Unpopular Science

The Nation by Chris Mooney, Sheril Kirshenbaum | Aug. 4, 2009 (Special Report)

We live in a time of pathbreaking advances in biotechnology and nanotechnology, of private spaceflight and personalized medicine, amid a climate and energy crisis, in a world made more dangerous by biological and nuclear terror threats and global pandemics. Meanwhile, advances in neuroscience are calling into question who we are, whether our identities and thought processes can be reduced to purely physical phenomena, whether we actually have free will. ... Full Story »

Posted by Kaizar Campwala

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Kaizar Campwala
3.9
 by Kaizar Campwala - Aug. 4, 2009

I expected a more insightful examination than this piece provided. It stuck to largely known explanations about the decline of objective press, but didn't dig deep into particularities of science coverage. For example, do science reporters play any kind of watchdog role? Did people who don't seek out science news today read it in the papers, or was it always a niche situation?

As a rule, journalists are always in search of the dramatic and the new. When it comes to science, however, this can lead them to pounce on each “hot” new result, even if that finding contradicts the last hot result or is soon overturned by a subsequent study. The resulting staccato coverage can leave the public hopelessly exasperated and confused. Should you drink more coffee or less? Does global warming increase the number and intensity of hurricanes or not? Are vaccines safe, or can they cause an autism epidemic? Experienced science journalists know how to cover such topics by contextualizing studies and deferring to the weight of the evidence. Inexperienced journalists, though, are likely to leave audiences with a severe case of media whiplash.

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