March 12, 2007
Science Reporting—the Messy, Warty Truth
Science is a road, not a destination. Although the morning session was intended to define science (a challenge, to be sure), many participants stayed away from hard and fast definitions—probably because none exist. Many alluded to the idea that science is a process, a messy, complicated, slow process. To set the tone of the session, Donald Kennedy invoked Karl Popper’s theory of falsification. Good science hinges on Popper’s ideas. In other words, hypotheses can only be proven wrong, not right. Unexpected results and setbacks mean that it’s working.
Alexandra Witze said that science is “messy and full of warts.” This dirty, complicated business is a far cry from the pristine, monumental breakthroughs that are so often reported as such in the media. How, then, does the true nature of scientific progress impact the way in which its stories are told? Have the readers’ expectations been modeled after traditional news subjects, where there is always a clean punchline? By trying to compress the grueling, convoluted path to scientific results into parcels of easily accessible blurbs, are we doing a disservice to the public?
Scientists design questions to disprove their hypotheses. However painful it may be, the experiments that prove their ideas wrong are necessary. The ability to doubt themselves and continually question their ideas is what drives scientific progress. Michael Lemonick implored this group f journalists to lose some of their self-assuredness and assume the insecurities that scientists know so well. Science journalism cannot afford to be fat and happy—things are changing, and we must adapt. The destination, if one exists, is far away, and unlike anything people imagined. But thinking and talking about these issues—science on the internet, the merits of embargo system, shrinking reporting space—is an important stop on the road.
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