Science Journalism

I just posted this link in my topic on sff.net, but it's also of some
peripheral interest to the discussions here (and also, I though it was
cool, and worth passing on).
"Why is science journalism so bad?" from the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badsc...564369,00.html

"Every week in Bad Science [column in the Guardian] we either victimise
some barking pseudoscientific quack, or a big science story in a
national newspaper. Now, tell me, why are these two groups even being
mentioned in the same breath? Why is science in the media so often
pointless, simplistic, boring, or just plain wrong? Like a proper
little Darwin, I've been collecting specimens, making careful
observations, and now I'm ready to present my theory.
It is my hypothesis that in their choice of stories, and the way they
cover them, the media create a parody of science, for their own means.
They then attack this parody as if they were critiquing science...
Science stories usually fall into three families: wacky stories, scare
stories and "breakthrough" stories.."

skipping forward so I'm not posting the whole article, he says that
these kinds of stories...
"reinforce the humanities-graduate journalists' parody of science, for
which we now have all the ingredients: science is about groundless,
incomprehensible, didactic truth statements from scientists, who
themselves are socially powerful, arbitrary, unelected authority
figures. They are detached from reality: they do work that is either
wacky, or dangerous, but either way, everything in science is tenuous,
contradictory and, most ridiculously, "hard to understand".
This misrepresentation of science is a direct descendant of the
reaction, in the Romantic movement, against the birth of science and
empiricism more than 200 years ago; it's exactly the same paranoid
fantasy as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, only not as well written."

The archives of Ben Goldacre's "Bad Science" column in the _Guardian_
are also worth a look:

http://www.badscience.net/

--
Geoffrey A. Landis
http://www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis

Geoffrey A. Landis,
Perhaps Ben Goldacre's "Bad Science" column in the Guardian can further
appreciate how usenet gangs are better off than being continually
snookered.

Since I've discovered that reality somewhat sucks, thus speaking as a
certified pro at myself having been detached from reality:
they do work that is either wacky, or dangerous, but either way, everything
in science is tenuous, contradictory and, most ridiculously, "hard to understand".
This makes perfect sense if you're into knowing thy enemy and thus
intent upon snookering thy humanity, in orther words only out and about
as looking for taking whatever out of context in order to sustain your
mindset. At least that's what I do all the rime, whereas I'm the sort
of village idiot that's continually looking on the positive side of
achieving the most bang for the buck, while otherwise improving the
quality of life for the greater portion of humanity, however realizing
my limitations due to the well established opposition that's
continually sitting upon those spendy intellectual space toilets trying
their best at keeping their mainstream status quo as is.

Apparently the reality of folks honestly sharing of truth and nothing
but the truth is now having been reclasified as a "Usenet gang"
Warning about Usenet gangs!
This is actually good news because, I've always wanted to be a "gang"
and, as such other folks would lick my boots and brown-nose themselves
off of my butt.

Having been nominated as one of the usenet gang leaders that's breaking
all their precious rules by insisting there has been other life upon
Venus, in part because of viable observationology as having been
further supported by the regular laws of physics that are offering a
rather major contributing factor and, if these Venus establishments
were of merely visiting ETs as having been responsible for what I've
interpreted, as being a community of large structures and of having a
perfectly rational association with having a perfectly desirable form
of infrastructure, then obviously with such capable ETI smarts and some
basic applied technology is where Venus has been doable.

As opposed to getting robotics and humanity onto the moon, at least the
thick atmospheric ocean environment of Venus is actually obtainable
with the applied technology at hand. Our moon having insufficient
atmosphere for aerobreaking on behalf of deploying any significant
amount of payload and, since we still haven't a viable fly-by-rocket
craft, nor have we the necessary science of any human expedition as to
even safely deal with the harsh heat, nasty dust and otherwise highly
reactive/TBI conditions of the raw solar illuminated moon, whereas
getting a craft below them relatively cool nighttime seasonal clouds of
Venus has been entirely doable as of decades ago. As for actually
safely deploying robotics onto the surface is entirely doable of even
extremely large scale and massive deployments. Eventually our walking
upon the surface of Venus that may seem a wee bit humanly testy but,
that too has become technically surmountable with the sorts of products
and applied technology that's been available within the most recent
decade.

However, hard-science obtained by way of robotic missions isn't going
to take a tenth the time nor 0.1% the cost (especially since robotics
do not have to come back home), as such I see no good reason for
humanity to be walking upon Venus or even that of our moon, much less
Mars. The 0.1% of the trillion+ dollars for supposedly walking upon
Mars becomes worth a billion+ dollars on behalf of robotics capable of
accomplishing another 100 if not a thousand fold more hard science
because, robots will not have to be continually fed O2, food and drink
nor subsequently **** and poop upon another planet or moon, nor much
less returned to Mother Earth as still alive and kicking. Whereas a
billion dollars (especially if extensively spent in Russia, China or
India) should get the likes of TRACE-VL2 deployed and of a few surface
kiosks of interactive instruments established.

Any notion of manned missions to/from another planet or moon needs to
have a great deal of good reason(s), thus justifiable logic, that which
other than extracting He3 from our moon that in of itself would have to
remain primarily a robotic task, whereas it seems that even I can't
find such valid reasons nor even an once/gram of remorse as for such
investments into manned expeditions that could possibly benefit
humanity, especially on behalf of the sorts of humanity as having been
focused upon perpetrating cold-wars and as of lately into global energy
domination shouldn't even be entitled to the worth of He3/fusion
because, they'd only utilize it to improve their lives at the continued
expense and/or demise of others because, Earth isn't just running
itself out of geological/fossil fuel reserves.

Even as of today, the lower 99.9% portion of humanity hasn't benefitted
from all of astronomy to date, yet trillions upon trillions have been
invested, as well as having diverted countless tens of thousands of
supposedly talented souls, their past and ongoing research and exploits
as having further diverted vast amounts of human and energy resources
and, as far as I can tell we (the lower 99.9% of humanity) certainly
haven't specifically benefitted from even the total sum of robotic
missions to other worlds or moons (not even that of our own moon since
there's still nothing interactively as having been deployed).

Thus we're left with spendy sorts of NOVA and so many other
infomercials of their incessant hype and promises that have never
materialized a gram of food upon the table, nor that of a more
affordable or cleaner form of energy from such ET related science,
whereas Earth-science and thereby of purely terrestrial satellites
focused upon Earth have contributed, or otherwise as having been
focused upon our sun and even on behalf of tracking potentially lethal
NEOs should eventually become a win-win for at least the upper 10% of
humanity. Those that say otherwise are liars of the worse possible kind
by insisting their spendy and resource consuming astronomy and of
whatever ET exploits are justifiable (I guess that's true as long as
it's not their money or other resources getting depleted, and some one
else is having to paying extra as a direct result of their matrix of
tax avoidance).

Science stories usually fall into three families: wacky stories,
scare stories and "breakthrough" stories.."
I think the discovery of other life/ETs as situated upon Venus fits all
of the above.
It is my hypothesis that in their choice of stories, and the way they
cover them, the media create a parody of science, for their own means.
I totally concur. The media (MI6/NSA~NASA influenced if not entirely at
their disposal) has been leading us astray while milking us dry, and
then some.
~

Life upon Venus, Township w/Bridge and ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm
War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been
the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't
been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush.

Geoffrey A. Landis wrote:

"Why is science journalism so bad?" from the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badsc...564369,00.html

"reinforce the humanities-graduate journalists' parody of science, for
which we now have all the ingredients: science is about groundless,
incomprehensible, didactic truth statements from scientists, who
themselves are socially powerful, arbitrary, unelected authority
figures. They are detached from reality: they do work that is either
wacky, or dangerous, but either way, everything in science is tenuous,
contradictory and, most ridiculously, "hard to understand".

IMHO, Ben Goldacre overestimates the typical journalists's
understanding of science. I think most journalists are
merely representative of the general population. Like most
people, they simply don't understand science or scientific
principles on a fundamental level.

For better or worse, most people never get beyond the basic
knowledge-from-authority model of learning. On a fundamental
level, the most advanced argument which most people understand
is argument from authority.

IMHO, this is why "bad science" and "good science" is viewed
on the same level in the media and that's why the audience
puts up with it. They have no concept of discriminating
between true and false other than guessing which authority
figure is more authoritative than the other.

Isaac Kuo

IsaacKuo wrote:

IMHO, this is why "bad science" and "good science" is viewed
on the same level in the media and that's why the audience
puts up with it. They have no concept of discriminating
between true and false other than guessing which authority
figure is more authoritative than the other.

And that's why every month or so on a site like Slashdot you see blatant
crackpot stuff being trumpeted as serious scientific discoveries. The
editors are at least relatively clever; they just wouldn't know basic
scientific precepts if it bit them in the ass.

In my opinion, things like string theory aren't helping. How many
popularizations and media coverage of string theory talk about it like
it's a fact, and revel in how weird it makes the universe seem? The
problem is it's still uncorroborated theory that we have essentially no
practical way to test at the moment.

A lack of understand of basic scientific concepts means that you care
about the labels rather than the underlying science. Articles about
newly discovered bodies busy themselves about what the object will be
named, and less so its physical properties and its scientific
significance. And then there's the unending nonsense of what defines a
planet and what doesn't. The vast majority of astronomers don't care,
since it doesn't take long even for an interested observer to realize
that these labels are ones that we give and do not connote any deep
significance to the bodies in question, that there should be a
relatively smooth distribution between large bodies and small ones, and
the IAU, which is the organization responsible for providing such
labels, does not and never has had an objective definition of _planet_
or _comet_ or _asteroid_ in the first place.

--
Erik Max Francis && && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
Grub first, then ethics.
-- Bertolt Brecht

Isaac Kuo,
How do we village idiots tell an honest journalistic effort from that
of another infomercial worth of dog-wagging, spin and hype that's
motivated from within deep pockets?
For better or worse, most people never get beyond the basic
knowledge-from-authority model of learning. On a fundamental
level, the most advanced argument which most people understand
is argument from authority.
It seems we've been badly snookered by way of
"knowledge-from-authority" a few too many times in the past, as well as
for what's ongoing as we speak.
this is why "bad science" and "good science" is viewed
on the same level in the media and that's why the audience
puts up with it.
Of whatever "bad science" and "good science" is NOT viewed on the same
level when the likes of NOVA creates those multi-million dollar 3D
animated and surround-sound infomercials that are specifically
orchestrated as to knock your socks off, whereas otherwise the lesser
though more truthworthy souls can't seem to get their two words
published. Besides our having to take the safe mainstream status quo
as-is where-is media methodology as the words of God, it's also called
"show me the money", or rather they'll be shown exactly how much
negative financial impact will transpire if they don't publish the
infomercial as though it was independently created and thus having been
independently verified.

The likes of NOVA entertainment is not "science journalism", it's pure
and simple SF entertainment that's intended for the sake of comforting
those easily dumbfounded about most anything.

This however says it all;
They have no concept of discriminating between true and false other
than guessing which authority figure is more authoritative than the other.
Although, there's not all that much guessing when there so much money
at risk of being lost forever if the given media and most importantly
should publishers of textbooks balk at their publishing whatever
supposedly authoritative money-bags worth of disinformation comes
along. Thus for the most part humanity has "no concept of
discriminating between true and false".

If authority is proven as corrupt, then I'd say there's a darn good
chance that whatever science they represent and/or associate with is
also at risk of being corrupt, or at least having been skewed in the
wrong direction.
~

Life upon Venus, a township w/Bridge & ET/UFO Park-n-Ride Tarmac:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm
The Russian/China LSE-CM/ISS (Lunar Space Elevator)
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/lunar-space-elevator.htm
Venus ETs, plus the updated sub-topics; Brad Guth / GASA-IEIS
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-topics.htm
War is war, thus "in war there are no rules" - In fact, war has been
the very reason of having to deal with the likes of others that haven't
been playing by whatever rules, such as GW Bush.

Erik Max Francis wrote:


In my opinion, things like string theory aren't helping. How many
popularizations and media coverage of string theory talk about it like
it's a fact, and revel in how weird it makes the universe seem? The
problem is it's still uncorroborated theory that we have essentially
no practical way to test at the moment.


And it's now obsolete- Membrane Theory is the hot new thing in physics.
"Professor Einstein...this is the exact same physics test you gave us
last year!?"
"Jah...but this year all the answers are different." :-)



A lack of understand of basic scientific concepts means that you care
about the labels rather than the underlying science. Articles about
newly discovered bodies busy themselves about what the object will be
named, and less so its physical properties and its scientific
significance. And then there's the unending nonsense of what defines
a planet and what doesn't. The vast majority of astronomers don't
care, since it doesn't take long even for an interested observer to
realize that these labels are ones that we give and do not connote any
deep significance to the bodies in question, that there should be a
relatively smooth distribution between large bodies and small ones,
and the IAU, which is the organization responsible for providing such
labels, does not and never has had an objective definition of _planet_
or _comet_ or _asteroid_ in the first place.


Or for that matter what differentiates a _Bigfoot_ from a _Sasquatch_
from a _Skunk Ape_.
Still, it's nice to know that prehistoric flying reptiles really did get
as big as the Nazgul's Fell Beasts in LOTR:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4223658.stm
And you know why they got that big?
Charged Water, that's why. ;-)

Pat

Erik Max Francis wrote:
A lack of understand of basic scientific concepts means that you care
about the labels rather than the underlying science.

Clearly defined terms with unambiguous meanings are valuable tools in
science and elsewhere.



--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

:: A lack of understand of basic scientific concepts means that you care
:: about the labels rather than the underlying science.

: Clearly defined terms with unambiguous meanings are valuable tools in
: science and elsewhere.

Yes, but that's "care about labels the better to communicate
and conduct the underlying science" vs "care about the labels
*instead* *of* the underlying science.

On the other hand, lack of undertanding doesn't *cause* caring about
only the labels; in addition to those above who both understand and
care, there are *also* plenty who don't understand and don't care.

But maybe it's correlated some.


Wayne Throop http://sheol.org/throopw

Hop David wrote:

Clearly defined terms with unambiguous meanings are valuable tools in
science and elsewhere.

Sure, it can, under some circumstances. But astronomers already have
better terms that they use when needed, like "Transneptunian object" or
"Kuiper belt object" rather than merely, say, "asteroid."

The point is that classification and namegiving are a minute fraction of
the total amount of effort in scientifically studying a subject like
astronomy, and one must always remember that those classifications have
no objective power -- it's a classification invented by people, after
all; something imposed from without rather than from within.

That amateurs and the popular media are still stuck in first gear is a
good indication that they're off wandering in the bushes rather than
dealing with any substantive.

--
Erik Max Francis && && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
Every astronaut who goes up knows the risks he or she faces.
-- Sally Ride

Erik Max Francis wrote:
Hop David wrote:

Clearly defined terms with unambiguous meanings are valuable tools in
science and elsewhere.


Sure, it can, under some circumstances. But astronomers already have
better terms that they use when needed, like "Transneptunian object" or
"Kuiper belt object" rather than merely, say, "asteroid."

The point is that classification and namegiving are a minute fraction of
the total amount of effort in scientifically studying a subject like
astronomy, and one must always remember that those classifications have
no objective power -- it's a classification invented by people, after
all; something imposed from without rather than from within.

Still human invented classifications can be useful and non trivial. Carl
Linnaeus, for example, made a big contribution to biology.


That amateurs and the popular media are still stuck in first gear is a
good indication that they're off wandering in the bushes rather than
dealing with any substantive.


Professional astronomers as well as amateurs have participateed in the
"Is Pluto a planet?" debate.

--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html