Is Good Scientific Journalism Possible?

scida sends in a link to his blog post exploring the question of whether, roughly speaking, science journalism is an impossible task. From the post: "I have spent the better half of the past six months trying to understand one thing: how can you effectively present primary scientific literature to the general public? Is this even possible? ... During the past few months, I have spent entire days locked up in my office, writing my first manuscript to be submitted to a peer reviewed scientific journal. While doing so, I have come to realize the following: details can change everything. There are a number of assumptions I have been forced to make while analyzing my data, many of which are critical for both my methodology and the development of few of my arguments. Why? Often, the information I require simply isn't available (the studies haven't been done, or the studies that exist are based on assumptions of their own). Now, can someone unfamiliar with a particular field, nay, a sub-discipline of that field, recognize these assumptions for what they are?"

Comments

Re:Assumptions are bad, uncheckable assumptions wo

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Regarding "pay-to-read studies," the system is not as broken as you make it out to be. Practically everyone who wants to have access to a journal can get it. Universities and research-oriented companies subscribe, so all you have to do is walk into a library and peruse them yourself.

This shows the lack of understanding of what I'm talking about. Specialization is good from the point of view of economics- it means nobody needs to know everything. But it is quickly becoming an outdated concept- it's beginning to hold us back.

For example, if I am writing a paper, I am not going to explain undergraduate quantum mechanics, solid state physics, or electromagnetics.

But unless you do, how do you know that maybe biology couldn't make your discovery better, or lead your research into new directions? You don't- because you've specialized too much- and so have everybody else, the guy writing the paper on the transformation chemistry of DNA isn't stooping to link to papers on undergraduate biology either. But that can be rectified with the web- EVERYTHING can be available to EVERYBODY without worrying about cost. We don't need to limit science to specialty anymore.