Bad Science Journalism Gets Schooled

TaeKwonDood writes "Biology post-doc Dr. Michael White takes a look at the '2007 Best American Science and Nature Writing' and doesn't like what he finds in an article called Bad Science Journalism and the Myth of the Oppressed Underdog. Turns out it's not just political writers who pick a position they want to advocate and then write stories to confirm it. Science journalism gets a scolding and it's been a long time coming."

Comments

Rather obvious

[The Ancients]

This is quite logical, as it's human nature to do so, and not a direct result of one's career field.

Even simple background research on the authors of articles in many different fields reveal that yes, the majority of writers are biased, either consciously, or otherwise.

Re:Rather obvious

[ChameleonDave]

yes, the majority of writers are biased, either consciously, or otherwise.

More than the majority. I'd say that everyone is necessarily biased about everything, because we can never avoid the fact that we approach every issue with some sort of background or perspective.

However, there are those who are biased, and those who are biased and also throw all logic to the wind.

Re:Rather obvious

[CheshireCatCO]

This is quite logical, as it's human nature to do so, and not a direct result of one's career field. You're absolutely correct. Think of all the stories of some technological innovation you've heard that follow this same pattern. ("Everyone believed that building a kerbudle with transducing fleebs was impossible, but one lonely inventor decided to try it. [Story continues, ignoring that the inventor was paid to do the investigation, however long a shot it was deemed, by some well-known company, etc.]") Or even business: "Everyone said that Microsoft's/Apple's/Intel's/etc's hold on X market was unassailable, but this plucky [they're always plucky] little start-up set out to fight the Goliath." It's human nature and it's good story-telling, which is what sells science articles.

Question is, is there another way to tell the stories that isn't so formulaic and that doesn't give such an incorrect impression?

obvious != right

[More_Cowbell]

Science journalism would perhaps be the one area where you would expect the author to concisely go out of their way to be unbiased.

what do you expect?

[l2718]

1. The people who have the qualifications to understand scientific papers (the ones with science education) can usually get better-paying jobs in science, rather than science journalism.
2. Worse, our society as a whole is anti-intellectual and specifically anti-scientific. This does not only apply to the readers: many people who study journalism have a weak science background. As long as society can accept someone as "educated" who cannot explain how a refrigerator works, or accept some definitions and follow a mathematical proof based on them, it is hardly surprising that science writers and readers can't understand a scientific argument.
3. Today's readers are trying to be entertained, not be informed. A piece that reinforces the reader's prejudices will make the reader feel good, and hence buy more copies of the publication.

For an example for the second point, remember the "gravity-powered lamp" concept that was advertized last month? I saw several independent write-ups in newspapers all repeating the canard of "this will work if only we have better LED technology" when an elementary calculation shows that even with 100% efficient lighting elements the lamp will need to weigh about a ton.

Re:Science has always been biased

[CheshireCatCO]

If you're a Phd who has spent your whole life researching and proving something then you're likely to opposed someone proving eactly the opposite. This is true to some extent, but it glosses over another even more important point: most newly proposed theories are wrong. (It's a lot like mutations in evolutionary biology.) Many of the theories are still-born, never making it past someone's blackboard before they're shot down, but quite a few get floated. Some get floated quite adamantly by their adherents. A few are better than the older models. After even a little while in science, you see the ratio and it's natural to want to stick to the tested theory until the new guy has been able to provide some strong evidence for itself.

That's sort of the rub, though, isn't it? Only a few new theories which suplant the old model do so with a really compelling single test. We can think of a few of the exceptions: General Relativity and the 1919 eclipse, the Big Bang (which was already pretty widely accepted, but never mind) and the discovery of the CMB, the giant impact theory of the origin of the Moon and the numerical simulations of the 1980s, etc. But these *are* the exceptions. Most theories which will eventually take over do so by slow accumulation of evidence in their favor, not with any slam dunk. As a result, convincing scientists to abondon the older model is difficult and there's no magic cut-off where you can say, "Now the new theory is better than the old one." So are the scientists being bad at science? Sure, it's easy to spin the narrative that way, but I'd say no. They're at worst being conservative and not wanting to leap onto a new model until they see that it's really better.

Anyone expecting unbiassed science to come out of that lot is just a misguided idealist. Now I feel like you're being insulting. Individual scientists are human, we have our flaws and our blind-spots. Some of us have real agendas and a few are even downright dishonest. But as a group, we're contradictory, curious, and anti-authority. As a result, science is pretty good at self-correcting. A single scientist can lie to himself or even lie to others. But that always gets caught eventually because someone starts asking questions and we collectively have no vested interest in covering up lies.

(Any time you hear about scientists being involved in a massive conspiracy, like some anti-global warming fanatics will try to tell you, you can bet it's wrong. Any person who could prove evolution or GW conclusively incorrect would have just made a career and world-wide fame for herself.)

Re:scientists aren't good at communicating

[going_the_2Rpi_way]

I'm not so sure this is valid any more (and maybe it never was). Generations of scientist are trained to communicate from the earliest parts of their training -- believe it or not, lots of emphasis is placed on this. What scientists are not good at are sound-bites that fit nicely in on shows like Crossfire or Lou Dobbs where the 'we were attacked!' or 'we're losing jobs' or 'NAFTA!' 10 second catchphrases that feel awfully good but don't stand up to scrutiny generally prevail. But that's ok, science isn't meant to be good at that. It's meant to be able to say 'we're not sure', 'this is our best available knowledge' and, oh yeah, 'our previous best theory was wrong in several respects'. The public isn't good at listening to tempered, well-balanced arguments. And when 'luminous minds' DO speak up -- say, a bunch of nobel laureates put together a one page ad against economic folly (remember that one?) or Jared Diamond writes a book titled 'Collapse' -- who listens? And more importantly, who listens enough to suffer short term financial hardship because those minds tell them they'll lose more in the long run.

Pity so few will see this.

[Bo'Bob'O]

It's a pity so few will see this article. It reminds me of something I saw briefly on the discovery channel about discovering Atlantis or something. The point was brought up to the effect "We don't have a lot in the way of resources because the scientists are too afraid what we will find will shatter everything they believe." Now, I know that you can't take too much on TV seriously, even the so called educational channels, but this was downright absurd. Wouldn't any scientist with the slightest bit of passion about his work be -thrilled- to take part, or help a peer with work that would have that sort of impact? It's just sad to see the Discovery Channel airing these sorts of things that completly misrepresent what science is. It's not even the MythBusters sorts of shows that bother me, it's exactly these sort of underdog stories the author is talking about that I think does a huge amount of harm to the education of people watching. It's those sorts of shows that lead people so far astray on what science is that lets the "Intelligent Design" nonsense take
root.

Someone else summed it up much better, though:

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
    - Carl Sagan "

Actually, there is way

[Moraelin]

"Question is, is there another way to tell the stories that isn't so formulaic and that doesn't give such an incorrect impression?"

Actually, there is a way: just stick to reporting, don't turn it into an entertaining story. We're talking science, FFS, not the Hero's Journey archetype. It's not about the everyman who discovers his calling and ends up single-handedly fighting the super-villain, it's about a more mundane process where basically they're all on the same side.

But science is boring for most people. There's really two kinds of stories that you can make out of it, that anyone outside that profession will read. (And those inside that profession already have the relevant peer-reviewed journals instead.)

A) It's a BREAKTHROUGH!!!

B) The Hero's Journey in disguise. The lone maverick who slays the dragon. (Except sometimes the climactic confrontation hasn't happened yet, so you're left to infer it.)

And unfortunately both end up used by the journos as ammo against the real science. TFA already thrashes B, so let's just say that bogus A is what PR carpet-bombs the media with.

So other than banning science completely from the non-peer-reviewed media, I can't see how that's solvable.

Or if you were merely asking if it's possible to make it entertaining without being a case of lone heroes versus tyrannical super-villains... well, maybe. But consider this: the current generation of storytellers can't even tell any story except the Hero's Journey. We could live without it very well until, IIRC, the 60's, but then all of a sudden everyone had to obey the monomyth to the letter. And if two movies are the same length, they have to have their first turning point in exactly the same minute.

So incidentally for whole classes of movies, once you figured out who's protagonist, who's antagonist, etc, you can know in advance what will happen... and in exactly what minute of the movie.

Unfortunately, ever since, that structure has been hammered into the heads of every single story teller or screenplay writer. There are course, workshops, and the knowledge that Hollywood will chuck your manuscript in the garbage bin if it doesn't fit the mold to the letter. Not many people still know how to write any other kinds of stories any more.

You can blame that on the press too

[Moraelin]

Well, ironically, a large part of that can be blamed on the press too. There's this whole bombardment of stories telling Joe Sixpack that science is a clique of self-appointed arse clowns. In no particular order:

1. The lone researcher vs the evil establisment stories, like in TFA. Invariably the establishment is evil, you know. Well, these stories are just ammo then for the quacks, who are invariably all too eager to present themselves as that oppressed underdog.

2. PR-sponsored and -wrote "breakthrough" stories, the sillier and more contradictory the better. "Chocolate is good for you! Cocoa beans have valuable enzymes!" (Yes, but they're no longer present in chocolate.) "Wine is even better!" "No it's not!" "Scientists prove: Beer is better than both!!!" Etc. If you can't distinguish those from real science, and Joe Sixpack can't, it looks like "science" is just a bunch of guys saying contradictory things and telling you one day that X is good, and the next that Y is bad. That what passes for bulletproof science one day, is disproved the next day, so you might as well ignore the whole clown posse.

3. Probably the most damaging: the fucked-up idea of journalistic impartiality. See, the idea is that impartiality means presenting two conflicting views as equals, without taking sides. So if you run a story about, say, why vaccines are good, you have to also find a quack or two to go, "no they're not!!! They cause autism!!! They kill your immune system!!! Buy our 100% natural and hollistic snake oil instead!!!" And present the two as equal. It's not that one of them is bogus, it's that it's a "controversy", see. Taking sides and telling people which one is backed by solid evidence, well, that would violate that impartiality.

This creates a false image of, well, everything being equal and equally unproved and dubious. Everything is a controversy. The Nobel prize winner in that corner of the ring is just about as likely to be right or wrong, as the quack with the fake diploma bought on the internet in the other corner. So you can take your own pick. If you want to believe the earth is flat, go ahead, even that is probably a controversy.