Kathy Sykes on science and the media: quit bitching

Kathy Sykes, Professor of Sciences and Society at Bristol University has written a provocative article in the latest New Scientist entitled "Science in the media: Put up or shut up"

The star of Rough Science argues that while science communication often leaves a lot to be desired, scientists themselves need to be less rabid in their attacks on the media:

Does ranting do any good? In some cases it does, especially if science is being carelessly mangled or deliberately distorted. But in many cases communicators are passionate about science and are simply trying to communicate it as clearly as they can to as large an audience as possible. We risk drowning out what's good with a stream of public bickering. We also risk discouraging a new generation of communicators.

Having worked in a role trying to bridge the gap between scientists and journalists, I think Sykes has a point. Scientists can be incredibly intolerant of any kind of simplification of their work, often because they don't appreciate the depth of their knowledge compared to the ubiquitous 'man on the street'. It's always going to be be frustrating to be told that glaring omissions and simplifications are "irrelevant" to the wider understanding of a story - but a newspaper isn't an academic journal and it's foolish to expect the same standards of reporting in both.

However, it might surprise some scientists to discover that often the journalists and film-makers themselves wish they could cover science in more depth. The sad fact is that boosting the level of intellectualism is met with diminishing returns with regards to the audience reached (though often the media grossly underestimate the public appetite for solid, informative science). This is in no way a carte blanche for the media to be outright misleading in the name of reaching an audience, and New Scientist itself has come under much-deserved criticism for it's summation of horizontal gene transfer:

Touching upon this, Sykes seems to argue that in this case the ends justified the means - if it was a cheap trick to sell magazines, it worked, and ultimately more people gained a better understanding of evolution (and that Darwin wasn't wrong at all). Meanwhile, T. Ryan Gregory at Geonomicron argues that the cover gives ammunition to Darwin's detractors. I disagree with both: I doubt the cover made a meaningful impact on either side of the evolutionary debate (if it can be called that) simply because: it's a cover. If you expect to see accurate reportage in a single three-word sentence on the front cover of a popular science magazine, you're in dreamland.

Like a black-and-white photo of a Rothko painting, science passed through the media lens is never going to be reproduced perfectly - and journalists already know this. Rather than despatching lab-coated lynch mobs every time a less-than-perfect article appears in print, scientists would be better placed to attack with full venom the wilfully ignorant, and those who set out to intentionally distort science. Sykes herself was embroiled in just such a case where she presented a patient undergoing open-heart surgery with only acupuncture to stop the pain. It was later revealed that the patient was also benefiting from a barrage of more conventional treatments:

in addition to acupuncture, the patient had a combination of three very powerful sedatives (midazolam, droperidol, fentanyl) and large volumes of local anaesthetic injected into the chest.

Did Sykes know? Probably not. But someone involved in the program did, and chose instead to present an entirely misleading view of acupuncture. In times like this, the full scorn of the scientific establishment isn't just justified, it's to be encouraged.

Science in the media can be glib, but it should never be misleading.

Hat tip to Genomicron for blogging Sykes' article