Those scientists who view religion as something between irrelevant and actively dangerous will no doubt be enjoying the discomfiture of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who finds himself at the centre of a media storm over his reported acceptance that the practice of traditional Islamic law in Britain will be ‘unavoidable’.

Do not laugh. As all scientists should, I have been back to the sources and find therein a cautionary tale of how the stately progress of a well-meaning, professorial figure, seeking to put over complex and detailed arguments, can be derailed by media interested in soundbites and sensation.

I should state that I shall not discuss the substance of the debate – the whole business of Islamic law, and Dr Williams’ attitude towards it. What interests me – and should interest you, if you are a working scientist or science writer – is how a debate on a complex and highly charged academic subject can be reported in ways that the academics concerned might not have expected.

The problem started with the release of the transcript of a lecture that Dr Williams was about to give to a conference of academic lawyers. I have read this lecture, and even as an editor used to reading the recondite products of academic discourse, it is rather hard going. I shall not of course pronounce on the Archbishop’s opinions, but looked at dispassionately, I do not think that the content of the lecture is in any way controversial or, indeed, newsworthy.

The problem started when the Archbishop trailed the lecture in an interview on BBC radio. I have read the transcript of that, too, and here – I think – is where one can discern the sickening sussurrus of the excrement-ventilator nexus. It is here that the word ‘unavoidable’ gets top billing, and was a response to what looks awfully like a leading question. That’s when a journalist seeks to put words into the mouth of an interviewee, and is a practice that is (or ought to be) discouraged.

It went like this, according to the transcript from the Archbishop’s own website.

Interviewer: “you’re [sic] words are that the application of Sharia in certain circumstances if we want to achieve this cohesion and take seriously peoples’ religion seems unavoidable?”

Williams: “It seem [sic] unavoidable…”

Cry havoc, let loose the dogs of Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, and so on.

Technically, one might argue that this wasn’t a leading question in that Dr Williams used the word ‘unavoidable’ in his lecture, and the interviewer was just drawing out the point he wanted to make. But the word appears only once in Dr Williams’ actual lecture, buried at the end of a rather long sentence, towards the end of what must have been a lecture demanding in its intellectual rigor, which few people will actually read, even if they really wanted to. Here is that sentence in toto (or, perhaps, in extremis, but definitely not in excelsis):

“But if what we want socially is a pattern of relations in which a plurality of divers and overlapping affiliations work for a common good, and in which groups of serious and profound conviction are not systematically faced with the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty, it seems unavoidable.”

Poor old Dr Williams. Whatever one might think of religion, or religious laws, or the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, you should try to put yourself in his shoes. Imagine that you’re an ivory-tower’d sage who works with or on—oooh, let’s just imagine—embryonic stem cells; global warming; nanotechnology (gray-goo, remember?); anything that involves killing (apologies, I meant sacrificing) live animals; genetic modification (of animals, crops, bacteria, or anything else – what the tabloids call ‘Frankenfoods’); any kind of work on human reproduction (what the tabs call ‘designer babies’); radiation (especially involving food); nuclear power; dangerous diseases such as BSE; human origins (that dangerous ‘evolution’ word, remember?); anything involving ‘unnatural’ so-called ‘chemicals’ (so that’s the whole of chemistry and most of the rest of biology covered); probability and the estimation of risk; indeed, practically anything that involves that dangerous and subversive activity known as ‘science’.

Then try to square yourself up with the media whose aim seems to be to titillate its audience with something that’ll scare them silly over the cornflakes.

See what I mean?

The only solution I can think of is for scientists to spend any sabbatical time or annual leave learning about the media, doing internships and applying for the various media fellowships that come up from time to time. Lab heads should encourage such collaborations. If Dr Williams had done some kind of media training first, he would have written a better lecture; and he’d certainly have been more prepared for the kind of attention that it would have attracted.