'd be working in a lab, not a newsroom)? The large corporation whom the journalist works for? An opinion poll of some group? The say-so of a government agency (and isn't THAT a scary thought!)? Who?
/. isn't exactly mainstream, you know...)
When people complain about a journalist presenting two sides of a debate, what they want is for the journalist to pick just one side, AND for it to be the side they agree with. This just isn't always going to happen.
Having a journalist give equal weight to some fringe view is frustrating, but if it annoys you, just remember - it's pretty much a given that something you believe very strongly is a fringe view to someone. (Such as open source/free software, which outside of
Still not convinced? Okay, imagine that a journalist does an article on something you have no real clue about. Maybe something about the economy, or south american politics, or chinese military power, or whatever. Assume they report one view. Quick! Is that a mainstream view, or is the reporter feeding you some fringe view? How could you possibly know? If the reporter gives two opposing views, well, you still don't know which is "mainstream" (whatever the hell that means), but at least you know that debate exists, you can go look the details up, and then wonder why the reporter even included one of those views. It's not perfect, but it's better than getting a monoculture rammed down your throat.
Speaking of which - Fox tends to have a pretty poor reputation around here, at least partly because they don't bother with the "he said/she said" school as much as other broadcasters do. Instead, they present what they thing is "right". Which is fine - but...doesn't look so nifty when you don't agree with the reporters definition of "right", does it?
Thank you for being the voice of reason.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
Just summarize what scientific journal X has published and ignore anyone who has different ideas.
Doctor: There's a chance you could get breast cancer if you get an abortion.
Baby-maker: Oh dear, I don't want that!
Doctor: There's also a chance you could get hit by a meteor if you get an abortion.
Baby-maker: Ah. I see now. I'll have the deluxe abortion please!
Just by the nature of the science they choose. For example a person whos degree is in environmental studies, is by nature almost always liberal, and a person whos degree is in Geological oil exploration is almost always conservative.
As a result, a screaming majority of them will ALWAYS agree. regardless of the truth on any "partisan" issues.
So no matter how unpopular their opinions might be that doesn't necessarily make them 'Fringe' or radical
Any conservative viewpoint on environmental issues, and any liberal viewpoint on geological issues are going to be in the minority.
But guess what folks, Sometimes they are right. Yea, sometimes they are whackos, but sometimes they are right.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
There's something insightful there, but the entire tone of the parent post is BAIT.
There are other alternatives besides the mainstream ones you mentioned.
Narco News has been exposing corruption in the Drug War, and other related topics. No advertising, no corporate ties, just journalism.
Anyone who wants to really understand how the drug trade works needs to check it out. It is a very left-wing site, but the information it provides is invaluable whatever your political affiliation.
Narco News is also responsible for a huge first ammendment victory for online media.
Wouldn't it be interesting if each news story had an accompanying "Nutrition Facts" table like products in stores? Instead of calories, calories from fat, sodium and sugars, we could get a concise table at the end of each article which measured:
* The source of the journalist's research and suvey methodology
* The writer's religious and political affiliation
* A list of publications the writer has contributed to in the last two years
* An outline of the holdings in the writer's stock portfolio
Just a thought... a nice way of avoiding journalistic trans-fats and other artificial ingredients.
"You there, peasant! I have been exposed to the opinions of the contrarians, and yet I disagree with them! But because you are not as smart and wise and 'insighful' as I am, you must not be allowed to do this thing that I have done, for you may be misled where I was not. Therefore, for your own good, I will define for you the parameters of legitimate discourse, for I fear that your lack of intelligence will prevent you from coming to the 'correct' conclusion, as defined by me."
Clearly the counter argument to this is how many sides do you have to show before you are no longer being elitist? There is rarely only two views to any subject. Logically, you have a point; but from a practical standpoint it seems unrealistic.
Whether you are doing a book review or are a news reporter, you have to use some judgement and common sense. It may not satisfy everyone, but covering all angles generally will not work. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere...People will stop watching if you sound more like "In Search Of..." instead of the news.
Just where is the evidence that having an abortion is "safer" than carrying your child to full term? Let's see ... about 2 minutes of googling reveal that we can find the mortality rate per childbirth here.
And the rate of deaths (of the mother) per abortion here and here.
And we can conclude that having an abortion is something like 4-6 times safer than carrying a child to term.
Sure, its also possible that Martians came down and committed the crime and then high-tailed it back home.
isn't it the prosecution's job to point this out?
Part of the problem is that only scientific research which can attract money gets done, which makes scientific conclusions suspect. Example: simple diarrhea is the biggest killer on Earth, but how much is done about it? Everyone wants to send money to Africa to fight AIDS, no one wants to send money to Africa to provide clean water. There are no "brown ribbon" campaigns.
Throw in a culture based on relativism, and you have a situation where even if a majority of scientists believe something, we can't be sure if it's true. Do they have a political agenda? Are they wanting more money for their pet projects?
Then there is the problem that every once in a while, the majority of scientists are just plain wrong. It's not often, but occasionally there is a Galileo out there.
No, I can't be too hard on the journalists for wanting to report all sides.
Proverbs 21:19
...from journalists!!
Their job is to gain more readers/viewers, it is NOT to seek the truth. Regardless of their idealitic beginnings, the business world filters for the ones who get readers/viewers. A journalist who gets the story right every time, but gets no readers will not last long in the business.
Journalists have an amazing knack for taking things out of context to make a 'better' story. I've been present at and/or the subject of several news stories, and the difference between what I experienced and what I subsequently read or saw is incredible -- and these were from journalists I somewhat knew and thogught were good! Yes, it was all 'true' in some literal, minamalist sense. But the stories were really built around the offhand 'splashy' comments, and never around the points that were really emphasized as important.
Moreover, there seems to be some kind of ethic to "tell both sides of the story". This of, course, presumes that there are two sides, and that the sides have some sembalance of equality. This reporting model might work well for politics.
However, science has a fundamentally different structure, based on testable facts and most effective theories/models. Science is NOT A DEMOCRACY; it is entirely possible for one person to be right and the entire rest of the world to be wrong (just ask Galleio).
Scientists will test the truth of the assertion, regardless of how many people believe one assertion or the other. Journalists, on the other hand, insist on forcing every story into their 'fair' structure, and reporting both 'sides'. Kind of like the guy who has a hammer so everything looks like a nail.
Of coruse, even if they wanted to take a scientific approach and test the truth, journalists typically have zero useful scientific/technical knowledge, so they are constantly getting it all wrong. How many stories ahve you seen where they cannot even get the basic units right, or write blatantly bad logic or analogies?
I grew up as an avid reader of the major news outlets (NY Times, WSJ, NBC, etc.) now I only occasionally scan these types of outlets. I've simply seen too many situations where I know the story and seen it totally botched. And they wonder why they're losing readership/viewership.
One skeptic, William O'Keefe, president of the George C. Marshall Institute, a conservative science policy organization, criticized the Nature study, saying that the research 'ignored species' ability to adapt to higher temperatures' and assumed that technologies will not arise to reduce emissions.
So, did the study ignore these issues? Why is the guy's question invalidated by who he works for?
The whole story can be summarized as "reporters should pay no attention to those men behind the global-not-warming curtain. We should just kill thier jobs and be done with it." It goes on and on about a 'scientific consensus' behind global warming, but pays precious little attention to the fact that the big social question at this point is, "What do we do about it, shut everything down immediately or take a slower approach?"
Proponents of global warming should be able to answer the questions of their crackpot detractors. That is true science, isn't it? If the Exxon CEO can say, "But your own evidence shows the same sort of fluctuations in the past. How's today's data any different?", shouldn't people asking that CEO to kill his company be able to answer the question? "He has no credibility!", is not an acceptable answer.
It's not about reporters covering science. It's about reporters covering social issues with scientific or psuedo-scientific evidence behind them. The sky is falling is one thing. What are we going to do about it, and how quickly is totally different.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Only if the defendant is from Mars.
So the North Pole is getting warmer? Does this conclude "Global warming"? Is anyone checking to see if any place on the Earth is getting cooler?
"Journalists also have incredible restraints, such as time or column inch limitations in which to get the idea across."
This is in large part the problem. It's not so much the people as the institution.
And yes, in computer science there are numerous idiots, too.
The big problem is that in any profession, you have a group of people more concerned w/ keeping their job than doing it correctly. This is most noticeable in journalism where what they do is published for everyone to see.
Oh, you came so close to not failing it, but guess what?
What happens if your side is the wrong one?
Apple free since 1990!
Depends on how many people find those alternate viewpoints to be worth discussing. If we're talking about where babies come from, not many people pay attention to the stork theory on baby origins, so I think we're safe in omitting that one from our discussion. On the other hand, millions of people give James Dobson a respectful hearing when he speaks about evolution, whether you or I personally do so or not, and therefore pretending that we don't have to address that point of view is exactly why that sort of creation idiocy is stealthing its way back into this country's classrooms. The question may not be open for me, but that hardly means it's not open for anyone.
Note that I'm not saing we should uncritically accept such points of view - on the contrary, I think they should be examined and challenged, just like any other point of view - but if so many people out there want to talk about it, who are we to say "No, that opinion is not allowed at the table"?
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
I have a Ph.D. in physics, but I don't consider myself to be a god-like, super-genius who knows all there is to know about everything. However, every time I meet someone for the first time and they discover what I do, the typical reaction is that I am all-knowing and all-seeing. They then proceed to ask me about anything and everything, from Steven Hawking's theories about time and whether or not cell phones cause cancer. Most of the things non-scientists ask me about are things that are so far outside my area of expertise that I know just as little as they do about the topic. People are in awe of scientists because they have terrible misconceptions about what kind of people choose careers in science and what scientists actually do at work all day. They also tend to think that we get paid way more than we do!
The awe that people have for scientists can lead journalists to consult scientists who know absolutely nothing about the topic of their story. Journalists are not immune to the "someone who has a Ph.D. in physics must know everything" syndrome. I remember seeing a story on TV when Cassini was launched in which the journalist consulted an "expert" on the issue of whether the radioactive material Cassini used as a power source posed a significant danger if something went wrong during the launch. The "expert" was a scientist, however he was a string theorist. If the journalist had even a little knowledge of the issues involved, they would have consulted an aeronautical engineer AND a nuclear physicist AND a medical doctor AND a meteorologist to help assess the risk. String theory has nothing to do with any of these things!
Everyone, even some scientists, tend to react emotionally when they hear certain words and phrases. Some examples: "radiation," "cancer", "anthrax," and "giant asteroid passing within 10,000 miles of Earth." Journalists and politicians know this well, and use it to their advantage every chance they can get. Unscrupulous scientists also know how people react to these things and do not feel guilty about using the public's fear and lack of understanding to promote themselves. The scientist I saw on TV for the Cassini story should have admitted to the journalist that he was not an expert on spacecraft design.
Until the public at large learns more about science and how to determine if someone is really an expert, politicians and journalists will always be able to manipulate science to their advantage. Scientists can help by trying to educate people, but they also have to be willing to admit when they don't know something.
We aren't discussing whether the individual journalists are right or wrong so much. We are more concerned that the standard operating procedures of modern journalism may be fundamentally flawed.
No, it's not discussed because it requires incredible regression to challenge. For this to be valid:
None of those are intrinsically obvious, but all of them must be assumed true for that claim to make sense.
Religion is the opiate of the masses. The wealthy smoke the real stuff.
The article seems to follow this logic: Scientists by consensus are right. Anyone on the fringe is wrong. Don't publish material from the fringe.
Or is the job of a doctor to see how many procedures and drugs he can make you have? The job of a police officer to find as many ways to fine you as possible?
They could have avoided the whole mess by flashing "reenactment" on the video, however. Either way, it didn't warrant the huge outcry that resulted.
Murphy was an optimist.
Federal grants, in principle, don't suffer this issue, at least not significantly in most fields. Review panels for the NSF and other federal granting agencies are filled with expert scientists chosen by program officers who are themsevles scientists. Scientists will support astronomical surveys that say up front: "The most important results will probably be ones we cannot now predict."
I know. I've sat on several of these panels and ranked highly such proposals. Perhaps a field like astronomy that is basic research almost by definition has few political ramifications, but I don't think my colleages in biology, chemistry, etc., operate all that differently.
Similarly, there are granting agencies out there (like Research Corporation in Tucson, AZ) that do not have political or business agendas.
It's also disingenuous to claim that "almost no one is doing science just to see what might happen" when curiosity is what drives people to careers in science. If I knew how quasars really worked, I wouldn't be asking for money and telescope time! I pay attention to what the data tell me.
Null results are important to publish, too. I've published a couple...and have to admit that those are among my least cited papers.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
The more you realize journalists are wrong. It doesn't matter what the subject is, the vast majority of journalists have no clue what they're talking about.
The term journalist is vague and over respected. Media writers rewrite press releases. When school children they discovered shuffling sentences from encyclopedia entries for easy grades and never grew out of the habit. Slashdot submissions reusing the lead paragraph of the linked article are a good example of the practice, the infamous science turfer an edge case.
There are two old jokes that may help understand the dynamic.
How do you know when a used car salesman is lying? His lips move. What is the difference between a used car salesman and a computer salesman? The used car salesman knows when he is lying.
I remember reading this article a while ago.
....
A recent Cincinnati Enquirer headline read, "SMELL OF BAKED BREAD MAY BE HEALTH HAZARD." The article went on to describe the dangers of the smell of baking bread. The main danger, apparently, is that the organic components of this aroma may break down ozone (I'm not making this stuff up).
I was horrified. When are we going to do something about bread-induced global warming? Sure, we attack tobacco companies, but when is the government going to go after Big Bread?
Well, I've done a little research, and what I've discovered should make anyone think twice
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread eaters.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month!
6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low occurrence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and osteoporosis.
7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat, actually begged for bread after only two days.
8. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to harder items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter and even cold cuts.
9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.
11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.
12. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.
In light of these frightening statistics, we propose the following bread restrictions:
1. No sale of bread to minors.
2. No advertising of bread within 1000 feet of a school.
3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.
5. A $4.2 zillion fine on the three biggest bread manufacturers. Please send this e-mail on to everyone you know who cares about this crucial issue.
Remember: Think globally, act idiotically.
Not to say that sports journalists are very good - as a group they rank with politcal commentators. However, they don't do the "balance" thing because there is more or less a right answer at the end of the season - which every reader and sportscaster understands. So the guy who says that the Dolphins are a better team than the Patriots get ignored or laughed at because everyone can see their won-loss records
In science, as in sports, everyone can look at the raw data - but because of the complexity of modern science, only a few are able to interpret it. There's the problem - if you don't understand the bases of the expert opinions - how are you to evaluate them? It would be like trying to understand football articles without knowing the game. The easiest thing to do for the lazy journalist is to go into CYA mode and quote fans of both teams and conclude that the Dolphins may be as good as the Patriots.
But even if one is unable to completely fathom the game, a good journalist would be still able to follow and assess the logic of the arguments (i.e. win-loss record analyses) and the credentials of opinion giver (i.e. Phil Simms versus Dennis Miller for example) though this will still fail when the conclusions depend on the details (as they often do...). This is the level of science reporting which one finds in the Economist or sometimes, the Wall Street Journal. But here the readers have a monetary stake in the accuracy of the reporting and if the Dolphins losing to the Patriots costs them money - they stop reading the journal
So until people understand science as well as sports (very unlikely), or learn how to reason and evaluate reasoning (very unlikely) or get burnt by bad information (very likely) and learn from their mistakes (much less likely) we will continue to have bad science journalism as the norm.
Give an example of this "dramatic" error. General relativity is classical mechanics with a limiting speed -- which is beyond common experience. Orbital mechanics, kinematics of all types except for very high speeds are all done using Newton's Laws (or their equivalents, like Lagrange's and Hamilton's Equations). Quantum mechanics is adding interference effects to the Hamilton-Jacobi wave equation. For things that are big enough, classical mechanics is a very good approximation and is used then.
Religion is the opiate of the masses. The wealthy smoke the real stuff.
Journalism is enertainment for profit No, Journalism is used (and subverted) for entertainment and profit, particularly in the USA.
Does this mean you two rabidly dis^H^H^Hagree with each other?
I don't believe you. What I do believe is that we're all going to shut up and die someday. This brings me a great deal of comfort sometimes.
Please put down the weapon and back away from the keyboard slowly.
I didn't say it was a good theory, or that we should accept it as correct, only that if lots of people want to talk about it, we shouldn't go telling them that it's not a legitimate topic of discussion. What we should do is what you just did - look at it, examine it, and take two minutes to explain what, if any, are the flaws in such an explanation. What you did = good. Saying, in effect, "Fuck off, redneck!" = bad. ;)
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Yeah, that was a pretty reasonable answer. If I could boil it down to one sentence I would say it would be: Popularity of a theory makes it worth covering.
This leads to a few refinements: Who finds it popular (concensus of experts vs concensus of news watchers)? ; If you can find no factual supporting evidence, but it is popular, then should it still be covered (if the stork theory of child birth was popular, but no one could find any storks do you still need to cover it)?
I think critical and/or unpopular reporting is reasonable if the reporter is unable to find anything reasonable supporting popular opinion. I think my two refinements above support that this is reasonable at times. Perhaps, they still need to state they could find nothing credible (I can imagine that going over well - No STORKS! That guy is some crazy egg-head that does not understand child birth).
"A balanced report on global warming is not presenting whether or not it is occuring,but the degree and rapidity of it"
Not completely true. What about causes? Many scientists debate that humanity (America?) is the cause, but rather that it's likely a cyclical thing. Do journalists report this? Rarely. Many scientists let the negativism play out so that the "greenhouse gas effect" will hopefully become a foregone conclusion and those who disagree will be relegated to freak status. Luckily, with Global Warming, there are some pretty noteable scietists who think it's a natural occurance. Unfortunately, politicians, the big media, and many hungry for power aren't concerned with the facts.
Given that fact, and their inability to provide ALL information on a given topic implied by that fact, they must pick and choose what to pass along to the populace. The very fact that they must do this necessitates some sort of filtering process.
Now, to simplify your argument a bit (sorry!), you seem to be saying that popular opinion be used to dictate which opinions are deemed coverage-worthy or that ALL opinions are given near equal coverage. I, on the other hand, am advocating a more in-depth set of criteria which would effectively assign merit to each opinion and then choose the opinions with the most merit. I agree that by assigning worth to ideas does open the possibility for injection of bias, but that is not automatic. So I see us as having a difference of opinions on this matter. Fine.
But notice that I'm not saying that ANY opinion be dismissed out of hand by a journalist. If a journalist does his or her job, EVERY opinion would be judged against the same criteria, without exception. You latched onto the "because God says" argument above and noted that I didn't discuss WHY that had no backing. You are right. But how many times do we need to address the same argument before we can say the argument doesn't add anything to the discussion. The "because God says" argument has been deconstructed by thoughtful minds probably since the concept of God has been around. There are well established reasons why it doesn't work. Is it elitest of me to look at that history and then say, "it isn't a valid argument?"
I agree that every argument and opinion should be open for discussion and should not be dismissed out of hand by journalists or any thinking person. On the other hand, there comes a point where an argument has been so successfully defeated that mentioning it becomes like saying "2 + 2 = 5." I don't think it is elitest to recognize that fact when dealing with certain well-established arguments, so long as you keep an open mind and at least ADDRESS the existence of those arguments and understand the reasons you don't value those arguments.
Taft
While I wouldn't disagree that scientists are people and have their own particular biases, and that the game of science is certainly politically (in the general sense) I have to call crap on a lot of this woefully biased rant.
You're basically saying scientists are a bunch of leftist commie pinko fags, or words to that effect, so they are not to be believed. Yeah, everyone should believed that biased statement. At least scientists support their ideas with experiment.
The parent post makes the claim, without direct experience or other support in evidence, that only scientists proposing to advance "popular" notions get funded. That's pure bunk.
First off, what is "popular" in science is often popular because of large amounts of evidence that it is right. Should we spend millions of dollars on a project to show that the Earth is actually flat despite the "popularity" of other ideas? No, of course not. That would be stupid, not political.
Do some scientists perhaps torpedo competing points of view on review panels? Yeah, but not as much as the parent post seems to think. And when it does happen, it's usually a personal issue and not a political one.
The thing about SCIENCE, as opposed to scientists, is that it is apolitical. It's self-correcting. Tobacco companies funded their own pocket scientists at ridiculous levels, and science still managed to conclude that smoking is bad for people. Science also managed to conclude that continental drift happens, even though the idea was very unpopular.
I get upset when non-scientists rant about science in an uninformed way. The linked article was really great, coming from a non-scientist who had done some research. The parent post says "I am an agnostic on the Global Warming question because I know that the science is so screwed up I can't believe ANY of it" -- how does this non-scientist poster "know" this? There has been lots of research, and the majority of scientists in the field are not agnostic about it; they chracterize their uncertainty, quantitatively when possible.
Scientists LOVE to fund "unpopular" ideas when the proposers provide some evidence that they might be right. Overturning popular ideas is how new knowledge is developed. We actually don't like to fund refinements to standard models ad infinitum.
Now going back to my NSF proposal due Monday, especially worrying about how to play up its innovative aspects, which is a large part of the grading criteria.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
I worked briefly as a science reporter, so I can say a couple of things from my experience. The main problem with science reporters is not that they're uninformed -- lots of them have at least undergrad degrees in science and many of them read scientific journals regularly. The real problem is that they have this underlying fear of causing trouble, which leads to "balanced" stories. Editors and higher ups get nervous when a story has too clear of a policy implication, and feel much more comfortable when the story is a straight news piece. For example, I once wrote a story on "alternative" medicines (echinacea, gingko biloba, comfrey, etc.). The basic premise of the story was that people should be extremely careful of eating these things, because they're unregulated. To illustrate this point, I researched and described cases of herbal supplements that have killed people. I also mentioned some cases of herbals possibly helping people, but the central point was for people to be wary, because there are no government controls on what goes into them. My editor gave me a long lecture about the story, citing balance problems. It was rewritten by someone else, and what came out instead was a story talking about the economic power of the alternative medicine industry, and about what herbals are now popular. See? Story with a point becomes a story that doesn't offend anybody. I believe that the reason for this is that a lot of editors are afraid of getting the paper sued. Usually the reporter feels pretty comfortable with the science in the story, but the next editor up feels less so. As you go up the chain, people know less and less about the science, and the fear of lawsuit becomes stronger and stronger until you finally get to the publisher, who cares the least about science and the most about avoiding lawsuits. This leads to system-wide cowardice in the whole organization.
Now, you and I are educated, sophisticated people, who know very well that such a belief has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever. So we can either addresss this belief, and explain why it is a bad idea, or we can act as though such a belief is too crazy to entertain, and let them continue sexually assaulting seven year old girls. But we can't do both, and it is unfortunate that so many here - hey mods, pay attention! - prefer to sit and curse the darkness than light a candle.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
"the discrepancy between the Lancet estimate and the aggregated press reports is not as large as it seems at first. The Lancet figure implies that 60,000 people have been killed by violence, including insurgents, while the aggregated press reports give a figure of 15,000, counting only civilians. Nonetheless, Dr Roberts points out that press reports are a "passive-surveillance system". Reporters do not actively go out to many random areas and see if anyone has been killed in a violent attack, but wait for reports to come in. And, Dr Roberts says, passive-surveillance systems tend to undercount mortality. For instance, when he was head of health policy for the International Rescue Committee in the Congo, in 2001, he found that only 7% of meningitis deaths in an outbreak were recorded by the IRC's passive system. The study is not perfect. But then it does not claim to be. The way forward is to duplicate the Lancet study independently, and at a larger scale."
"The centre of its estimated range of death tolls--the most probable number according to the data collected and the statistics used--is almost 100,000. And even though the limits of that range are very wide, from 8,000 to 194,000, the study concludes with 90% certainty that more than 40,000 Iraqis have died. This is an extraordinary claim, and so requires extraordinary evidence. Is the methodology used... sound enough for reliable conclusions to be drawn from it?"
"Dr Roberts used a technique called clustering, which has been employed extensively in other situations where census data are lacking, such as studying infectious disease in poor countries... They interviewed a total of 7,868 people in 988 households. But the relevant sample size for many purposes--for instance, measuring the uncertainty of the analysis--is 33, the number of clusters. "...the data from individuals within a given cluster are highly correlated. Statistically, 33 is a relatively small sample (though it is the best that could be obtained by a small number of investigators in a country at war). That is the reason for the large range around the central value of 98,000, and is one reason why that figure might be wrong. (Though if this is the case, the true value is as likely to be larger than 98,000 as it is to be smaller.) It does not, however, mean, as some commentators have argued in response to this study, that figures of 8,000 or 194,000 are as likely as one of 98,000. Quite the contrary. The farther one goes from 98,000, the less likely the figure is."
"The second reason the figure might be wrong is if there are mistakes in the analysis, and the whole exercise is thus unreliable. Nan Laird, a professor of biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health, who was not involved with the study, says that she believes both the analysis and the data-gathering techniques used by Dr Roberts to be sound. She points out the possibility of "recall bias"--people may have reported more deaths more recently because they did not recall earlier ones. However, because most people do not forget about the death of a family member, she thinks that this effect, if present, would be small. Arthur Dempster, also a professor of statistics at Harvard, though in a different department from Dr Laird, agrees that the methodology in both design and analysis is at the standard professional level. However, he raises the concern that because violence can be very localised, a sample of 33 clusters really might be too small to be representative."
"This concern is highlighted by the case of
What makes you think it is either of those two things ?
"At least scientists support their ideas with experiment."
You mean like the superconductor research fraud? Or perhaps, the red dye faked data? Maybe the cold fusion dup? Like any of those scientists?
"And when it does happen, it's usually a personal issue and not a political one."
Bzzzt!! Again wrong. Environmental research into 'indicator species', erosion, and (shudder) GW are rife with political reasons (read funding) to shut down opposition.
"Tobacco companies funded their own pocket scientists at ridiculous levels, and science still managed to conclude that smoking is bad for people."
Mebbe. But, the second hand smoke issue is unresolved for exactly these kinds of reasons.
"Scientists LOVE to fund "unpopular" ideas when the proposers provide some evidence that they might be right. "
You mean like the archeologists who adamantly still support the "Clovis first" theory, despite lots of evidence against? That kind of 'love'?
Nope. Scientists are frought with the same human frailties as every other political being.
Sorry, I don't have anything to "cite" since it was years ago, and I'm too lazy to try and find it But I do remember at least one newscast reporting that "fact". Everybody knows fossil fuels are finite, so I'm sure it was more than that. Personally, I don't really care. My only point was only that science theories and techniques change as more information is learned.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
Personally I tend to put more of this down to bad journalism than bad science, or at the very least a big misunderstanding (or ignoring) of how science works on the part of journalists. Sometimes scientists actively go to the media with rubbish data, and in those cases I don't have much sympathy for them. At least as often, and I've had first-hand experience with this, scientists get manipulated or quoted out of context through misunderstanding or otherwise, by journalists, into giving a convenient sound-byte that might be quite mis-representative of their study.
Scientists publish when they've studied something because that's what they're supposed to do. As long as they publish properly, they'll include all of the relevant information for replication so that other scientists can see how useful (or useless) the study is, and if necessary run the study again. There's room to openly criticise the study on the grounds that it was performed, and this (usually) happens.
Journalists don't do this. They're more likely to do something a-kin to reading the conclusion of a study without the background or peer review, and transforming it into something that they think is news.
Scientists in some areas have had to radically adjust their own internal communications simply because they're being monitored by journalists who don't properly understand them. A great example of this is with asteroid tracking, where astronomers often report newly discovered asteroids that might collide with Earth at some point. The point of this publication is to request other astronomers to collect lots of observations so that a more accurate orbit can be calculated and any potential collision will be dis-proven. Frequently however, the media will simply pick it up as a story about an asteroid "possibly hitting Earth and wiping out life" in 20 years.
The existence of frauds isn't sufficient to indict scientists as a whole as fraudulent. The examples you cite actually support the claim that science is self-correcting, since the frauds were in fact found out.
And where the hell do you get your null results published? In my field, biophysics, this is extraordinary difficult - though it could save lots of work for many other scientists. At least here in Germany, biochemistry is not just basic research anymore. You have to prove RELEVANCE in your grant proposals - and this means mostly medical, and thereby ECONOMICAL, relevance. This doesn't leave much room for null results.
This comment does not exist.
What rational discussion can you have with a person who insists that an undetectable supernatural being has revealed His Will to them?
I believe in God, but I don't argue that my belief is rational. That makes it no less valid: It's just not rational.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
"Journalists are forced to produce a balanced view of an issue where only one view has any real credibility!"
Unfortunately your thinking makes the journalist into judge, jury, and executioner.
It's the audiances decision as to what has credibility, and what doesn't.
Your position means that we forfit that privilege for the sake of intellectual laziness.
"No wonder why our election was so close, why we can't decide anything anymore."
We decided that we want four more years of Bush. You're implying that there should have been one clear choice (1). Well that's not real life. Deal with it.
(1) Bet we all know what decision you would have prefered it to be. I hope I don't have to listen to whining for the next four years, like we did the previous four. You all have four years to be doing your civic duties.
I didn't say that scientists aren't frought with human frailties. I cleared stated they are, so why do you claim otherwise? Why lie about what I said just a few lines above?
I claimed that SCIENCE as an establishment is self-correcting and, in the long-term, unbiased. The media hyped up cold fusion, which is one of the things the linked article is all about, and the scientists themselves used a press conference to announce their results rather than a peer-reviewed journal. The vast majority of scientists didn't believe the claims and awaited experimental verification. That's how and why science works.
Over the long-haul, mountains of observational data will crush weak, but politically supported, scientific positions.
Are fradulent claims bad for science? Sure. Are they common? No way. Do they get smacked down when they can't be supported? Yes.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
I am not saying that someone should accept that the scientific community or any one scientist is always right. After all, that would run contrary to the basic tenets of science.
That was my original point. What I meant was "I no longer worship at the altar of science as being the sole arbiter of truth"
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
It's a dilemma, to be certain, but I think the whole idea of declaring ideas to be off-limits from the start is a mistake. If nothing else, there is a whole crop of new humans born every year who don't know that 2 + 2 != 5, and they have to be educated to that fact. There's never a point where you can say "it's over and we've won, so let's all shut up about it now," because there will always be people who need to be educated. Ideally, in educating people, those sorts of objections will be addressed simply as a matter of due course, but when the flat-earth people come along, it's not enough to simply dismiss them - we need to be able to respond, or we cede the field by our silence. People have a nasty habit of assuming that when you don't answer your critics, it's because you can't answer your critics, and that's what the presumptive technocratic elite here on slapdash doesn't understand. You can't just ignore them, or you're setting yourself up for a nasty surprise somewhere down the road.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Ah, the openminded exchange of ideas at slashdot...
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
I get my null results published in peer-reviewed journals, like everything else I work on. In this case, I was interested in trying to explain why the radio emission from the core of 3CR 68.1 was so weak in comparison to its overall radio brightness, and I hypothesized that it was due to free-free absorption . I got time on the Very Large Array in New Mexico to see if it was true, but the data indicated that it wasn't. It's still useful to publish because we didn't know before that the weakness of the radio core was not the result of absorption. Now, this may seem like a very specific small thing, but in order to get the telescope time and get the paper published, I did have to tie this all into a larger understanding of quasar unification and orientation effects. In a pure area of research like astronomy, economic relevance isn't an important criterion.
Concerning null results, however, you really do need to make an effort to publish them. Otherwise other scientists may waste time and money duplicating efforts that don't go where it seems they might.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Exactly. And the bigger problem is science is highly politicized. So it would be great if journalists put some effort into debunking bad science, but then most journalists are just as biased and in the same way.
Oh, really? That would explained how the mainstream media has allowed the Bush administration, and campaign, to blithely lie about so many things. But don't take my word for it, take Dick Cheney's (corrected) word: http://www.factcheck.org/
Yeah, Kerry's campaign did it too (though not as much). But these are things the press in the U.S. are just not reporting, and it favors whoever's in office at the time, not "liberals" or "conservatives." Indeed, the way the press has almost coddled this administration speaks volumes against your point.
And no one has done more coddling than Fox News, who would like us to believe that they're just balancing out the rest of the press.
But it's just not true. A truly balanced would be scarcely useful, because all they could do is report what the two "sides" in a debate are saying, without being allowed to do their own searching for the truth, which would immediately be pounced upon by the side (or both of them!) who is found lacking.
The only time they present opposing views is to either ridicule them or create some sense of conflict to sex up their story. Neither scientists or journalists are very interested in searching for the Truth if it collides with their politics.
Don't you see some sort of irony in your words?
Mark this ladies and geeks, mark what I'm about to say because it's becoming obvious that it's going to become more and more relevant in the coming years:
The people who speak out about a bias in the media and sciences do so by reacting to the percieved bias, thus making themselves guilty of the thing they complain about, whether their compaints were valid or not.
Lets look at the Science game for a moment. Just who are those grant providers you speak of? Major universities and government agencies like the NSF, staffed with academics from the university world.
And, you know, big corporations that do a lot of funding and are increasingly using universities as a sort fo extended job training that doesn't actually promise a job at the end of it.
If you haven't figured out yet that universities are 0wn3d by the left/socialists/progressives/whatever they call themselves this week you probably are one of the ones who think the Red states are filled with idiots and want to leave for Canada.
Doesn't it seem at all strange that so many universities, places of Higher Freaking Learning, have so many people there who subscribe to a worldview opposed to your own? Doesn't this at least cause you to examine your own beliefs?
Part of the journey to getting a doctorate degree is to defend your beliefs, or your thesis anyway, against attack. I've done a hell of a lot of self-belief examining in my life, but I'm not at all sure I've done enough. I think every damn human who lives on this damn world needs to. My question to you is, do you?
As for the red states -- many of them are not *that* red, there were a lot of close calls across the country, and Bush won by only 3% of the vote, which means that if 1.5% had voted the other way, it would have been a popular tie. And you don't have to be an elite-Jewish-doctor-commie to think that this country is going to get a lot loonier during those additional 1,461 days.
So there are no 'respectable' scientists who hold opposing views on politicized scientific issues because by definition you can't BE a 'respectable' scientist since the people who decide who gets to be a scientist won't allow those with opposing views to stay in the club.
Are you arguing this because you've found actual bias, or are you arguing it because it has to be argued in order to preserve the moral superiority of your beliefs?
Kinda like why you don't find many pro life
Not to say that religious folks necessarily fall under this heading, but you're not arguing to convince the crackpots and the wingnuts - they're hopelessly beyond the reach of reason. You're arguing on behalf of all those folks out there sitting on the fence and watching, who want to be educated, and will take it wherever they can find it. It can be from you, or you can bail out, and they can get it from the crackpots - I prefer that we not give up on them, though, or we're going to find ourselves in a heap of trouble later on.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
"The authority rests with experiment."
And the gatekeepers (scientists) of those experiments, unless one's arguing that all your readers should be out there doing experiments (becoming scientists themselves)
"It is perhaps the most immutable but most widely misunderstood property of modern science: a proposition can never be proved to be absolutely true. There can always be some experiment lurking around the corner to require alteration of any model of reality.
What is unequivocal, however, is falseness. A theory whose predictions fail the test of experiment is always wrong, period, end of story. "
We just got through having a debate over evolution, and creationsim. The consensus is that science is not equipped for dealing with faith. The above statement basically says "I'm right and that's that". For some that smacks of the arrogance of science, and scientists.
Exactly my position - and I spend a lot of energy on that. But mostly, I am going nowhere with it. You can manage to pull it off if you heavily discuss your null result in some positive terms (e.g. "prion protein helix 1 does not change conformation under any of the applied environmental conditions. We hypothesize therefore that it has some protective "gatekeeper" function preventing the conformational change of the whole prion protein").
Having seen the development of biochemistry in the last decade, I really feel it to be in quite a sad state. While you can publish pure, fundamental research, you have nearly no chance of getting funding for it, if your proposal doesn't scream "MEDICAL RELEVANCE!!!! POTENTIAL PATENTS!!! SAVING THE WORLD FROM CANCER; AIDS, BSE!!!!!" all over it.
This comment does not exist.
> I claimed that SCIENCE as an establishment is self-correcting and, in
> the long-term, unbiased.
Given a long enough time horizon I'd agree. But so has the general human condition been on a generally upward trend, and I'd assert that Science hasn't proven to have a much better track record of improvement than say, Philosophy or Politics.
Sorry, call me a cynic if you must but I agree with the guy (can't remember which famous physicist right now) who said, "Scientists don't change their minds, they just die."
Democrat delenda est
Well, he is a man.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
So, give me honest left wing and right wing bias. We're going to get the bias anyway, might as well be straightforward about it. If some reporter wants to talk to wackos, that's fine. If it's worth bothering with I'll check Slashdot to find out the truth. *Cough*.
Consequences ensue.
I tend to agree with "Scientists don't change their minds, they just die." There is a certain percentage of scientists who get locked-on certain ideas and never change them despite new evidence, and later generations don't have a problem. That would seem to set the long-term upper limit at something like 35 years, the typically length of a scientific career. Still, they tend to be brushed aside long before they die and provide some friction, rather than a wall, to advancement.
I'd still claim that science moves a lot faster than politics or philosophy, and certainly some fields of science move lightning fast.
In my specialty, astronomy, we're to a great extent technology limited. Every major new advance in detector or instrument technology can mean dramatic new results. For instance, in the last ten years we've learned of over a hundred extrasolar planets when before we knew of none. We also learned that the universal expansion is accelerating, most likely the result of "dark energy" which we didn't even know existed. We've learned not only how to detect black holes in other galaxies, we've been able to measure their masses. And there are lots of other things as well, perhaps not so important, but that could become important.
How exactly has our understaning of philosophy or politics advanced in the last ten years>
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Thank you for finally speaking the truth. People are so blind today. They get so snowed by all the big words and fancy college degrees that they don't take a step back to see what a bunch of crap science really is.
In addition to global warming, due to how screwed up science is, I also don't believe in microbes, magnetism, or the biggest communist conspiracy of them all: gravity.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
The problem is a lot of people, journalist included, simply don't know what science is.
i c_method
In short, it't about scientific method:
1. Characterization
2. Hypothesis (a theoretical, hypothetical explanation)
3. Prediction (logical deduction from the hypothesis)
4. Experiment (test of all of the above)
Read more from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientif
Gosh, where are the mod points when one needs them??? MOD PARENT UP!
This is not funny. This's exactly what I often hear from the journalists - confusing correlation with causation. They're often failing in their logic dept. already, not to mention rigorous science.
> The people who speak out about a bias in the media and sciences do so by
>reacting to the percieved bias, thus making themselves guilty of the
> thing they complain about, whether their compaints were valid or not.
Not at all. I claim bias in the media because they state as settled fact things very much in dispute, like Global Warming, they report the claims of left leaning groups as fact and the claims of the right as "claims from the right wing thinktank.....". And so on and so on.
> And, you know, big corporations that do a lot of funding and
And I don't trust their paid for research anymore than I buy into the NSF's when it is on a political subject. Both are pushing a political agenda and trying to gain respectability by tarting it up as Science.
> Doesn't it seem at all strange that so many universities, places of
> Higher Freaking Learning, have so many people there who subscribe to
> a worldview opposed to your own? Doesn't this at least cause you to
> examine your own beliefs?
Not a bit. What do clostered ivory tower intellectuals know about the real world? Probably less than cloistered priests from bygone days knew about it. Why should I take the political opinions of some halfwit humanities "Professor" pushing failed socialist ideas in what is billed as a English class more seriously than I would from some other schmuck? Or for that matter why should I take the political views of a Nobel Prize winning physicist more seriously than I would Bill Buckley or James Carville. Specialization in one field confers little or no authority in another, in fact the reverse is more often true. When university types stop taking intellectual frauds like Noam Choamsky seriously I might listen to what they have to say, but I'll probably never give much extra weight to the fact they have tenure. I'm bright enough to reject arguments that depend on an appeal to authority.
Fact of the matter is most university types were educated far beyond their intelligence, and only the ones who couldn't succeed in the real world tend to make careers in academia.
> Except that "Democrat" and "Republican" are themselves arbitrary terms
>that have come to mean what they mean today, and not too long ago meant
> quite different things, while "scientist" is a term that predates our
> pitiful nation by centuries. Why not ask Galileo who he voted for?
And I hold that "Scientist" is equally arbitrary, especially as it is done today. That there are accepted dogmas one must believe if one is to be successful in the field of science. And no, the idealized notion of the Scientist doesn't predate our Republic by much, and the critter probably hasn't ever existed as such. Newton was reputedly a prick who stole ideas from his students and such, Einstein couldn't accept Quantum Mechanics on religious principle, etc. In the end, scientists are not homo superior, they are people just like thee and me, filled with preconceived notions and biases. The great ones are the ones who manage to overcome all that just a little, and by standing on the shoulders of the great ones who came before them see just a little bit farther. Then they usually get abused and neglected by all of the other "respectable" scientists until they are dead.
Democrat delenda est
Love it! Your first paragraph actually was getting me worked up (thinking, "oh no, another loon") until I read your second paragraph!
What's not funny is that there appear to be at least a couple vocal slashdotters who seem to really believe what you're just joking about it.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Sure, you're right--science takes time. Self-correction in science takes time. But there are two things meant by self-correcting here. First, that fraud is uncovered. This occurs on the timescale of current research. Verification is fast, and attempts to build on another researcher's falsified work will (generally) quickly identify those falsehoods so that they can be excised from the accepted body of evidence describing a scientific problem. Of course, even here, fast is actually pretty slow to the public eye, which sees very little to none of the science behind some newspaper article giving a precis of it.
Second, self-correction also means changing the accepted interpretation of a scientific problem as new evidence comes to light. This, of course, takes time (c.f. flat earth-->round earth). Discoveries and new ideas take time to surface, but we're getting better at it, largely because science operates largely on a hypothesis-driven research model. Despite his appeal to our Horatio Alger self-made-man ideal in the US, the garage tinkerer who looks to just happen upon some interesting discovery is pretty ineffective.
Also, your comparison of the timescale of science's successes to the timescale of the betterment of the 'general human condition' was a joke, right? Look at the advancements in medicine, in materials science, in communication, in {insert damn-near any cool aspect of modern living here} and tell me that one again. 'Science' (as we're talking about it here) has been a dominant paridigm of discovery for, say, a few hundred years (of course somebody will argue with this, but I'll toss it out there anyway). In that time, look at what it has given us.
Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard, be evil.
The estimate a year ago was 15,000 dead Iraqis [may require registration]. At that time there were only 230 US soldiers dead as well, so assuming the Iraqi death toll paces the US death toll, that would imply around 75,000 Iraqis killed. That's not far off from the 100,000 estimate.
gosh, where is the mod point category "idiot" when you need it? Mod this dufus that!
Actually, your post is quite impressive in its thoughtfulness.
I would simply urge you to consider the role of journalism. Whereas a science textbook, as you point out, needs to focus on consensus ideas to present material coherently, a news account has almost the opposite mission: present novel, consensus changing information, because it is designed for informed people who want NEW information.
You raise the key point with this: new scientific information is extremeley suspicious. Journalists perhaps need to exercise more restraint an patience than they have. But they need less restraint than a textbook editor. Much less.
Global warming is mostly in dispute because it is (a) not an immediate consequence of Newtonian laws, the only stuff regarded as being completely true, and (b) politically highly inconvenient, as no-one likes this. The theory of global warming is one century old, it has been predicted, and it is measured. It's now one degree warmer than a century ago. It is merely highly inconvenient for current governments, hence lots of funding goes to efforts to disprove it, to no avail. The political bias in science you mention is not for global warming, it's against it. Lots of funding has gone to dispel the global warming hypothesis, all to no avail, the evidence is on the side of the global warming hypothesis.
Just to put it bluntly: if you see an avenue to divorce the measured global warming from the consequences of human action, I'm sure your current government will be eager to fund you. So on whose side is the political bias here?
Two minutes per idiot adds up to a lot of time!
Religion is the opiate of the masses. The wealthy smoke the real stuff.
Oh, how sweeet... a trolling little AC calling me dufus on /. :))))
Over the long-haul, mountains of observational data will crush weak, but politically supported, scientific positions.
Maybe over the real long run, like decades, but certainly not in the short run, where politicized fake science gets institutional backing... Like the EPA and the other governal bureacuracies, where the agency's funding and projects depend on their finding the "right" conclusions. Someone mentioned second hand smoke... That's probably a very good example.
DAILY ROTATION
Why are these two professions so often at odds?
Simply because the schools make students specialise far to soon in their lives. Pupils who show any word-mongering skills get little or no exposure to Science, while the scientist types get little or no exposure to Literature. Thus many scientists cannot hang words together to make sentences, and the literary types are grossly ignorent of even the most basic science.
Science and Journalism are thus on differrent planets!!
I attended engineering school on a campus with a decently respected Journalism Program (University Of Missouri Columbia). The J-School people were required to take about the same amount of math and science as education majors (read: freshman high school algebra (up to quadratic) and one puff science course like 'Rocks for Jocks'). I saw none volunteering to take core classes like calculus that would equip them to understand the discussion of technical issues.
As a further jab a journalists, they take courses called 'critical thinking' yet continue to report perpertual motion machines without a question. My physics coursework has equiped me with BS detectors that are, in some respects, demonsterably better then those the majority reporters carry around.
They would'nt let me graduate without rudimentary communication skills. Jounalists should be REQUIRED to master highschool level science. Otherwise they are a social hazard.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Hey, fighting ignorance is, and always has been, an uphill battle. Surely nobody promised you life was fair ;)
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
A journalists job is to act as a sieve for the truth, distilling and presenting it as clearly to their public in the most attractive manner that their skill permits. That's what journalism is.
What we get on the news is a bunch of useless crap that doesn't mean anything to anyone. All that the news is about Scott Peterson. Who gives a fuck. Let the system do it's work, what can I possibly take away from the trial? Even in the run up to the election. All the reporting about how close the polls were. Uh, they're so close there is no statistically significant difference. Fine, that's interesting, but that's not all there is. What about frequent, critical, careful evalutation of each of the canadates? No place for that?
The closest to journalism I see outside of PBS is when The Daily Show shows a clip of an administration official making some claim, then John makes a wry remark, and they play a series of clips of administration officials completely contradicting their most recent claim.
Lets look at the Science game for a moment. Just who are those grant providers you speak of? Major universities and government agencies like the NSF, staffed with academics from the university world. If you haven't figured out yet that universities are 0wn3d by the left/socialists/progressives/whatever they call themselves this week you probably are one of the ones who think the Red states are filled with idiots and want to leave for Canada.
This is kind of foolish. For the most part, the political views of scientists are not know even to the administrators of the university where they work. Most scientists publish scientific papers, not political tracts. I work in a scientific department, and I couldn't tell you where most of my immediate colleagues stand on the political spectrum. I would imagine that on average they are more liberal than the general population, but that's only playing the odds--highly educated people tend, statistically, to be more liberal than average.
Similarly, the granting agencies that fund my research are unlikely to have any idea of what my political views are. I've sat on NIH Study Sections, and I'm hard put just to read all of the grant proposals that I am responsible for--I certainly don't have time to research the politics of the applicants. I have never heard political issues raised in a Study Session discussion. Yes, there are fashions in science, and if you are trying to get support for a proposal that challenges the generally accepted view, you need more compelling evidence than if your work fits with the generally accepted view. But in most cases, that is appropriate--a particular view becomes accepted because there is strong evidence to support it.
In the case of global warming, there's no particular vested interest that wants global warming to be true. Global warming or not, climate modeling and weather prediction is important enough that it will attract research support regardless. On the other hand, there are powerful economic interests that will be hurt by the measures that would be required to control CO2
Most brand name scientists of teh past century were all too eager to sign onto socialist utopian and fascist schemes because they promised a world governed by reason and science, i.e. themselves.
Most scientists, today as in the past, are not interested in running things--if they were, they would have gone into politics or government rather than science. Most are pretty focused on their own research interests, and are primarily concerned with being able to continue their research.
The thing about SCIENCE, as opposed to scientists, is that it is apolitical. It's self-correcting.
True, of course, but this sorta misses the same point that so many of your critics are also missing: The original article wasn't about science at all; it was about the media's "balanced" misreporting of scientific news.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
South Park and your post are both so lame that nobody marked it up Funny. Loser.
About 4 years ago CNN.com ran a story entitled "Cloned algae taking over coastline".
The story focused on a type of algae that had been asthetically enhanced through selective breeding and cloning for the aquarium trade, but that had gotten into the wild and done well in places in the mediteranian and now in southern california. At that time CNN had discussion forums and the usual erruption of pro and anti-GM/frankenstuff debate.
Now I personally have quite a bit of experience with cultivating both houseplants and aquatic plants, and in those fields the term 'clone' is simply used to refer to a plant grown from a cutting. Nothing sinister in that practice whatsoever unless you're up to putting granny's flowerbox to the torch. I pointed this out and lambasted the author of the article for ignorance and deceptive reporting. That pretty much killed the debate, at least regarding the algae, and CNN amazingly revised the article a few hours later and removed all mention of cloning.
Of course it's sad that this algae is damaging some marine environments, but the journalists excitement to jump aboard a hot-button issue like that got in the way of the truth in a big way. Especially since the problem is in California, where "Cloned plants" could get banned by the overactive legislature.
Here's a similar article that still exists: http://www.rense.com/general2/ag.htm if you type in "Cloned algae california" to google it's amazing how many misleading stories there are about it.
Having worked in the research branch of a Federal science installation, I would have to say that you have a point. When the global warming theory started becoming a big issue in the late 80s, there was an effort to make sure that it was documented that any new or current projects had something to do with it or the more general term "Global Change". Why? Funding. It helped open up different funding channels that otherwise weren't available. It didn't matter if the actual work really had anything directly to do with it or not. As long as the proposal made the case that your project would help advance research in that topic in some way, shape or form, the easier it was to get it approved. IMHO, it was still valid work that needed to be done, but it helped make the pols higher up in the food chain feel happy that they were doing something about the problem.
If you think about it, scientists that are using this avenue to get funding AREN'T going to say it's not a problem because if they do, their funding disappears.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
The biggest problem with science and journalism is the same problem scientists have with science. We mistake scientific theories for fact! Science is a process of examining a set of facts, presenting a THEORY, testing a THEORY and then revising a THEORY. The final step is to look where the THeory doesn't match the facts and start over.
Theories are nothing more than descriptive models of the universe. Thus a geocentric universe was an adequate theory untill instruments became sensitive enough to make the theory unworkable. At that point, a better theory was embraced. With limited accuracy, both theories were useful for predicting the position of the planets. The heliocentric model held untill we realized the universe was bigger than we thought. Now we find that it too was flawed and needed improvement (replaced with spiral galaxies, local clusters etc).
Fifteen years ago, the medical community thought Prions were junk science. Now it is the leading theory describing Mad cow desease. New data, better model.
Do not procalim scientific fact to loudly. You will eventuall be proven wrong. Instead, proclaim that the best available model says... Then admit that it may change in the future.
> The theory of global warming is one century old, it has been predicted,
> and it is measured
No reliable tempretaure measurements exist from measuring stations which are not now deep inside the heat domes of major population centers so I'd like to know how it has been 'measured' reliably enough to state with a high degree of confidence that global tempratures are up 1 degree.
Then, even if you can properly document a temprature change you have to be able to prove the cause. We do know with a high degree of confidence that both the global average temprature and localized regions have shown large variablility over recorded history, long before the industrial age where man's influence would have been large enough to account for the changes. Greenland's name isn't just some sick joke, there was a time when it WAS green.
For example, the 'ol folks around here (Beauregard Parish Louisiana, USA) recall that we used to get snow around here on a fairly regular basis. There are even a few old B&W photos that pop up showing snow on local landmarks. Hasn't really snowed here in my lifetime though. Is that Global Warming at work or a localized climate change? Which was the aberation from the longterm average? Considering there were no people here two hundred years ago and only a couple of farmers, etc one hundred years back it would be hard to collect enough data to say.
There is pretty good historical correlation between solar activity and global climate, and considering Mr. Sun has been very cranky of late, perhaps you need look no farther for your cause than the sky above.
Face it, the case for global climate change is still largely unproven but a lot of so called scientists believe in it with a fervor not normally seen outside a Pentecostal church or a Howard Dean rally.
Democrat delenda est
"Clustering works by picking out a number of neighbourhoods at random--33 in this case--and then surveying all the individuals in that neighbourhood. The neighbourhoods were picked by choosing towns in Iraq at random (the chance that a town would be picked was proportional to its population) and then, in a given town, using GPS--the global positioning system--to select a neighbourhood at random within the town. Starting from the GPS-selected grid reference, the researchers then visited the nearest 30 households."
This is a standard and valid method for sampling. I've done it myself. Go check out a book like Deming's 'Some Theory of Sampling.'
"In each household, the interviewers (all Iraqis fluent in English as well as Arabic) asked about births and deaths that had occurred since January 1st 2002 among people who had lived in the house for more than two months. They also recorded the sexes and ages of people now living in the house. If a death was reported, they recorded the date, cause and circumstances. Their deductions about the number of deaths caused by the war were then made by comparing the aggregate death rates before and after March 18th 2003."
And now you're talking directly to the people who know. Painfully, tearfully know exactly who has died, and happily know who was born.
If someone was doing the same sampling and happened to get your house, wouldn't you know exactly the same information? In the past 3 years I've had 3 deaths and 1 birth in my family. I only have 1 death certificate, but I know to the day and the hour when each death or birth happened. (These didn't happen in my house, but if I lived in an extended family situation they would have.)
Of course, the surveyed people could be mistaken about dates or could lie, so you do some random sampling to check for that (asking neighbors. checking death certificates if they're typical for the date and neighborhood: during the war times certificates might have been harder to come by).
Then you weigh each sample by the population it represents, combine them, use the standard tables to get your sample bounds and errors, and you've got decent results. Better results than passive observers. Infinitely better results than the US Army, which "does not collect this data" but knows to take over the Falluja General Hospital because it was releasing 'inflated' casualty figures. Inflated compared to what data that they knew, exactly?
> The original article wasn't about science at all; it was about the
> media's "balanced" misreporting of scientific news.
True, but if the Science community is really as biased as I'm claiming, any journalist who takes their claims at face value is either incompetent or in on the attempt to influnce public opinion with slanted politicized pseudoscience masquerading under the name of Science.
Generally, a properly functioning Press would be very similar to a properly functioning scientific establishment in that both would be engaged in a relentless persuit of the facts, regardless of where they might lead. Both would approach their work with a slightly skeptical midset, ready to question the establishment. Of course this world doesn't really exist.
Democrat delenda est
Just last week, I was at a banquet for the 2004 International Meeting of the Institute of Human Virology -- a meeting where most of the top scientists in HIV research (as well as in tumor biology and virology) congregate and discuss results. One of the speakers was a science journalist by the name of Jon Franklin. He gave a speech entitled "The End of Science Writing" and it is sort of eery that today's slashdot post is so reminiscent of its tone and words. If you have the time, and especially if you're a scientist, please read it. Here's a little excerpt:
As for me, I saw the handwriting on the wall but thought I could be of some value educating the next generation of science writers. In 1989 I took a job as head of the science journalism department at Oregon State University. OSU is Oregon's premier science campus, and its journalism department was the only undergraduate science journalism department in the country. There are several graduate institutions that teach science journalism, but most journalists do not have advanced degrees.
In any event, shortly after I arrived the voters of Oregon approved a tax-cutting measure that fell heavily on higher education. OSU decided science journalism was expendable. I knew the news industry wasn't going to support the program, but I thought science might. The critical player was OSU's dean of sciences. I went to him, hat in hand. I'll never forget his response.
"That's your problem," he said. "We don't need you."
I left the university, of course. Shortly thereafter they closed down science journalism. It looked for a while like they might also close the ballroom dance program. But they found money to keep that. Also, that year, the university undertook a multimillion dollar renovation of its football stadium.
--Jon Franklin
Linux at home
Personally, I am an agnostic on the Global Warming question because I know that the science is so screwed up I can't believe ANY of it.
Thank you for finally speaking the truth. People are so blind today. They get so snowed by all the big words and fancy college degrees that they don't take a step back to see what a bunch of crap science really is.
In addition to global warming, due to how screwed up science is, I also don't believe in microbes, magnetism, or the biggest communist conspiracy of them all: gravity.
While I'm sure you're speaking in jest, you're comparing apples to oranges. Microbes, magnetism, and gravity are all nouns. It turns out that it's not very hard to prove that a noun exists. Proving that something will occur (or even proving that something HAS occurred) is a MUCH different process. It turns out that people are really bad at predicting just about anything with any degree of certainty. We can make some general assumptions, but that's about it. I'm sure someone will pipe in about the only way to prove gravity exists is to witness something falling, however that's hardly the same thing. Saying two objects will fall toward one another is the same as saying the temperature will change. Predicting exactly how the two objects will fall toward each other is a much more difficult undertaking. Saying you don't believe in gravity is like saying the grandparent poster doesn't believe in weather.
That said..
In all reality, it's very likely that greenhouse gasses ARE warming our atmosphere and the surface of the planet. What's not at all likely is that this is strictly a bad thing, for everyone, everywhere. Landmasses will definately change -- to the detriment of some, but to the benefit of others. That's how the world works. Certain parts of the world increase in value, while others decrease, for whatever reason -- pollution, crime, accessibility, distance from other locations, etc., etc. Just because part of todays coastline is underwater tomorrow doesn't mean there's no more coastal property. Just because OUR heartland turns into a desert doesn't mean other places won't become outstanding farmland. Change in and of itself is neither good nor bad. . . Only failure to keep up with changes.
As the saying goes, adapt or die.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
This shouldn't be anything surprising. When a society jumps at the shocking, the surreal, of course we'll get what we want. Steven Landsburg, at slate, has illustrated and explained this link long ago with academic journals. See: http://slate.msn.com/id/34856/ These journals use the sensational (and more often less accurate) findings in stories to attract readers. Why should it be any different with any other news agency? If you want more solid science go somewhere that there is less incentive to be sensational. Where people are already genuinely interested, such as a magazine devoted soley to science.
Yeah, that's what I said when I wanted to set off thermonuclear bombs in all the major cities, but nobody would listen to me, those damn change-averse cowards. Where were you in my hour of need?
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
"As a result of this continued hostility, researchers say they still know precious little about fundamental questions, including how sexual desire affects judgment, how young people develop a sexual identity, why so many people take sexual risks, how personality and mood affect sexual health and how the explosion of sexual material on the Internet and trysts arranged online affect behavior.
Perhaps the strongest protests have arisen in response to efforts to treat - or even to study - deviant sexual behavior like pedophilia, opposition that has grown only fiercer in the wake of the scandals in the Roman Catholic Church.
"I have been in this field for 30 years, and the level of fear and intimidation is higher now than I can ever remember," said Dr. Gilbert Herdt, a researcher at San Francisco State University who runs the National Sexuality Resource Center, a clearinghouse for sexual information. "With the recent election, there's concern that there will be even more intrusion of ideology into science."
He added, "But then, this country has always had a troubled relationship with sex research."
Much of the suspicion is rooted in religious belief. Many devout believers see any effort to catalog sexual behavior as akin to publishing a field guide to carnal sin, an invitation to deviancy. "
After reading this comment why do I get this feeling that the writer hardly understands what science is. It is not just a bunch of folks getting together to write about their "finding" nor "sucessfully" showing a point of view.
Science is about the testing and repudiation of ideas, given certain (hopefully supportable/logical) premises. Science is about disproof more than it is about "proof". The notion of expectation can only be couched in the context of the logical consequences of the assumptions made and their "verification" or "falsification" based upon the results of observations (hopefully measurements that can be repeatedly and precisely made) used to "test" these expectations. Science is a way of knowing it is not a particular true or false finding per se. Good and bad are really irrelevant adjectives to ascribe to science, except in as much as they relate (or not) to the tests made given the assumptions made.
For example, scientists don't give creationism any credence and take Darwinism not as a theory in the sense of a hypothesis (as generally thought by the lay community) but as a scientific theory (one that has passed the most stringent testing and can be regarded as much a fact as the idea of a brightly shining sun in the center of our solar system). No mater where or how you look you will always find evidence of the correctness of such "facts" and never find ANY observations that contradict them. Creationists could disprove Darwin's central thesis by finding ONLY ONE observation that does not comport his hypothesis. Scientists don't take creationism since 1) no creationist has ever found such a fact and 2) those notions such as that "God was responsible for it all" could just as well apply to the chair they are sitting on, or a wall-clock, or an underwater yodeler since in no case could provide any objective (consistently measureable) evidence to the contrary.
The world of science is analogous to the mathematician's notion of a counter example. All you need is one to show that an idea is untenable (not logically consistent with the initial assumptions/axioms made.
These ideas are quite independent of grant money or points of view or debates such as "how many fairies can dance on the head of a pin". It must be understood that science can only answer a limited (but very, very large) number of questions. It can answer only questions that are scientifically posed. Is their a god does not fall into this category, since there is no means of establishing an independent perspective that would permit a falsifiable hypothesis to be contrcuted (ie one that has the potential of being proved false). Such questions are irrelevant to science. Others such as "is the earth getting warmer and if it is, is human activity making it hotter? are very much scientific questions. It will not be decided by "points of view" or "talking points" or "balancing the pros or cons" or "debates by experts", "by the guys who get the grants", even though to the layman much of science is viewed in this way. Rather it is a winnowing out of explanations that are not plausible given known evidence (measurements repeatedly taken). It is thus the cogency and consistency of ideas logically considered that allows us to establish scientific truth.
The wonderful thing is that like mathematics, its really only about clear thinking and every one can have a go at it (although obviously natural selection did not leave us all equally endowed). Scientific discovery is not about finding facts per say, it is about a way of knowing what to think of these "facts".
Yes, you can get funding much more easily for popular notions. However, can you guess why they're "popular?" It's simply because we need to know the answers. It's because we're looking at answers that could be crucial to our lives.
And it doesn't make any difference to the studies and experiments that they concern popular questions. Science is nothing but an applied way of having others independently verify your answers. That's all it is. You can't fake the answers, whether they're popular or not.
There's nothing "heretical" about being wrong. Scientists disprove each others' ideas all the time. That's just science. But a scientist who keeps coming up with ideas that are proven wrong, or insists that that the majority of the research in a field is wrong--that everyone else is wrong--will have a hard time getting funding, yes. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
I find it very sad, by the way, that one of the tactics you used is the old Red Scare. You portray university scientists as "left/socialists/progressives/whatever they call themselves this week." Isn't it obvious to you that "they" aren't calling themselves anything?
You're generalizing about a very mixed group, which you'd know if you took the time to learn more. About the only thing scientists can agree on is that they are impatient for answers, and the funding they need to get them.
But politics is necessary in science. Because the funding goes to the biggest questions, much of scientific debate goes into fighting over just which questions those are.
Most scientists don't think they have all the answers--or they wouldn't be scientists--but the overwhelming scientific consensus is that global warming is happening and it is important.
One thing you are conveniently overlooking, very conveniently, since it was in the article, is that when journalists try to balance between mainstream science and fringe scientific views surviving on industry money, they mislead the public. Journalists are not doing a good job of separating political views from scientific views.
Scientists tell us that we need to change how we live in order to avoid changing the climate of the planet. That is correct according to the current scientific consensus.
George Bush tells us that our jobs are more important than the environment, that the changes required to reduce our effect on the environment are too expensive to support. That is correct according to the current political consensus.
Scientists are telling us that we've made some big mistakes, and we may spend our lives and fortunes trying to dig out from under them. However, this idea will be a hard sell, and the President has other plans.
But Bush also needs some scientific credibility, so he supports the fringe scientists and ignores the mainstream science. The scientific community finds this apalling. Perhaps that make them socialists in your eyes. I'm sure it at least makes for many democrats.
It's not the fault of our political leaders that we like our comfortable lives and don't want to believe in catastrophe. We don't really understand the issues yet, as a country, and as a people.
We aren't well-informed. Pointing out why that is was what the article was all about. That's all.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _>8
Too many errors in one post (make fewer).
Any reasonable quantitative or qualitative researcher will tell you that one's paradigm and theoretical point of view will color one's research. As the October 2000 issue of Forbes ASAP magazine shows, if you ask 50 people from the fields of science, history, media, religion, business, technology, and popular culture what "truth" is or means, you'll get 50 different answers. As Michael Quinn Patton puts it, "Truth, in this case, means reasonably accurate and believable data rather than data that are true in some absolute sense." The doctrine of "fairness" then, that found its roots in investigative journalism is not out of place in scientific research: it assumes multiple realities or perspectives, it is adversarial (any good research should be able to stand up in the face of critiques), and acknowledges that the investigator's (be they journalistic or scientific) views and mere presence may color the results. It is quite simply the understanding that "objectivity" does not and cannot exist in any human enterprise. We can only strive to acknowledge our own biases in research and must therefore work to ensure that they do not color our data as much as possible. This is why there are multiple methods for ensuring credibility and validity. We must prove that our evidence is credible, and therefore it must stand up to the critiques by people who do not share our paradigm's point of view. The point is not to be anti-truth (there is no one universal truth, as much as we may wish it so), but rather pro-meaningfulness. By acknowledging both the weaknesses AND strengths of our data and our analysis, we can focus on the really important questions. The problem is not subjectivity, but rather that subjectivity has such a negative connotation. Rather, we must focus on "critical persuasivBeness" as Barone says. Science is great not because it finds the "truth", but because it conducts research using methods that produce results that stand up to criticism and testing. The beauty of Age of Enlightenment thought - rational, scientific, epistemological - is that EVERYTHING is questionable. There is no "truth" in any kind of scientific research, just things that we can't prove wrong. I say this as someone currently conducting research.
Oddly enough, that my thinking too. My favorite example is a social studies teacher who use the absolute fact that infalible carbon dating had proven that a Catholic artifact (the shroud of Turin) could not have been old enough to be authentic. Thus, he proved, that Christians are all stupid, supersticious fools.
I figured I could buy it for Catholics. Hey I was kid and he was the teacher and he had hard facts, right? A decade later I saw a show on the Discovery channel covering the same story. It was interesting. Finally they got to the punchline...silly Catholic Church! Your records are wrong! hahahaha! SUCKERS! But wait! There's more! There was still 10 minutes left to the show. I figured they weren't going to hammer it that for that long. Surprise surprise! It turns out that the cold hard facts had changed over the years.
It turns out that scientists had an unrealated case where carbon dating was dating an artifact as being a lot younger than they knew was possible. After some analysis they discovered a coating on the artifact that can throw off the dating process. Going back to the samples they had from the Catholic artifact, they found there was enough of a coating on it to put the authenticity back into the realm of possiblity. (Nifty, sometimes scientists have enough faith in something to question the irrefutable scientific facts. Some of us are called nasty things for much the same thing.)
They couldn't prove it one way or they other at that point, but it turns out it was a bit premature to be calling all these silly Christians, well... silly. Also, I had to kick myself in the arse for being so willing to blow off Catholics because of a social studies teach with his irrefutable facts.
For the curious, I haven't cared enough to keep following the story, but they needed to find a way to clean a sample and they needed to beg the church for a new sample. Interesting enough the church hasn't been to keen on cooperating again. They seem to trust there records of were the artifact came from and where it had been taken over the centuries. All of the scientists' tests (with the exception of the carbon dating test) supported their records. (Various pollen traces, qualities of the cloth, etc.) Maybe I'll catch an update on the Discovery channel some day.
For now I need to go tear down the windmill in the back yard so I don't cause even more damage to the environment in the artic and at the equator.
You seem to imply that the notion of "indicator
species" is scientifically vacuous and that it
is really, in essence, political smoke.
Not only are you wrong, but earth history is already showing that this point of view is both tragically wrong and ultimately dangerous.
There are a great many species that for a variety of reasons respond with greater sensitivity to environmental changes and trends than do others. In the vast majority of cases such species are species now at risk. You might not think this a big deal, but keep in mind that you're every breath and every scrap of food you eat ultimately depends on the healthy well-being of little organisms, the vast majority of which will never win a popularity contest, and whose very existence will likely never even be recognized by the average scientifically illiterate human (the vast majority by far). Ignore this at your peril and definitely at the peril of your children and grandchildren should you have any.
The sad truth is that given the way we evolve via natural selection, it will take a lot of natural selection to show you just how wrong you are. Be assured, however, such natural selection will take place and you will be shown to be wrong. You don't have to believe me, just go out and count frogs and see for yourself.
Your original post has been moderated way down as trolling. Which it was. You just squawked about the politics of scientists in a very biased, inflammatory way without justifying your statements. There are scientists all across the political spectrum. I know fellow astronomers who went and got PhDs and faculty jobs despite protesting abortions on the weekends.
Most scientists DON'T CARE about the political leanings of other scientists as long as they do good rearch and back up their positions with experimental evidence. If you can't do that, you get torn apart. That's how it works. I've seen it. It can be ugly.
You haven't provided any serious evidence yet in support of your statements about science. Why don't you do some of that research before posting such extreme positions? The vast majority of scientists, in my experience as a scientist, do relentlessly pursue facts wheresoever they lead. If you think differently, justify that position or keep your mouth shut about things you're ignorant of.
I teach in a red state, by the way, at a state university. Science doesn't care what color your state is. Science cares about whether or not your ideas are supportable.
Period.
The media now...they seem to care about something else entirely, to the extent that they appear to care about anything. I'm a big fan of the original article. It's dead on. If the evidence and an overwhelming majority of scientists believe something is true, you don't trot on an opposing viewpoint to provide "balance." The truth isn't balanced. The truth is the truth, and everyone should be seeking it using the best methods available. Some questions are intrinsically complex, or wrapped up in issues other than science/truth, and that's fine. But it upsets me that they do a public a disservice by misleading people about what our species has learned about how the universe works. That should be criminal.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
It's taken me forty minutes to write all this out. Why do I do this to myself?
Mine:
The people who speak out about a bias in the media and sciences do so by reacting to the percieved bias, thus making themselves guilty of the thing they complain about, whether their compaints were valid or not.
Yours:
Not at all. I claim bias in the media because they state as settled fact things very much in dispute, like Global Warming, they report the claims of left leaning groups as fact and the claims of the right as "claims from the right wing thinktank.....". And so on and so on.
Everything is in dispute. I can spuriously dispute anything you, or anyone else, says just because I don't like it. Dispute is cheap, even the dispute of think tanks. It is true, of course, that I can invent spurious theories. Research is expensive however, and the people who believe global warming is real tend to have fewer vested interests than those who think it is not.
I was speaking in general there, for starters. That is a trend that provides a lot of the right's energy, the perception that they are somehow discriminated against unfairly. But their reactions to it are often filled with the same kind of discrimination. That's the core process that fuels Fox News, and other like-minded groups and sources.
Global warming is a difficult matter to make conclusive arguments about, since of course we have only one planet and cannot infalliably see into the future. But it *is* possible to look at the composition of our atmosphere, and compare it to measurements taken some time ago, and see that there's quite a bit more carbon dioxide in it now than previously, check here.
The biggest area of debate these days, or at least the one I hear the most about, is the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design argument, which is very bitterly-fought these days, and has the most junk science proping it up.
Further, there are more and more junk studies out there, produced to confuse the issue, usually without sufficent scientific backing and funded by heavy polluters. This tactic is being used more often, and these studies tend to be pounced upon, disproportionately, by the current U.S. administration against all other evidence.
But here's what I consider to be most telling: What is it that makes global warming a controversial issue? What is the connecting logic that equates increased CO2 emmisions to a left-wing agenda? There is a lot of support for global warming, and although it is not *completely* proven, there are many more scientists who think it is wisely cautious to reduce emissions levels than those who think, damn the tiller, full speed ahead.
Mine:
Doesn't this at least cause you to examine your own beliefs?
Yours:
Not a bit. What do clostered ivory tower intellectuals know about the real world?
Your words are telling. I was saying that *everyone* needs to examine their own views, and was hoping to spark something of that in yourself by saying it. Self-examination is, in this age, just about the only route to truth that could be considered remotely objective.
Also, your word "cloistered" implies an ivy wall, but in fact I don't see much reason to assume they are all that separate from "real" people. Getting a job in academia, especially these days, isn't all that different form getting a job elsewhere, and that's the only way I can see someone thinking them separate from the rest of the world. They still have the same television news shows to choose from, the same newspapers to pick from, the same websites to browse. Old cliches about them being away and apart haven't been true for a long time, not since the creation of mass media at least.
Yours:
And I don't trust their paid for research anymore than I buy into the NSF's when it is on a political subject. Both are pushing a political agenda and trying to gain respectabil
Can you imagine an episode of Friends or Boston Public or 60 minutes concluding that abortion is wrong, or that environmental regulations are too strict?
I don't know about you, but I'm also having a hard time imagining them concluding that abortion is ok, or that environmental regulations are too lax...
Here comes the New Dark Age...
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
http://www.dhmo.org/
Each year, Dihydrogen Monoxide is a known causative component in many thousands of deaths and is a major contributor to millions upon millions of dollars in damage to property and the environment. Some of the known perils of Dihydrogen Monoxide are:
* Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities.
* Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage.
* Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not typically life-threatening side-effects.
* DHMO is a major component of acid rain.
* Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns.
* Contributes to soil erosion.
* Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals.
* Contamination of electrical systems often causes short-circuits.
* Exposure decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes.
* Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.
* Often associated with killer cyclones in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere.
* Thermal variations in DHMO are a suspected contributor to the El Nino weather effect.
Think of the children, and ban DiHydrogen Monoxide now!
"Science" of the past has included such quaint ideas as blood-letting. In it's heyday, no one questioned its validity.
Which current understandings of medicine, physics, or geology will be considered "quaint" in 100 years? 1000?
Right. Because nuclear explosions are the same thing as a 1-2 degree change in average global temperature. And the effects of global warming are going to happen instaneously, just like in "The Day After Tomorrow." You're going to wake up tomorrow and California will not only be underwater, but plate tectonics will have moved it halfway to Japan.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I kind of agree with you there. But - why do you think that a humanities professor in a English class is a "Scientist". Isn't English on the Arts side of the Arts/Science divide? Also, the article even mentioned that is important that so called expert have expirence in the field in question. I do not see how English relates to global warming, except that maybe most of the hot air on the web is in English.
Why don't you do some of that research before posting such extreme positions?
In order to do that he'd first have become one of those "elitist intellectuals".
[insert color-state comment here]
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
How exactly has our understaning of [] politics advanced in the last ten years
In just the last few years there have been several powerful breakthroughs in tools and techniques for supressing, manipulating, and misrepresenting science.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Maybe you mean the "enhanced greenhouse effect", the radiative forcing effects due to human activities. Notice that of the 12 agents, 9 are marked as having a "low" (L) or "very low" (VL) level of scientific understanding (LOSU).
Or you're referring to more general climate science? That may be the climate processes and feedbacks where the "consensus" of the group which supports the UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol science presently mentions:
- Water vapor: "..major improvements have occurred in the treatment of water vapour in models, although detrainment of moisture from clouds remains quite uncertain and discrepancies exist..."
- Clouds: "...probably the greatest uncertainty in future projections of climate arises from clouds..."
- Stratosphere: "...relatively poor representation of some stratospheric processes..."
There are simply major gaps in understanding of climate. 50-99% of the natural greenhouse effect is due to water vapor; that is why the planet is not an iceball. But the behavior of water vapor and clouds (ever see a picture of Earth?) are not well understood.Oh, and the link above is to the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR). The Kyoto Protocol is based on the Second one. Browse the TAR for references to "significant progress" for clues to things which were even less well understood when used as the basis for Kyoto.
Then there is the problem that much of the "measured" warming in the past century happened before the 1945-1975 cooling period. Before most of the oil was burned...ain't science wonderful?
I'm happy to call you a dufus, too, and not, you will notice, anonymously. I'm not sure what exactly "dufus" means, but it sounds insulting.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
You brought up this example of how the media gives undue credence to fringe positions, and as far as I can see have brought (in the course of half a dozen posts) exactly one piece of corroboration, a link to a (pretty visibly) right-wing blog which had to have its initial numbers corrected by a commenter.
At the very least, you have to admit this isn't a case of the media amplifying a fringe position in the name of balance. Because if it is, I have my own ideas about whose position is on the fringe.
"We'll be back after this commercial break with a cute little story about a three-legged dog who saved a baby."
Journalists write stories to get attention it's not about the truth, its about advertising dollars or subscription money or promulgating a specific point of view.
"Science" is as only good as the technology of the time is able to see, detect and investigate the world around us. I have no beef with science but if you take one look at the science and the scientists of the last few hundred years it (or even the last 50) they all look woefully ignorant by todays standards. The problem is the same people today will look woefully ignorant 100 and even 1000 years from now.
Science is so dependent on technology its not funny, its never the people that really do anything, its always a combination of people and the engineers developing technology to detect and see even more of the environment around us.
This is not just about science. It's even more visible in politics, which of course the primary example here was, since it was about abortion. Also it doesn't have anything to do with journalists being balanced, rather the opposite.
The idea that journalists should be fair and balanced is used as a reason for being incorrect. Nobody is ever objective, and a good journalist is not balanced, but honest. Instead of hiding opinions behind a veil of alleged objectivism, any writer should be clear about where he/she is standing in the controversy.
The idea of balance and objectivism is made worse by the idea that you should have separate people for doing news: Journalists. The result is that most of what is said in the news is said by people whos knowledge and education is in words, not in the subject that is covered. A journalist usually do not have the knowledge to say what is wrong and what is right, and is likely to spread false information even if he tries to be objective and balanced.
We need to stop listening to journalists, and start listening to people who know what they are talking about.
Um, gotta nitpick... those laws haven't been regarded as 'completely true' by mainstream physicists for the better part of a century.
What about the fact that the earth isn't a sphere, but is really the surface of a 4-dimensional Moebius strip (a Moebius sphere) which exists inside a bubble surrounded by plasma (which we see as "the sun" because we are not adapted to perceive the 4th dimension). The rest of the universe, which is inside the sphere, is in fact shrinking away from us at an ever increasing rate, perfectly in line with the Newtonian notion of gravity; dark energy does not exist, and is merely an invention used to propagate the ever more improbable heliocentric view of the cosmos.
Can I have my mod points and crack pipe now?
You have to understand that a good scientist always realizes that he does not understand everything and that there always remain things that need to be studied in more detail. If a scientist says: "we don't really understand this or that", it may sound as if it he doesn't know what he is doing. However, most often it means that he knows roughly what is going on, but for some reason, the model does behave strangely in special cases, or systematically predicts 4% too high values, which translates into "if we substract 4% from the model outcome, it matches the experimental data under almost all circumstances, but we don't know which effect accounts for those 4%".
The climatologic models are certainly not perfect and they will never be. However, it could very well be that the greenhouse effect of additional CO2 is actually stronger than predicted thus far. For some reasons, skeptics tend to believe that all errors in the models add up to overestimating the effect of CO2 on climate.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
And in which publications did these mistakes get hihglighted?
Not the general press, but in the scientific press thus supporting the original article.
I like the opinion on the second hand smoke issue though - I don't think there is any significant medical study that has not concluded that second hand smoke is a significant risk to health. Yet you manage to claim that this issue is unresolved.
No reliable tempretaure measurements exist from measuring stations which are not now deep inside the heat domes of major population centers so I'd like to know how it has been 'measured' reliably enough to state with a high degree of confidence that global tempratures are up 1 degree.
Depending on how far you go back - I believe both Scott and Admunsen took a fair few measurements in both Antartica, many people have taken measurements in the Artic, Himalayas, Alps etc. over the last century. None of which are deep within heat domes of major population centres. I'd also like to point that geographic evidence, in terms of glacier sizes are fairly good indicators of temperature change over thousands of years. Just because it wasn't done in the great state of Louisiana don't mean it ain't true. There are other places where people have been measuring this kind of data for a couple of centuries.
Although I am impressed that you can find enough data to link climate change to solar activity - either you have the data or you don't.
CIA reports too.
Well I don't know about philosophy or politics but in economics we've learned that a boom will end even if we start putting e's and i's in front of everything we sell. I'd call that pretty revolutionary, I mean, who'd've thunkit?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Seems like if you are going to report on science, the reporting shouldn't be about who has the most scientists backing a theory, but reporting on the *science* behind why more scientists believe one theory than the other.
That is to say, science isn't democratic. In some rare cases, the majority of scientists can be dead wrong about a theory. It's highly unusual, it's true, but not without precedent. So, if you are going to report about science, report on the experiments and studies that have been done, along with meaningfully explanatory commentary, to show *why* the majority of scientists feel a theory does, or in this case, does not, have validity.
I think astronomy is a good example of how science can really work. The cause for this does not lie within the brilliant, good-willing, good-doing nature of scientist. Astronomy, the theories and experiments that relate to the field are very resistant to being politisized. In my opinion because they don't matter much beyond the intellectual sphere. No job, regulation or tax increase is affected by the discovery that yes, planets can form earlier than we thought before discovering system X. Don't get me wrong, I love all space related articles and findings but for my immediate reality it has no bearing if black holes radiate away or even exist. Science works so well for astronomy because no politician will loose his job after proclaiming 'sorry, we've been wrong to think that those rocks contain fossilezed life forms'.
Now, lets look at climate 'science'. There is so much cultural background, political bias and money issues that its not easy to hear the signal from all the noise. I agree with everyone that says that 'anti-climate-change' scientist are biased, but I'd strongly insist that the same holds true for 'pro-climater-changers'. Apart from that, if someone says 'look, I got this model and it says we are all going to die soon, unless you stop driving your car and hand over a billion dollars' I just can't take it very seriously because as a programmer I can create lots of models that all say that salvation of human kind hinges on the fact that I become pontifex maximus of the entire earth. They are like the doomsayers of the middle ages, instead of dressing in purple, they are wearing white, nothing else has changed.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
None of which are deep within heat domes of major population centres. I'd also like to point that geographic evidence, in terms of glacier sizes are fairly good indicators of temperature change over thousands of years.
Glaciers, very true. So how would you explain that on the mount blance in the frensh alps a village is slowly reappearing that has been abandoned 150 years ago due to glacier increases? Does this not imply that the glacier in question used to be smaller before the big CO2 dumping began and is now only returning to its preindustial size?
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
do you know what chaotic means? Thats the climate for you. You'd better be 100% percent sure of your inputs, an impossibility in itself, to get any meaningful results, even if your model is 100% correct ( a huge leap of faith). This doesn't jive well with 'up to 75% of the variables affecting the climate are either known unkowns or unknowns unkowns' statements made, among others the IPCC.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
No, she references other studies. It seems that you don't want to bother yourself with her arguments, which may be wrong. But if you would like to actually take some time and listen to her interview you may actually be able to produce a good rebuttal or something I can't think of.
But, to me, you seem incredibly close-minded and don't want to be bothered with any arguments. Therefore, I'm going to give the other side some credence.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
You know-it-all brick, please present me with a theory that unifies special relativity with quantumn mechanics, among which the main beef IS gravity. We know that it is. We don't know the what the why or the how. The key to science is humbleness. As socrates says 'I know only that I know nothing'. Theories are models of the world and they need to continually show that they are the most practical model in dealing with reality. A model that states that the climate changes, that this must be horrible for all humans and that it must be caused by humans is not very practical. It implies that the climate is, baring human intervention, static which must appear to any observer as the most absurd statement in sciences history.
No knowledge is immune from doubt preciesly because it can never be perfect and this insight is the achievement of the enlightement, leading directly to the scientific method.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
Please be quiet, I'm trying to read about the latest breakthrough in cold fusion.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
The chaotic behavior of the climate applies more to local variations than to long-term global trends. Despite the fact that it is hard to predict the temperature, rainfall, and wind direction a week beforehand, the weather (e.g. in Europe) is colder in the winter than in the summer.
With the greenhouse effect, you can do a simple back-of-the-envelope estimation of the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. Without CO2, it would be very cold on the earth surface. An increase in CO2 concentration leads, in this BOTE approach, to an increase in temperature. Then, for a realistic climate model, you have to account for a zillion processes, some of them enhancing the greenhouse effect and others working opposite. That's what the climatologists work on. Everytime you incorporate a few more processes into the model, the outcomes change slightly: a bit more rainfall here, a bit colder there, a bit warmer here. However, no matter how many effects are taken into account, the result is always that the temperature, averaged over the whole earth, increases.
I did once attend a symposium on climate. The chaos effect is taken into account by today's fast computers. They run the simulations 100 times with slightly different start conditions, in order to separate outliers due to the chaos effect from the general trends.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
your post is, sorry fully bullshit. Any system that has three or more factors that affect each other is by definition chaotic. This does apply for the climate, long term or not. A very good example for feedback is this: it is thought that when the temperatures rise, moisture in the athmosphere rises as well, rainfall increases leading to an increase in snowfall, for example in the artic and antarctic and other regions affected by snowfall. Now, bigger snowfields, glaciers (that grow bigger as more snow falls) and icefields lead to an decrease in sunlight reflections and thus to cooling. Alone this tiny part of what the climate is about is as chaotic as it gets. The climate is not linear, period, and your model can't be made to anticipate this because the distribition of outputs is RANDOM. A model that truly anticipates the chaotic property of the climate is nothing but a random number generator.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
in my original answer, please replace 'decrease of sunlight reflection' with 'increase of ...'.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
The article should have read: The ministry of truth will not tolerate dissenting opinions. The ministry of love has been notified.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
If people are further interested, Kary Mullis wrote some really shocking things in Dancing Naked in the Mind Field. He's the Nobel-winning chemist who invented the polymerase chain reaction for replicating DNA. He talks about the journalist slant in the science world being a bi-product of money-oriented scientists using the media to make themselves rich through popular punditry. This leads to mainstream acceptance of major theories before they've been scientifically proven. As a pretty shocking example, Dr. Mullis cites that even though the link is credible, something as important to our society as HIV has not yet been scientifically proven to lead to AIDS, yet the theory is unquestioningly accepted. While HIV almost certainly does lead to AIDS, the science is behind the popular acceptance, and the media is the cause.
It had absolutely nothing to do with science in any way.
Religion is the opiate of the masses. The wealthy smoke the real stuff.
I don't even know why I'm replying to this. Science has never been more than conventional wisdom based on observation. Throwing math into the mix doesn't change that fact.
Scientists (astronomers) for thousands of years believed the earth was the center of our universe; not simply because they were religious bigots, but because that's exactly what they saw--the planets and stars making circles around the earth.
Galileo simply saw more, and therefore knew more. As time passes, we also will see more.
Fact of the matter is most university types were educated far beyond their intelligence, and only the ones who couldn't succeed in the real world tend to make careers in academia.
Wow. What a "fact." Success in academic science is actually much harder than success in the "real world." I'll actually support my statement. Every year of my academic career, I've seen graduate students and post-docs forced out of science because they can't cut it intellectually, lack the necessary work ethic, or just can't find very-hard-to-get academic positions. Now, any given year I only know about a couple of cases personally, but over the last 10-15 years I've seen it many times.
And you know what? Pretty much every time these people go into the "real world" and find high-paying technical jobs quickly. I'm talking scientists now, people with physics/astronomy backgrounds.
Furthermore, few in science go into the "real world," fail, and come rushing back to "easier" academia. Pretty much the only new grad students from the "real world" coming back from advanced degrees are ones who have been very successful. Non-successful "real worlders" can't even get into decent grad schools.
You sometimes say some things that make sense, that I can agree with, then you go and make some outlandish statements that betray real hatred and a misunderstandingor ignorance of the subject at hand.
P.S. The ivory tower isn't so cloistered. It's just a different jungle.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Those signing below hereby state their desire to have the fatal chemical, dihydrogen monoxide (hereby referred to as "DHMO"), immediately banned from use in governmental and industrial utilities.
We desire this action for the following reasons:
1. DHMO is the most prevalent greenhouse gas. It causes more global warming than carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane combined.
2. DHMO is a colorless, odorless constituent of many known toxic substances, diseases, and disease-causing agents.
3. DHMO has lead to many environmental hazards, accelerates erosion, is the primary component of acid rain, and has a profound impact on wild life. The damage is costing billions of dollars.
4. DHMO has many immediate, personal dangers. Found in volumes as small as a single vial, it can cause second and even third degree burns if it contacts bare skin. Death frequently results from the accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in reletively small amounts.
5. DHMO has been found in tumors excised from cancer patients.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now. - Ed Howd
And when they alter the simulation by adding more CO2, they don't know if the results are correct or if what causes the 4% error then causes a 40% error.
However, it could very well be that the greenhouse effect of additional CO2 is actually stronger than predicted thus far. For some reasons, skeptics tend to believe that all errors in the models add up to overestimating the effect of CO2 on climate.
Actually, if you look at only the effects of CO2 you find that the consensus is that direct effects of CO2 are considered near the limit. Adding more CO2 can't cause much more warming. The simulations used by the IPCC depend upon positive feedbacks, such as warming causing more evaporation of water and the resulting increase in water vapor causing even more warming. Such assumptions run into areas where a lot is simply not known -- does more water vapor cause more clear-sky warming, does it cause more heat-trapping clouds, does it cause more heat-reflecting clouds...or does it trigger an "iris effect" which forces clear sky through which heat is dumped out to space? It is not known if clouds would heat or cool: "The sign of the net cloud feedback is still a matter of uncertainty"
Actually it is water vapor which causes the vast majority (perhaps well over 90%) of the natural greenhouse effect. And that "perhaps" means that you need a bigger envelope.
Your BOTE is also assuming that energy from sunlight is constant. It is known to vary by a small amount, and there are hints that solar and interstellar radiation and particles have a significant effect upon the climate, and that perhaps you should be using radiation instead of CO2 on your envelope.
You're probably also assuming that the amount of carbon is constant except for what humans burn. Abiogenic carbon theory demands that new carbon is being added naturally, so you might see fluctuations which are only insignificant at geologic time scales. In this week's news are claims that the Arctic is warming (and counter-claims such as the few submarine ice thickness measurements being skewed by ice blown into Canadian waters where it could not be measured), and thawing of permafrost is expected to release a lot of deep-origin methane which has been recently blocked from reaching the atmosphere. You might want to add short-term methane effects to your calculation.
p: "I used the term "truth" loosely in my writeup for this story. If you want to quibble and say science is limited to proposing and testing theories or models, or come up with some other strict definition of science, that's fine. But to say science begins and ends with discovering facts, and requires no human insight, is simply wrong."
I feel that we're near the core of one major problem in journalism here: The words themselves. There's just no way the scientists and journalists can be on the same page in their vocabularies.
Scientists hang around their theories and demonstrations and experiments, often to prove one minute part of a major puzzle (which can turn out to be a major part of another puzzle). They do research based on what resonates within their minds, so to speak.
Journalists on the other hand need to be both a dumbifier and edifier at the same time. Regular people have a quite different set of hooks to hang their new knowledge on. If the journalist could explain precisely what the scientist has shown and have the masses understand it as well as all that it implies and fails to imply...well, whatever the scientist researched couldn't have been very profound in the first place, could it now?
Even within the brief attack-parry-counterattack conversation of the p & gp, there is in my mind doubt, of whether the p got the point of the gp, the gp will get the p, the p & gp are just talking past each other because of their difference in models or understanding and usage of their words, or whether any of them is just talking out of his/her ass.
I suppose knowing one's limits is the real answer here. However clear you express yourself, you'll always experience some idiot coming along and misunderstanding you. When you recognize that the misunderstanding may be mutual or on your side even, that is when you be decent about it.
I can't believe I read this thread on Slashdot. How can anyone honestly think that Science is some kind of politically biased soapbox?
Look - Science has in the past occasionally been drug into the political limelight - but let's not ignore the truth here - Science is often involved against it's will (read: Evolution even in Darwin's Day, the poplularization of Cold Fusion) because the public or the media catches some scent from the scientific community and now wants to know more.
But what always happens - and this, I think, is the major failing between Journalists/Reporters and Science, is that the reporters don't really want to understand - no, no, nobody ever wants to really get it; they just want to get the jist without needing to understand the finer points.
This is why Quantum Physics is the ultimate sieve by which to filter out "Popular Science" readers - QP is so 'nifty' on the surface, but to understand it requires quite a commitment to the mathmatics, experimental and theoretical explorations, etc. The average consumer doesn't really have the attention span to grasp the concepts, just tell them how much bigger their TV will be and how much cheaper their gasoline will be and their happy with "Science."
That process isn't the fault of the Scientists, who largely are not looking for publicity, except possibly within their own small community of experts, and who are generally mild-mannered people of average means, who happen to enjoy the investigative process.
How can any serious person think that the average scientist is a "leftist commie", unless by that phrase, you mean to indicate a person who has some ethical qualms with being among the richest and most privledged human beings in the entire world, and who feels that the good fortune they have enjoyed deserves to be respected and returned to others. God, what a horrible philosophy. Come to think of it, if that's your definition, most people are leftists and commies. Perhaps scientists (and writers, filmmakers, etc) seem to lean left because they have been educated in the History of the human race, in the art of expressing themselves, and in the principals of Justice, and in the end it's hard for an educated person to "chase the cheese" for decades and never stop to think about the rest of the planet and it's people.
God, get with it. You can't just go on living your little American life while people are murdering one another at your doorstep, living in filth, unable to make ends meet. Pretty soon, all of the enraged and denegrated peoples of the world are going to look up and see America, sitting on it's throne - and I think then we'll see what the rage of an angry world can do to us firsthand.
I wonder why... for expressing my wish that people currently having mod points mod the guy up, who patiently and at great length, using sound argumentation and keeping calm all the way, is defending the science and his colleague scientists against an unfounded, ignorant and rather troll-ish attack?
If that categorizes me as a "dufus", then I'm glad to be one.
That is an interesting. I admit, I am not a climatologist myself. But isn't planet Venus so hot mainly because its atmosphere is entirely CO2?
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
Er... I agree with all these things. I think you meant to reply to the post one level further up the thread.
Venus climate is about as similar to the climate of Earth as are the climates of the Moon or Titan. The latter two do have some relevance in other ways; without the impact which created the Moon we might have a thicker atmosphere and a crust too thick to be tectonically active, and Titan's atmosphere shows us how much carbon can exist in planets without having been converted to carbon dioxide.
You might do a little more reading on the so-called "greenhouse effect".
Yes, I did. Sorry.
Hmm ... that doesn't sound like it was the post that irritated me. Perhaps I miscounted, and it was the troll I was aiming at, in which case I apologise.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
No problems - the /. indentation system can be rather confusing. :-)
We are use to thinking of every thing as relative and an opinion. Luckly for us, this is not the case. Regardless of my political views, an increase of carbon in the atmospheare has been detected and carfully mesured and for over 40 years it has been corolated to the burning of fossil fules. No amount of ideological acrobatics can alter this fact. Facts are facts my freind, and if you don't believe in them you are not only delusional, but also an idiot.
I think it is dangerous to ignore scientific evidance because it is in a politicaly charged arena. The difference between arguments about global warming and social security benifits are large, and I don't think they should be lumped in the same catagory.
And you don't have to be an elite-Jewish-doctor-commie to think that this country is going to get a lot loonier during those additional 1,461 days.
;)
You seem knowledgeable - i wonder if i could ask you a question (well 2 actually), is that number correct or did you just make it up?
And second, how is the date determined? Is it always the second of november, or the first tuesday after equinoxe or something similary arcane?
ie, can one already now compute the exact day the next election is? (Assuming Bush doesn't change the law
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
You seem knowledgeable - i wonder if i could ask you a question (well 2 actually), is that number correct or did you just make it up?
The additional days are measured from Inauguration Day to Inquguration Day, which is always January 20th, not election day to election day, which is the Thursday after the first Monday in November. Even if Kerry had won, we'd still have to suffer through Bush to January 20th. Now, we'll have to suffer through him for four additional January 20ths.
For the record, the number of days is 1,461, or 365 x 4 + 1 for leap year.
Ah, so the number isn't quite accurate :) But thanks for the information!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
How so?
Well now its mostly semantics on what was ment. I'm thinking about speficic date for the change, 1461 is then 4 years to the day to day, which is obviously not when the change happens, so it would be something like 1512 days or so.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Ah, but I didn't say 1,461 days from now, but 1,461 additional days. That is, that many more days after the next inauguration.