Friday, February 10, 2006
How The Press Gets Science Wrong
I am pretty sick of reading this story everywhere:
What happened? Some people with notebooks and cameras and tools to record observations went someplace that people with notebooks and cameras and tools to record observations have never been before and they found things such people have never seen before. Why is this such a big deal?
Because of one grossly mistaken idea, one poorly defined word, and a need to attract money to go back. The poorly defined word is "species." Nobody really knows what a species is, save for the guy that decides he's found a new one.
The grossly mistaken idea is that some part of the world that has never been seen by people with notebooks and cameras and tools to record observations is somehow better or more pure or prefereable to places that such people have seen. Who says? This idea presumes that man is some sort of plague upon the planet.
But, the "explorers" that found all this want to go back. That takes money, money they need to raise. So, it means the better picture they can paint of their discovery, the more money they will get. Thus they make literary references and make fantastical claims when they tell the press about the work.
And the press, which has the scientific perspective of your average 3rd grader, buys it all.
And that is how the press gets science wrong.
Related Tags: science, press, lost world, new species
What happened? Some people with notebooks and cameras and tools to record observations went someplace that people with notebooks and cameras and tools to record observations have never been before and they found things such people have never seen before. Why is this such a big deal?
Because of one grossly mistaken idea, one poorly defined word, and a need to attract money to go back. The poorly defined word is "species." Nobody really knows what a species is, save for the guy that decides he's found a new one.
The grossly mistaken idea is that some part of the world that has never been seen by people with notebooks and cameras and tools to record observations is somehow better or more pure or prefereable to places that such people have seen. Who says? This idea presumes that man is some sort of plague upon the planet.
But, the "explorers" that found all this want to go back. That takes money, money they need to raise. So, it means the better picture they can paint of their discovery, the more money they will get. Thus they make literary references and make fantastical claims when they tell the press about the work.
And the press, which has the scientific perspective of your average 3rd grader, buys it all.
And that is how the press gets science wrong.
Related Tags: science, press, lost world, new species
