In China, I always presume the social problems I encounter everyday are only the results of the ‘developing’ nature of my country. I comment on these essentially in Chinese (in another blog). This column on NewScientist made me believe that the problem of media distortion of research report is also prevailing in western society, and my point previously proposed in Chinese also applies here.
The problem is rooted in the audience/readers. They are not really interested in science as we scientists define. They are only interested in the ethical, emotional, political, or fictional by-product of science, instead, which are products of various interest groups other than scientists. That’s why impartial, plain and trustworthy interpretation of a research result is always far from enough to put on the news page. Readers of The Guardian, not JACS, are simply not finding science. How would you expect The Guardian interpret science like C&EN? How would you expect its headline writer to tolerate a plain, modestly-put title and subtitle?
Scientists deal with only hypothesis, by means of experiments. We live with hypothesis, with uncertainty, with the unknown. The public do exactly the opposite. How would you expect the readers be pleased with a science news that fails to confirm or ensure anything for them?
No one is really interested in science except scientists. Modern society is only trying to eliminate this hopeless situation by creating additional interesting by-products of science. But improvement from this situation should not start from trying to present in any way the ongoing frontier research. Steps should be followed instead. A systematic, long-run agenda is needed. Unfortunately, no media dedicates itself in this career. They sell themselves to the readers, not just us. Why should they listen to only us instead of the majority of the readers? The majority of taxpayers, not the professional minority, lead the society, especially in the more democratic western world. That’s why scientists have no reason to blame others. Instead, they should stand outside their comfortable, automatic justice of peer-reviewed community and face the vast majority of public by themselves. Otherwise more shits happen.
I wonder how true this is. I guess it depends a lot on the culture, but it may be that this is only the perception, but in reality there may be more interest than we think.
How much science writing is there in China? Either in the newspapers or in books?
I am not sure if you are expecting an answer. Because I cannot answer it without comparing with world outside China.
Let’s think without comparing with China. The fact is that media deceive the readers with one way not the other, which means the readers like this way. We all hate lies. But why they lie to people successfully in this specific way? The answer to this question obviously lies in the nature of the people having been lied to.
I think there are non-scientists who are interested in science, but they are definitely few and far between. I have a very hard time convincing my friends and family that the discoveries I write about are interesting. The only time they ever seem interested is if it’s a pertinent medical advance, but maybe it’s just me…
I think we should respect others’ interest more. They just don’t see what’s so interesting in all that findings and reasoning. That’s natural and justified. On the other hand, a majority of problems they are concerned can be made clearer with the help of scientists, although the ‘amount of science’ there is usually much less intensive than what we encounter in our research.
I think there are non-scientists who are interested in science, but they are definitely few and far between.
Well, I’m one sure of them as an active patient advocate.
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Several issues raised here, but the one I most wanted to address brings us back to a core one.
Other than that, there’s a lot of discussion in the blogosphere at present in terms of “the problems with science journalists” etc. and the most detailed post that I’m currently aware of is this one from last week by Bora Zivkovic.
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Cue a blog post from January 2008 Can the public trust medical journals?
This contains a link to a rather interesting video interview that Richard Smith gave in Canada in November 2007.
In it, he’s asked to discuss his latest book, “The trouble with medical journals”
After a quick check, there’s a copy of the e-book now on Google Book Search and a synopsis of the book published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (JRSM) here (full text).
Thanks a lot Graham! I’ll go over all the information you provided when I have time.
I believe sometimes the public just barks to the wrong tree when deciding whom to ‘trust’. Pure science never provides a ‘trust-able’ feeling, as there is no truth, but filled with hypothesis. However medical science isn’t a pure science. How much does we wait for to finally trust a hypothesis, when confronted with life-and-death moments?