Science mad

Sceince in the media ranges from the dull and heavy to tabloid "shock discoveries".

 

"Science" is, by and large, treated with deference by the press. Upmarket papers take pride in their science pages and correspondents; downmarket ones happily fill space with reports of "shock discoveries" in genetics or astronomy. The relationship is symbiotic: a scientist's career may benefit when his/her work pushes the buttons of newspaper editors – making eyecatching research especially valuable. Uncertainty, though a fact of scientific life, is rarely allowed to cloud the picture.

The name of science has gone remarkably unsullied in media reporting of the Merck saga, which surely, first and foremost, involves the failure and/or corruption of scientific investigation. Science, in media stereotype, is cool stuff that clever people do (or alternately boring stuff that nerdy people do), and its relationship to industry is usually treated as a happy coincidence of interests rather than a massive source of distortion.

That's not exactly the standard picture of the boffin. Nor of course is it an adequate portrait of the role of science in society. But it's a corrective to much of the smug self-regard in which scientists revel in popular media. Take, for example, Prof William Reville, weekly science columnist in the Irish Times. Last week his idea of contributing to readers' understanding was to set a brain-teaser quiz that had nothing to do with science – except that, uh, scientists are brainy, right?

Occasionally science is recognised as an area of contention, as in the debate over "creation science" or global warming. The latter arguments, however, have given way in recent years, to the media's evident relief, in favour of a "scientific consensus" about greenhouse gases. The cosy "consensus" phrase conceals continuing disputes and uncertainty about causes and consequences, and hides the self-interest of scientists who are paid by the various corporate and political players.

The relationship between mainstream journalism and science has a hint of condescension mixed in with the deference, in both directions. Each side has its doubts about the value of the other: the media makes scientists vulgarise their work; science makes journalists tell potentially boring or baffling stories of dubious relevance. Unless both are sure the greater good of humanity is definitely at stake, they'll usually hide their doubts behind all-good-fun bonhomie.

We'll be seeing a lot of that in the next week or two, as something called "The BA Festival of Science" hits Dublin (September 3-10). "BA", in this case, is neither union-buster-by-proxy British Airways nor weapons-maker British Aerospace, though each employs its share of scientists. The BA is a registered charity, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, only too happy to get "support" from companies interested in good PR for the field.

Although the BA says it promotes debate and "openness about science in society", its rich "festival" programme of events, despite having room for a "scientific" debate on immigration, has no apparent space to discuss the effects of commerce on science's autonomy, a la Vioxx. You can bet the media won't have much space for that either.

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