Why are journalists scientifically illiterate?

Time for a moan.

<mode= rant> Why do journalists, whenever they cover a geological or palaeontologial story confuse and conflate us with archaeologists? As an example, an otherwise reasonably ok story about fossil crocs http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_433247.html (ok, the bit about feeding on small dinosaurs is speculation to make the story more appealing to the publics 'dinomania'.

But AAARGH. why lump us with archaeologists. I have nothing against them, fine body of scientists but except in the small areas where our disciplines overlap, palaeoanthropology, palynological and other dating methods for archaeological sites all we have in common is that sometimes we dig things up.

Is this journalistic ignorance commonplace on both sides of the Atlantic, or are we Brits the only ones afflicted?

What can we do about it?

</rant>

Regards

Nigel Whittington Hull

I think it is pretty universal - and extends way beyond the disciplines you mention. I get the impression that the average journalist is pretty much a disinterested jack of all stories and master of none.

Eugene L Griessel www.dynagen.co.za/eugene

I'd say that MOST people in the US qualify as 'scientifically illiterate', not just the media. Having said THAT, the amount of available scientific knowledge is so vast, NOBODY can have more than a casual familiarity with more than a handfull of areas. If one of the areas that a particular person may be uneducated in happens to be your favored field, then that person will frustrate you even if they are massively educated in other fields. For instance (looking at the two groups involved) what if the person knows massive amounts about geology but almost nothing about paleontology? What if they can give elaborate details about the differences between schist and gneiss but has no clue about the difference between a clade and a grade? Wherther you are impressed by the person's knowledge or depressed by his ignorance depends on your field of interest.

Journalists are either typically arts graduates with majors in politics, economics or literary theory, or they went through an apprenticeship process in the media and picked up the primary interests of that industry. They are scientifically illiterate because they never received more than the merest basics of science education if any (I speak as an arts graduate, so I can be rude). Journalists still use the metaphors of a bygone age - 'missing link', 'the gene for...', 'the next step in evolution', etc. Why would you be surprised that paleontology, geology and archeology are confused? It's your discipline - get out there are promote it.

I can define the problem Nigel, but haven't a clue how to solve it. This is part of the hell I have been through the last 6 months. This is only my experience, but perhaps others can comment from other viewpoints. The basic problem I have experienced is that the concept of a 'well-rounded' and 'widely-educated' human being has gone out the window. While pursuing my writing degree 25 years ago, we were encouraged not to 'write about writing' but to reach out into other disciplines. If one could write coherently and illustratively after a moderate amount of research in a totally foreign topic this was considered more of a success than doing a simple who-what-where-when-why-how article. Writing was seen as a skill to put a liberal education to use. That liberal education included the sciences. In this latest go-round learning geology, I assumed that my ability to write and explain would come in good stead. Not so. Scientific writing is addressed largely to an audience where it is assumed that one will write in a very dense, jargon filled patois, with explanation of a term or idea actively discouraged. Scientific writing is very formulaic, even though scientists who do it deny this is so. At the upper levels of science research, even such science journalism as the first 'news briefs' part of the AAAS journal Science, or the articles in Scientific American, New Scientist and such magazines are looked down upon as something somehow inferior, because 'explanation' is going on. The 'lower' levels of popular science (Discover, Popular Science, Science News and so forth) are disregarded as tabloids. There seems to be flag waving snobbishness with the words, 'Peer Reviewed Only' all others Need Not Apply. Needless to say, these peer reviewed, and often very specific journals are written in a way that even an educated journalist (ironic term, isn't it?) finds impossible to penetrate.

On the other side, this fall the university I attend offered a course in 'Science Writing' in its reknowned school of journalism. With my background and career interests, I was mildly interested, until I saw the disclaimer that the course was open only to journalism majors. Now, this made no sense to my middle-aged mind. Why not have the class such that both science and journalism majors could get to know each other, and in effect, cross-pollinate? That science journalists might actually learn some of the argot of the scientist, and the scientist realize that there is an very large audience of non-advanced-degree people out there who would gladly meet the scientist halfway in order to understand what he or she is doing? To answer your question: journalism students are so busy studying journalism that they neglect to get a wide liberal education, including science above the minimum graduation requirements. In many instances, the same is true of scientists, except one would substitute communication skills. Although there are notable exceptions on either side, the 'average journalist' who goes out to interview the 'average scientist' is often a case of the deaf meeting the blind. When communication happens it is indeed a miracle. I have a foot in both camps; I hope to be a small part of the solution. my .02 Jo

Short answer, because we indulge them by reading their babble. Its not just in paleontology, or anthropology or social sciences. . .if you REALLY want to see some garbage look at some of the military reporting going on today.

You know there is a theory that says that a good journalist can write about any subject. Possibly true for a VERY good journalist that knows the limits of his/her understanding of the subject and actually finds a knowledgable friend to do the proof reading! Of course that MIGHT be an admission of ignorance or an inability to do (and record) and interview or something!

As for a cure, call them to task each and every time they are caught with their pen in motion and their mind in neutral. These days most can be reached by email through their newspaper. You can even suggest that they find an expert and get a review before bothering to publish fiction!

Regards

I agree entirely (I'm a scientist who tries to communicate, so my standing, my salary, and my job security all suffer). It's a deep systemic problem: not only are journalism students too busy studying journalism, education students are too busy studying teaching. For more than a generation, schools have been populated by uneducated teachers propagating the myth that science and mathematics are hard. Can we condemn their former students because they believed what they were told?

Scientists, of course, have to accept a lot of the blame. Just because Newton wrote in an intentionally obscure fashion (to avoid persecution from those with fundamentalist roundhead sympathies) doesn't mean that the rest of us have to follow blindly along. But how many scientists are actually aware of why they write like that?

Jo is right too that scientists who try to present their work in a digestible form are penalized for it. For my annual reviews (an indignity the tenured don't have to suffer) I always list under 'service' those times I meet with local science journalists to help them develop stories. I'm always called on it: 'That's not service, that's self-gratification.' Yeah, right.

I think we need to cut the poor fellows a little bit of slack. I've been interviewed by reporters on a number of occasions, and without exception they came across as reasonable, intelligent people who sincerely wanted to accurately represent what I was trying to say. But their job is impossible! They have to be experts on everything, and that is simply beyond all but a very few. When I read the newspapers I am forever seeing inaccuracies

: Why do journalists, whenever they cover a geological or : palaeontologial story confuse and conflate us with archaeologists?

: Is this journalistic ignorance commonplace on both sides of the : Atlantic, or are we Brits the only ones afflicted?

It's the difference between telling and teaching. Most journalists are in the business of telling, and the priority there is to get the story across to the reader/watcher in a more or less accurate form. Details such as the distinction between archeologist and paleontologist (or between rockhound and geologist or between snake keeper and herpetologist or between bird watcher and ornithologist) are really not important to someone who is merely telling the story. That's one reason we need

[...]

IMO this is part of a bigger problem: On one hand, the scientific community doesn't seem to bother very much with being understood, which is understandable (if not excusable) in the circumstances, with funding in general being rather tight and with the typical scientist perhaps not being a very vocal type of person. On the other hand 'commoners' simply don't consider accurate, scientific knowledge as something that is attractive or interesting. They like colourful things like 'black smokers', big sharks and erupting volcanoes, which is reflected in the sickening tendency we see in typical 'nature films' nowadays, with cheap sound effects (like sound of a babbling brook in a clip from the deep ocean).

My biggest concern is that not only does this mean that the recruitment to scientific education suffer, but the quality of study materials seems to deteriorate too. Even as far back as when I was a student (maths/ physics at University of Aarhus), I remember how one the side abstract algebra was taught without any sort of reference to why these special constructs were at all interesting in any way (believe me - it's not always obvious from the formal definition); while on the other side quantum mechanics was taught superficially with explanations like 'we have this rule, and you can see it works, so never mind why'. Even today I have no idea why the basic rules in quantum mechanics are valid, or indeed if they are, because I was taught about this, and I haven't had time to find out since then.

I know - this isn't geology or paleontology. But I suspect what I describe is a common experience, and I shouldn't be. I agree, we shouldn't worry too much about whether the public gets a precise understanding of our fields, but we should worry about whether we enjoy enough respect to be considered attractive to young people. I think we lose a lot of students because we are considered 'nerdish' and because the distance between basic eduaction and the higher educations is too big. I remember how I started at university in a huge auditorium, packed with people. After three years we were 12. And I understand why: In the very first week of just one of the two simultaneous main maths courses, we raced through more new knowledge than we had met in all of our basic school years.

Good one. My bank phoned me a few days back to ask if I'm still studying to keep up my students bank account (i've just started, actually). The lady asked me what I'm doing and I answered her: 'Aardwetenschappen', which is dutch for earth or geosciences (what's the difference, btw?)

Got a letter from the bank two days ago to confirm the information, and what do I read? Oude Wetenschappen - Old Sciences. hmmmmm... philosophy? hooker-sciences????