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Posts Tagged media

Major newspaper opts for science blogging Grant Jacobs Sep 01

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British newspaper, the Guardian, already home to the column of Bad Science writer Ben Goldacre, has gathered a small but very good collection of science bloggers to present as Guardian Science Blogs.

Stromatolites from Bolivia (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

Stromatolites from Bolivia (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

The science-writing internet has seen a lot of developments this year. It’s promising to see a major newspaper like the Guardian take this on.

Initially the Guardian have four blogs:

  • Punctuated equilibrium, by GrrlScientist (who also writes at several locations elsewhere). Her introductory post features her parrot, Orpheus reading, no make that eating, the Guardian. Good recycling, I suppose. (Great photo, too, well worth checking out.)
  • Political science, by Evan Harris (a former British MP), who has started out with some pretty hard-hitting stuff on MMR and religion v. science in teaching in schools. Interesting — and good! — to see a politician in the science-writing fray.
  • The Lay Scientist, by Martin Robbins, who might be familiar from those who followed Simon Singh’s case, who writes with skepticism about pretty whatever is the latest issue. (Sadly, there is always more to put right… On the bright side, this makes for more entertainment, too.)
  • Particle Physics, by Jon Butterworth, Professor of Physics at UCL who will no doubt bring some professorial clout to physics blogging, entertainingly too.

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Media7 Spotlight on Science and Technology special Grant Jacobs Aug 16

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New Zealand Readers* should watch Media 7 on Thursday 19 August at 9.10pm, TVNZ 7, which will

[…] explore some of the many problems that journalists face in dealing with developments in science and technology. It will also consider some of the frustrations that scientists experience when they have to explain their work to journalists.

Media7’s on-line blurb closes with

Media7’s special will seek to bridge the gap between the scientists and the journalists, and will be looking at some of the spectacular communications failures.

Should make for entertaining viewing!

Host Russell Brown will be joined by Dr. David Haywood (writer), science journalist Alan Samson, Radio New Zealand Science producer Phil Smith and our own Peter Griffin (of the Science Media Centre) and Dr. Rebecca McLeod (marine biologist).

If what Russell Brown is saying on his blog is anything to go by, the topic of NZCSC’s stunt of challenging NIWA’s climate data in court is likely to come up. See also Hot Topic for a more complete take on this. (And far too many other blogs…!)

Footnote

Updated to correct Rebecca’s name (see comments).

* It’s been brought to my attention that you can view TVNZ7 on-line. (I haven’t verified this. Work calls…) Overseas readers, and local viewers without a Freeview™ decoder for their TV, may be able to access the show this way.


Other articles on Code for life:

Opinion: Wanting to “resolve” (climate) science with legal games…

Preserving endangered species – of gut microbes

Autism genetics, how do you copy?

Consumer brain-computer interface

Temperature-induced hearing loss

Science bite: Longevity gene study has flaws? Grant Jacobs Jul 08

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A quick heads’s up* that a recent genetic study on longevity may need further work.

Last week Science published a paper reporting a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for genes for long life, which was widely covered in the media (e.g. in the Guardian). Almost immediately some scientists queried aspects of the work, as is usual in science. Being a well-publicised work, these queries have wider reach than for other research papers.

Harry Patch at 105** (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Harry Patch at 109** (Source: Wikimedia Commons) Wikipedia writes: “Harry Patch, known as "the Last Tommy", was a British supercentenarian, and the last surviving soldier to have fought in the trenches of the First World War.”

Newsweek has an article by Mary Carmichael that does a good job of explaining some of the issues.

Rather than repeat the main issues Carmichael points out in condensed form here, I encourage readers to read the original.

Daniel MacArthur writing at Genetic Future adds that the high-scoring SNPs (single-nucleotide polymorphisms) have no near neighbours with similarly high scores, a pattern which is more typical of spurious peaks (i.e. noise rather than signal). This should invite checking if these are noise or signal, or if there is a wider problem.

I have a similar opinion, based on experience using markers in linkage analysis. Markers lie along the chromosome, one after the other. If you plot the linkage score for each marker and are looking for regions that are candidates to be linked to the disease you are studying, ideally you want table mountain-shaped peaks, with several adjacent markers having a high score, rather than Matterhorn-shaped peaks (Aspiring-shaped for New Zealanders), with only a single high-scoring marker.

Having several independent markers indicating an association gives more confidence that the association is likely to be real.

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Daily Fail attacks experts Grant Jacobs Jul 07

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The Daily Mail — known to many as the Daily Failblames it all on experts.

Yup, experts, and experts alone, are the reason for the contradictory health advice that science and medical journalists like the author David Freeman produce.

(Then how come the better science writers actually get things right?)

The three-sentence headline thunders:

Never trust an expert!  Ever wondered why so much health advice is contradictory? It’s because two-thirds of medical research is wrong or fraudulent

It’s excruciating to read all the fallacies in this article. Simon Jenkins’ recent rant, bad as is was, has nothing on this. (See also Mind the Gap for the revenge of the evil boffins.)

What a laugh that this article points to shifting the goal posts after a giant leap from advice about CPR to one of the few fraud cases in molecular biology worthy of wider attention. Yes, right, there really is a connection there…

And then directly compares this particular fraud case to much more minor “fraud” without bothering to mention the difference. Nor bothering to mention that some of the unwelcome activities are not fraud at all, not in the sense he refers to. It just wouldn’t be right to be accurate, would it?

(And, naturally, no effort is made to link to the research that is cited, or mention he’s recycling old news. See Nature 435, 718-719 (9 June 2005) for the summary article. [PDF file, subscription required.] If I can find it, they can link it.)

Like any good Gish Gallop there are so many errors, it would take an essay of epic proportions to counter them.

So I won’t. I’m not enough of a fool.

OK — those wanting the counterpoint argument say — the Daily Fail, like many tabloids, is about entertainment, not “truth”.

There’s a good deal of truth in that.

You only have to skim through the “science” or “health” stories to see the standard of their science writing. Not good.

To top it off, the article is basically an advertorial for the guy’s book.

But to me the kicker, the kick-in-the-gut, is the comments thread.

It’s sad reading.

That such a twitted article could lead people along like that…

HT: Ed Yong via twitter.

Addendum: Note that headline’s statistics are wrong anyway. Methinks someone didn’t read carefully.


Other articles on Code for life:

Boney lumps, linkage analysis and whole genome sequencing (high-speed genome sequencing is offering new ways to locate the genetic errors causing disease)

Blogimmuniqué: who are you? (introduce yourself and meet fellow readers)

Describe your fantasy institute (what would your dream research institute be like?)

Royal Society publishing free to read, 1665 – today (don’t miss out — until the end of July only)

XMRV prompts media thought: ask for the “state of play” Grant Jacobs Jun 29

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Previously I considered that media might ask experts what is known rather than their opinion.*

XMRV (Source: Singh Laboratory, University of Utah.)

XMRV (Source: Singh Laboratory, University of Utah.)

The fuss about the potential link between XMRV and CFS over the past few months has reminded me of the need for coverage to present what the current state of play is.

One of the more frustrating things for scientists to watch is media reports jumping in too soon,** reporting each new finding in an unresolved story as if it were the last word.

It portrays each research paper as definitive on their own. Research papers are in effect an argument for a case, a case that might potentially later prove wrong.

“Instant” blow-by-blow accounts portray science as a progression of abrupt discoveries, rather than an accumulation of smaller pieces from many different sources that lead to larger conclusions over time. It is true that occasionally there are genuinely startling findings that fly in the face of most of what was known in an area, but these are rare; much more usual are additions to what is known.

Sometimes research findings are contradicted by later studies.

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New evidence confirms Phar Lap was poisoned by arsenic? Grant Jacobs Jun 19

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Scientists have examined spectral properties along the length of hairs that were growing at the time of Phar Lap’s death to get a chronology of ingestion of arsenic in similar way that comparing different tree rings can point to environmental conditions at different ages of a tree.

(Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

(Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

Phar Lap is a legend in New Zealand, both for his racing prowess and also because Australians claim him as their own. Locals in Timaru and elsewhere in New Zealand beg to differ. (He was foaled near Timaru, New Zealand, but trained and raced in Australia.)

Speculations that Phar Lap was poisoned by arsenic are not new. My understanding is that the evidence to date has been circumstantial rather than definitive. My caution here is partly because this is an extremely hotly-debated topic in some circles in New Zealand and Australia, and I have no wish to be “flame bait”…! Readers can (kindly) judge for themselves.

The abstract of the report reads:

Fresh physical evidence about the demise of the racehorse Phar Lap (see photograph) has been gathered from the study of mane hair samples by synchrotron radiation analysis with high resolution X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) analyses. The results are indicative of arsenic ingestion and metabolism, and show that the racing champion died from arsenic poisoning.

These two techniques detect the presence of metals and what the metal is covalently (chemically) bonded to, respectively. Rather than repeat what they have written, I refer readers to the brief report on this to be found on the NASW (National Association of Science Writers (USA)) website, including the research reference. The keys points raised there are that the “timing” of the arsenic and the nature of it indicate that it was ingested before Phar Lap’s death (i.e. is not chemicals used in preservation of the hide).

(I’d write more of an explanation, but we are having a stunningly warm and sunny winter’s day here in Dunedin — 14˚C so far — and there are outside jobs to do on the house…)

HT: @BoraZ.

Addendum (added 26-June-2010)

Those wanting a story with more background to Phar Lap and the history of this story, should read science writer Deborah Blum’s article.

In good health or not? – “natural health” advertising in newspapers, magazines Grant Jacobs Jun 17

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Should newspapers take care to not place advertisements with dubious claims alongside sound medical advice?

My local paper is the Otago Daily Times. Today the ODT — as it is known locally — contained a supplement,* good health, which I think is let down by including advertising of some rather dodgy services and products.

see-thru-body

Don’t get me wrong. I like the ODT. It’s easily one of the better papers. Overall the good health pull-out looks fine too; it’s a case of a few letting down the many.

As you read on, bear in mind that I’m interested the wider point the advertising in this feature raises, not this particular supplement, which I’m just using to illustrate my point.

The good health supplement is presented as a 12-page pull-out magazine with an A-Z series of short pieces on Asthma, Burns, Chilblains, Drug and alcohol addiction, … Yellow fever and Zoster (as in herpes zoster infection, or shingles).

A brief skim suggests that the short pieces look sound. A number cite sources, including WWW sites, and some encourage readers to visit registered practitioners: well done.

The presentation is so much that of an informative magazine that I didn’t notice the (not so small) “small print” that it was an advertising feature until after I spotted a few dubious advertisements and decided to look closer.

It would be nice to know who wrote the informative pieces. I presume these are by staff writers, or free-lancers contracted for this feature. Let’s assume it’s not the advertisers but by one means or other representatives of the Otago Daily Times.

Here’s my beef:** a few of the advertisements strike me as too dubious to be placed alongside the rest of the material, including the other advertisers. Including them undermines the credibility of the supplement.

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Conspiring against science Grant Jacobs Jun 17

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There has been much written about conspiracy-style alternatives to science and how to best address them. Writing in EMBO Reports, sociologist Ted Goertzel offers his opinions (Open Access; PDF file).

I invite people to read the article for themselves. Some readers more familiar with scientific-related conspiracies may wish to skim over the introductory passages. Below I offer a few quotes from the article as starters for discussion. I’ve offer a few quick words to some of them.

On the Wakefield/MMR story:

The media highlighted the story, despite the study’s very small sample size and speculative causal inferences, and the public reaction was much larger than the medical and public health authorities anticipated. The reasons for the public reaction included resentment of pressure on parents, distrust of medical authorities and the potentially catastrophic nature of possible risk for a vulnerable population. [...] While the authorities responded by citing findings from large epidemiological studies, much of the press coverage highlighted anecdotal accounts and human-interest stories. The recovery of public confidence in vaccination might have been due more to revelations of a conflict of interest on the part of the physician who published the original article—which was eventually withdrawn by the journal—than to the overwhelming evidence for the lack of a relationship between vaccination and autism rates.

Here I’m not so much interested in the science, but what drives these sorts of concern in the public and what resolves them. What do you think best resolves these issues. In the case of the Wakefield/MMR “affair” how effective do you think the research studies have been at putting this to rest? (Or is it the communication of these that matter more in your opinion?)

On ‘two sides’ and media “balance”:

Dissenters from mainstream science often invoke a meme that there are two sides to every question and each side is entitled to equal time to present its case. George W. Bush famously suggested that students be taught both evolution and “intelligent design” theories so that they could judge which had the most convincing argument (Baker & Slevin, 2005). Similarly, climate change ‘sceptics’ demand equal air time for their side of the argument and, at least in the beginning, the media were more than willing to grant it in the interest of ‘balance’.

[...]

This advocacy meme is used widely in law courts and political debates and it can work well when the question at hand is one of taste or morality. It does not work well for scientists because there are objective right and wrong answers to most scientific questions.

It strikes me that this effectively exploits the mainstream media’s “standard” practice of presenting “alternative views.” (I worry sometimes that the/a main reason is to “justify” that they have “correctly investigated” an issue. In New Zealand I have seen apologetic remarks to this effect on current affairs programmes.)

It’d be good to see media not fall for this. In the case of material based on evidence, if an ‘alternative’ has little evidence, it deserves little or no air-time. If it’s not backed by substance, it’s not an alternative but an opinion and for fact-based stories it is what is known that matters, not opinions.

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That Ben Goldacre fuss Grant Jacobs Jun 14

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Another on-line controversy. (The last I wrote about being the University of California v. Nature Publishing Group, which is on-going.)

Sunday four weeks ago I alerted readers to research that showed that omega 3 oil does not improve cognitive function.*

More recently doctor and well-known anti-“bad science” writer Ben Goldacre took to task Denis Campbell for writing an inaccurate account of the findings of another research paper on this same topic.

Goldacre‘s criticism has resulted in a minor out-pouring of blog posts.

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Sunday reading list (13 June 2010) Grant Jacobs Jun 13

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What characterises a scientist journalist? (And related things.) Bora Zivkovic asks Am I A Science Journalist? and gets a good number of replies from those who blog, or write about science for a living. Greg Laden wrote a blog post in reply. In a related vein, Rob Kitchin from the National University of Ireland lays out his list of issues to those blogging (or thinking of blogging) from an academic setting.
beetle

Myrmecos If you like photos of insects, check out Alex Wild’s blog, which tracks “Alex’s exploration of insects and the other little creatures that run the planet.” The illustration to the right is cropped from a photo on his blog.

Open lab summissions In a recent list of submissions to Open Laboratory 2010, the annual publication of the best of blogging, I saw that someone has kindly submitted one of my own articles. You’re welcome to submit others that you think are a good read and will translate to print without too much editing. Check the list out, there’s plenty of good Sunday reading there. Don’t forget to look around sciblogs too!

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