Scientists all too often make the assumption that emotional and moral responses to their work made by a ‘scientifically illiterate’ press and public are irrelevant. The recent Channel 4 television series called Animal Farm demonstrated this point exactly. The evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson dismissed journalist Giles Corin’s disgust at cloned and crossbred species as irrelevant. Humans have a deep psychological need to keep basic boundaries intact and we don’t like to have them transgressed. It might not be rational, but this is an important and valid objection that has a long history and scientists must be willing to take it seriously.
There are times however, when the journalists fall short of the mark when it comes to thorough and informed science reporting. In 1998, a gut specialist, Dr Andrew Wakefield, provoked public panic when he announced that the MMR vaccine might be the cause of bowel disorders and autism in some children. The bombshell came at a press conference held to announce the publication of a study by Wakefield and his team. The study was of 12 children who had bowel disorders along with a rare form of autism. The report did not even investigate - let alone prove - that MMR, bowel disease and autism were linked. The fact that Wakefield was talking hunch, not fact, was just not reliably reported.
As a result there was a storm of international proportions over the safety, or not, of the vaccine, which was temporarily withdrawn in some countries. Inside the bastions of science, Wakefield was admonished for going public on a hunch for which he had no evidence. Eventually he lost his job over it. But what about the role of sloppy reporting? Science and other journalists should understand the difference between a hunch – perfectly acceptable in itself – and evidence, that is the result of systematic observation and experiment. Follow-up studies have failed to prove any connection between bowel disease, autism and MMR.
On a more positive note, when Channel 4’s documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle challenged the mainstream view of global warming, the Royal Society took it seriously enough to put a direct response on their website. Surely, this is exactly the kind of debate that Channel 4, and the FameLab contestants should strive to inspire.
Eurobarometer Surveys
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/index_en.htm
Susan Greenfield’s article ’A new kind of literacy’
www.guardian.co.uk/life/opinion/
story/0,12981,933082,00.html
Royal Society study of science communication
www.royalsoc.ac.uk/downloaddoc.asp?id=3074
Royal Society – including link to ‘Is Global Warming a Swindle?’
www.royalsoc.ac.uk
The story of the MMR fiasco
www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/mmr/index.asp
