Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
URL: N/A
Date: 26/12/2013
Event: Steve Jones on the media's "nervous tic" - "you must have a climate change denier"
Credit: BBC Radio 4, also Geoff Chambers for transcribing this.
People:
Justin Webb: When you hear science reported on this programme and others, or see it reported in the papers, do your eyes roll in horror? Scientists complain sometimes that science coverage is often slapdash and jejune in a way that wouldn't be acceptable in coverage of the arts. Our guest editor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee wonders whether scientific research is properly treated by broadcasters and others. In particular, are we liable to present both sides of an argument, when only one side actually makes any rational sense? Professor Steve Jones the geneticist is here. He led a review of the BBC's science coverage, and Connie St Louis is a senior lecturer in Science Journalism at City University and is on the line. Good morning to you both.
Steve Jones: Good morning.
Connie St Louis: Good morning.
Justin Webb: Steve Jones, do your eyes roll in horror? I mean, and particularly on that last point, that Tim Berners-Lee makes, that you hear two sides of an argument, a scientific argument, presented, where sometimes actually you shouldn't.
Steve Jones: Um, I'm sorry to say that when I wrote that report for the BBC Trust, um, the general tone of the document was very positive. I mean I think the science coverage by the BBC and indeed by much of the media is very, very good. So I think we need to accept that first. But having said that, what I found most of all was not that the BBC or the media in general don’t understand science itself, they don't understand the concept of science, the way it's done, and there are always arguments between scientists, there - naturally there are - scientists are desperately disprove [sic] somebody else's ideas, so there are arguments, science is full of of argument, but science moves on. So you don't - to go to the obvious example - with climate change, um, I think it's now a universal consensus among scientists climate change is real, it's almost certainly caused by human efforts, and yet there's this almost nervous tic by the media that if you've got a climate change scientist on, you must have a climate change denier. And it's interesting that several newspapers - the Los Angeles Times for example - have decided to stop covering the anti-climate change camp, um, "clowns led by crooks" I think they call them - ararara and the BBC hasn't got through to that yet. And it ought to.
Justin Webb: But I suppose the positive way of putting that would be that we understand that science is only true until it's proven untrue - in other words, you can, sort of, separate it from mathematical truths that are probably always true - well, possibly, you raise your eyes at that, but I mean that's - so, so, if you look at scientific method, it is reasonable to attack it and attack it and attack it, because it may well be that actually it is wrong, the consensus is wrong, on climate change and other things.
Steve Jones: I agree with you absolutely. Um, if I were to able [sic] to prove, for example, that the world is flat, um, I would be the most - you know, I'd start learning Norwegian, for my Nobel Prize. But the world isn't flat - it's actually a little bit flat, but we never hear that.
Justin Webb: You'd definitely be on at ten past eight, wouldn't you, on our... Connie St Louis, what do you make of this? Because you're also critical, but from a slightly different perspective.
Connie St Louis: Yes, I want to just come back on just one of Steve's comments, which was that the BBC's coverage of science is excellent. Well, he would say that wouldn't he, 'cos he’s a scientist, but I think that much of the scrutiny...
Justin Webb: Hang on a second, why would being a scientist make you positive about the BBC?
Connie St Louis: Well, he said that the BBC's scientific coverage was positive. What I'm saying is part of the problem with scientific journalism is the lack of scrutiny of science, so there's a whole part of science that is not covered by journalism, so most of the science journalism is telling the stories, what we call the cycle of hype - "here is a new that, here is a new finding, here is this um, new drug that can help us" - but actually there is a whole dark side. We heard Martha Lane Fox talking about the "dark web", but there actually is a dark side to science as well.
Justin Webb: Ah, And we don’t search out that dark side as we should do.
Connie St Louis: No it's a very biassed, in lots of ways, form of reporting; so we don't hear about the misconduct, we don't hear about the fraud, we don’t hear about any part of that. I'm not saying that all of science is full of that, but actually I think it's very hard for the public to believe in science when they see science as a perfection, a thing that is up there to be aspired to, that cannot be shaken in any way, and so actually it becomes such, that when there is a little doubt with science as there has been with the climate science, um, er, thing, that it's really difficult for the public to know what's happening.
Justin Webb: Steve Jones?
Steve Jones: Well, I mean, obviously there are imperfect scientists, there are mistakes, there are errors, there's delusion, most of all there's self delusion, the most dangerous of all, where a scientist persuades himself or herself that they've got a wonderful result, but in fact it's not there, that's all true. I have to say that's fairly rare, and I also should say that if you look at the science journals, they regularly have retractions of papers, "Sorry, I made a mistake". Very rarely they have a statement that this paper is fraudulent, but that's rare. I mean, you compare any other endeavour, they all have their problem, and science is no different. Perhaps it's even slightly better.
Justin Webb: You teach science journalism, Connie. I mean, one of the answers is to have more senior journalists who are actually, either have a scientific background or at least who are reasonably literate in science to an extent that at the moment they're not.
Connie St Louis: Literacy is really important and that's part of the problem. But to come back on to Steve's point, retractions, whether they’re fraudulent or because they’re mistakes, do not get the profile they should get. So you'll get a paper being published with a great trumpeting on a programme, on a magazine programme, but actually what you won't get is somebody who will say actually, the paper has been retracted, has caused two hundred other bits of science to topple. It's just not balanced in the way that we talk about it. I'm not saying that all of science is corrupt, I'm saying that actually we're not doing the things that we do... if this was politics we wouldn't be doing this in the same way...
Justin Webb: It's a worthy debate, that let's hope begins now and goes on for the whole of 2014. Professor Steve Jones and Connie St Louis as well, thank you both very much.