NASA: science shouldn’t be debated in media and blogs?!
A few minutes ago Ed Yong tweeted:
NASA deems it inappropriate “to debate the science using the media and bloggers” http://t.co/a3VFOa2 But runaway hype okay? HT @david_dobbs

The link points to an article on the Canadian Broadcasting Centre* website, discussing Prof. Rosie Redfield’s criticism of the research paper describing arsenic tolerant bacteria on her blog.
Some way into the CBC article, it presents this response from NASA spokesperson, Dwayne Brown:
When NASA spokesman Dwayne Brown was asked about public criticisms of the paper in the blogosphere, he noted that the article was peer-reviewed and published in one of the most prestigious scientific journals. He added that Wolfe-Simon will not be responding to individual criticisms, as the agency doesn’t feel it is appropriate to debate the science using the media and bloggers. Instead, it believes that should be done in scientific publications.
This the work NASA announced as:
Dec. 2, 2010: NASA-supported researchers have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism, which lives in California’s Mono Lake, substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in the backbone of its DNA and other cellular components.
“The definition of life has just expanded,” said Ed Weiler, NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it.”
Since then there has been considerable media coverage, along with some scientific criticism, including of the press release and pre-release promotion, the subsequent media coverage and the research itself. In all, something of a small storm.
Let’s make sure we’re reading Mr. Brown’s statement fairly. (I’ll take the CBC’s paraphrasing his statement as accurate: no link is given for the original source.)
I can sympathise with wanting the science to be discussed by people informed on the science, and the traditional channel is research journals. I can sympathise that replying in person, individually one-on-one, to each criticism would be onerous and not practical given how much of it there is.
But you can’t realistically ask scientists not to discuss this work publicly, in their coffee rooms, by the water cooler, at the café or other forums. That includes if media ask them for an opinion, or on their blogs.
It’s almost as if NASA want to cast aspersions at scientists who–how dare they–address the public, or speak in public.
You’d think that NASA already has enough egg on their face to take care over what they say next.

NASA is famous for presenting science to the public. Most of the time they do superbly. So do some scientists, and science communicators, on radio, TV, … and blogs.
Scientists discussing papers on-line isn’t new. I have memories of following a discussion and very robust criticism of one of the earlier ‘Mitochrondrial Eve’ papers on bionet from my Ph.D. student days.
This took much the same approach as we are seeing from Redfield, discussion in a public forum with it being clear early on that it would likely eventually result in a letter to the editor of the research publication.
I agree in the end it will be the formal articles that discuss that issue that will stand for the record, but you can’t realistically ask that scientists and science bloggers not explore the issues in public forums.
There is nothing new going on in scientists writing on blogs, compared to writing on bionet (or its ilk). There might be something new in journalists tapping into this writing, perhaps-?
Should we take this remark as another sign that the media is taking note of science bloggers?
(We–meaning us who write and follow science on-line–have a biased position as we’re more likely to notice anyway; but perhaps this practice is, at least for major stories, spreading more widely? I wouldn’t mind guessing the that science media centres have a hand in it, too.)
Footnote
* According to their about page, ’Canada’s national public broadcaster’.
** Remind me and I might reminisce about it. It was a wonderful demonstration of international science played out before a student’s eyes.
Update: corrected twitter link to David Dobbs.
Other articles on Code for life:
Should media only report facts and leave interpretation to the universities?
Lecturers sitting in on colleague’s lectures, and laptops
In response to Garth George’s dig at science…
0 Responses to “NASA: science shouldn’t be debated in media and blogs?!”
Independently David Dodds has expanded his tweet on his blog, Neuron Culture:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/the-wrong-stuff-nasa-dismisses-arsenic-critique-because-critical-priest-not-standing-on-altar/
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Grant Jacobs and Grant Jacobs, Sciblogs NZ. Sciblogs NZ said: NASA: science shouldn’t be debated in media and blogs?!: A few minutes ago Ed Yong tweeted: NASA deems it inappr… http://bit.ly/gRIArk […]
Seems to me NASA is being just a tiny bit precious about this 😉
You can understand them feeling a little piqued—anyone would in the situation—but you’d think that they’d restrain themselves from pointing fingers, given that doing that is more-or-less inviting finger-pointing in reply!
More on this subject at Larry Moran’s Sandwalk (with some comments following the article):
http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2010/12/value-of-blogs.html
Canadian Broadcasting *Corporation*. Canada’s BBC or ABC.
Neil,
I thought so myself and wrote that first too, but whilst hunting for their ‘About’ link on the home page, near the bottom I spotted the words “Visit the Canadian Broadcasting Centre†and took it that I was mistaken and that to be the correct expansion of CBC. In hindsight, perhaps this refers to a building rather than the organisation?
Respected science writer Carl Zimmer has a round-up of the criticism at Slate (with comments):
http://www.slate.com/id/2276919/
(H/T: @saenmcarroll)
[…] The Wrong Stuff: NASA Dismisses Arsenic Critique Because Critical Priest Not Standing on Altar and NASA: science shouldn’t be debated in media and blogs?! and Not getting it and “This Paper Should Not Have Been Published”: Scientists see […]
[…] Wrong Stuff: NASA Dismisses Arsenic Critique Because Critical Priest Not Standing on Altar and NASA: science shouldn’t be debated in media and blogs?! and Not getting it and “This Paper Should Not Have Been Published”: Scientists see […]
Thanks for the pointer to Carl Zimmer’s post, Grant; excellent reading.
Hi Alison,
It is good piece. It’s not the first time I’ve seen Carl hold off for a few days, then present a balanced article on a controversial topic.
Those that read of Carl’s article will note that while I mentioned in my article that perhaps it’s impractical for the authors to respond to the on-line criticism, Jonathon Eisen was cited as objecting to the authors not doing this:
“If they say they will not address the responses except in journals, that is absurd. They carried out science by press release and press conference. Whether they were right or not in their claims, they are now hypocritical if they say that the only response should be in the scientific literature.â€
(On page 2, paragraph 5.)
Carry on as you started off?
More reading/viewing! :-
A video of (an excerpt of?) Felisa Wolfe-Simon speaking on her research is available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1NHQKCyryI
Some wit has started a twitter stream, alienbacteria, that is parodying the fuss: https://twitter.com/alienbacteria
Bora has a long list of blog posts on the subject, updated as more come in: http://blog.coturnix.org/2010/12/07/arsenic-bacteria-link-dump/
Hopefully one of the last feeders (famous last words, etc., probably!):
Felisa Wolfe-Simon has tweeted,
“Discussion about scientific details MUST be within a scientific venue so that we can come back to the public with a unified understanding.â€
See: http://twitter.com/ironlisa/status/11579028288839680
There are more links on her website: http://www.ironlisa.com/
There’s also a brief evaluation of the paper at the Faculty of 1000: http://f1000.com/6854956?key=y11r1klww5vkfxh
[…] […]
This from David Kroll is worth reading, and following the links within:
http://cenblog.org/terra-sigillata/2010/12/08/post-publication-peer-review-in-public-poison-or-progress/#comment-6168
[…] par le processus rigoureux de la révision par les pairs, et non par les médias. Une réponse qui ne leur a pas valu une grosse sympathie de ceux qui, parmi ces critiques, sont des scientifiques, et qui se voient […]
There is more preciousness regarding the lead author’s Wikipedia entry. All criticism of the As-DNA is consistently being deleted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Felisa_Wolfe-Simon&action=history
Apparently self-published blogs aren’t normally used as sources for biographies in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#Use_of_electronic_or_online_sources
Seems to be a fair policy given the controversies over WP biographies. Yet the most notable thing about FWS is the controversy she has sparked.
Thanks for the links Paul. I don’t have experience with maintaining wikipedia entries and so couldn’t really pass any sort of judgement – interesting though.
I hope it’s obvious I’m not presenting anything about the contents of the paper itself in my article.
I hope my memory is serving me well here, but it appears that Wolfe-Simon has appended to her earlier remarks about presenting a FAQ, remarking about making the organism available via culture collections. Hopefully this will help independent studies to take place.
See: http://www.ironlisa.com/gfaj/
Somehow I missed that Rosie Redfield had posted on her blog a draft of a formal Letter to the Editor she is sending to Science (the journal that published the “arsenic bacteria†paper):
http://rrresearch.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-letter-to-science.html
She calls for comments and recommendations to re-word her letter, etc., and duly many follow.
Rosie Redfield has posted her preliminary (scientific) thoughts on the Q&A’s (PDF file) offered by the authors.
Plenty here for researchers to mull over.
Science has posted an “exclusive†interview with the lead author, Felicia Wolfe-Simon. I haven’t read this through slowly myself (there’s a lot of it and I have a lot on right now!), but for my readers:
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/12/arsenic-researcher-asks-for-time.html?rss=1
(To my opinion the second paragraph frames the previous events too simplistically, but never mind that.)
A month on and there is another round of perspective articles emerging. There’s an awful lot of navel-gazing!
This on where “open discussions†have taken place in the past (I’d don’t entirely agree):
http://mcshanahan.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/arsenic-cold-fusion-and-the-legitimacy-of-online-critique/
This examining older science on the subject of arsenic v. phosphorus:
http://wavefunction.fieldofscience.com/2011/01/phosphorus-beats-arsenicby-factor-of-50.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+curiouswavefunction+(The+Curious+Wavefunction)
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