Accepting Bad Science?

Factual Questions
1

In recent months, it was announced that some scientists “found” an object like 20 times the mass of Jupiter at the outer edge of our solar system. When you read the details, they really did not find this. They theorized it may exist. What the heck ever happened to the scientific method, avoiding leaps of faith, and being objective? Why did the scientific community not shun them like the cold fusion jokers?

Moderators: I am hoping to hear some factual answers, if they exist. However, feel free to bump to IMHO, if necessary.

2

From this article Tyche (hypothetical planet) - Wikipedia, I think what the scientists did was fine - they noticed an anomaly in the data (regarding comets), made an hypothesis about a cause (a planet with particular characteristics, in a particular area), and made a falsifiable prediction - if the planet exists, WISE will detect it.

Reporters made the silly statements about a planet being “found” (like in this article Search on for Tyche, believed to be largest planet in the solar system | Daily Mail Online)

3

John Horgan calls such things “ironic science”:

I’d say that a good chunk of the science books you see at the bookstore would fall into that category, discussing things like the implications of string theory, the possibilities of extrasolar Earths and/or life, philosophical derivations from quantum mechanics, and so on. Even the most mainstream scientist-authors know this kind of thing sells.

4

How Science News Gets Reported in the Media.

5

It’s important to understand the point this cartoon is making. Essentially, believing most news reports about scientific topics is like trusting a six-year-old with an overactive imagination to tell you how his day went. You might get some interesting facts, but you need to already know the field and engage in a lot of active reading (skepticism, thinking through implications, and so on) to filter anything like reality out of the distortions.

It reminds me of nothing more than the Frankfurt conception of bullshit:

6

Do you have a cite that this is Scientists Gone Wild? We generally pay very little attention to what the commerical enterprise of “science journalism” is doing. It is mostly complete crap. And, this sounds like bad science reporting at its, um, finest.

I pulled up one of the papers from the purported “claimers”. In the abstract:

Hardly a bold statement.

They continue by describing their evidence and providing quantitative statistical analysis, giving thorough details along the way to allow one to understand any issues that may be lurking. They even conclude by pointing out a problem, ending with the line:

Without sifting through the related literature, I would imagine that someone in the field pointed out some nuance that the authors are ignoring or are in disagreement with, and a science writer thought they’d write a story such as “Scientists clash regarding new planet!” while the scientists themselves roll their eyes.

The scientific method is alive and well, I assure you.

7

Oh that’s a new one. I thought you were going to link this webcomic

8

I don’t get it. The OP starts off by saying that he knows the scientists did not make the grandiose claims, and then he asks why they’re making grandiose claims?

9

I’d hardly count the “discovery” in the OP in this class, because it consists of a testable hypothesis. One criticism of the publication process is that we never hear about hypotheses which get falsified and experiments which fail. In some cases, like this one, the person constructing the hypothesis and the people who will test it are different, so we will see the kind of unverified hypotheses which you won’t see if it all takes place in a lab, with the proposal described in a seminar at most.

In addition, one benefit you get from being a senior scientist is that people will listen to your speculation. No problem them so long as journals keep factual papers and opinion pieces strictly separate, which all the ones I know of do. Books really are in this category, since people want to hear speculation as well a a summary of the field. Even in string theory, every other sentence in Brian Greene’s second book was about the need for experimental verification.

10

As a scientist who’s work is featured in the media relatively often, let me tell you:

The problem is with reporters, not with scientists.

When you read a misleading headline, without question the scientist didn’t write it - the reporter did. The headline and story are written to get eyeballs, not for accuracy.

Some reporters will let you read and comment on the story before publication, but most don’t. I guarantee you, the scientists winced when they read that headline. I die a little inside when I see my stuff misrepresented.

There are several reporters who I like working with because they try to present the work in a simple but accurate manner. I give them first crack when we have a paper that is particularly newsworthy. And I don’t work with reporters that have burned me in the past.

When in doubt, read the original peer-reviewed publication. Don’t rely on the news article.

11

Every year at least I read about a new cure for cancer in the offing. There is never a followup on why it isn’t. This is not the scientist’s fault (some are perhaps too quick to release these claims) but almost always the reporter trying to spruce up a claim.

12

Why the parenthetical?

13

Another link on science reporting in the media.

14

Is it the reporters? I believe reporters might mess up on facts (particulary ‘science’ facts; science is not treated as part of a general education), but I think editors decide on the slant and tone of the reporting.

15

While we’re posting comics related to bad science reporting, let’s not leave out this one.

However, I’d also suggest reading Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. It’s a simple issue, but it tends to be underestimated: essentially, those studies that find a violation of the null hypothesis (i.e. a significant result) are more likely to be published than those that essentially consist of ‘nothing to report’, stretched out over a few pages. This introduces a bias in published studies. However, with each study, there’s a certain chance that it’s wrong – i.e. that its purported findings are due merely to a statistical fluke. That, combined with the publishing bias leads to disproportionately more wrong findings being published. So there’s always good reason to be sceptical of the latest cure for cancer.

16

Yea, I think its more complicated then simply the reporters exagerating results. Usually a science result that ends up in the press goes something like:

scientist—>university press release---->reporter----->editor.

Each person in the chain has a desire to both simplify the result so its easier to understand for the next person down the line, and hype it to make it a more interesting story. So you end up with slight exaggerations on each step that add up at the end to an inaccurate story getting published.

But FWIW, in my experience a lot of things that scientists complain about reporters getting wrong actually ends up having originated in the press release that came from the university or lab the scientist works at.

17

universities hire people with marketing and journalism skills for public relations.

18

I’ve certainly seen some atrocious science in the official EPO materials from the LHC. The unofficial material is much better.

19

I was the Science/Technology reporter for my college newspaper (the USF Oracle). I got the job because Mass Comm, Journalism and other majors who normally populate University newsrooms haven’t a friggin’ clue about anything to do with math, science or technology (I was a third-year Civil Engineering undergrad.) I would read articles in the paper and fairly scream at the outright stupidity displayed in the writing. I approached the editor and faculty advisor with the proposal: give me press credentials and I will cover all the tech stories properly.

Many local newsmakers I covered had the attitude that if I was with the press, their work would be twisted and distorted into some hideous parody of the truth. They would frequently ask how I was going to “spin” their work. In too many cases, they had been subjected to this indignity by all the representatives of the local print and broadcast media.

In one case that stands out in my mind, there was a group of researchers who had gotten funding from the US EPA to determine 1. Whether unicellular organisms which died in the Gulf waters released their nuclear material intact into the environment, 2. If (1.), whether other organisms took up the released nuclear material and 3. Expressed the proteins encoded by the uptaken nuclear material. The point of the research was to understand a possible vector of mutations occuring in the natural environment. The answers were: 1. Yes 2. Yes and 3. Yes.

All of the major local media had covered the story—the Tampa Tribune, the St. Pete Times, the Tampa Bay Business Journal, several local news channels and a few cable news outlets. Without fail, they had all reported that the researchers were genetically modifying the nuclear material of living organisms and then releasing them into the environment, effectively creating a Frankenstein-Monster scenario in the Gulf of Mexico.

When I approached them for a story, they were exceedingly apprehensive about how I would handle their work. My response was, “You tell me what it is you are doing, and I will write that.” This was in stark contrast to nearly all the other reporters who had an agenda coming in, and only quoted what they needed to corroborate their pre-conceived ideas.

Many times, I would submit an article about some technology topic, and the editor would re-write it to say the exact opposite of what I had written. When I challenged her on this, the explanation was, “It reads better this way.” My counter was, “But your way is wrong! It is simply untrue.” When I was covering the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990 (I know, this really dates me) I had the opportunity to interview Garth Illingworth (the lead astronomer in charge of the HST project at Johns Hopkins University) about the HST, he gave me a very concise, lucid description of the project and why it was named for Edwin P. Hubble. My editor struck the entire quote because, “I don’t understand this.”

I covered an International Biotechnology Conference held in the Tampa area, hosted by the professor who headed the biology department at USF. This was a major event, with hundreds of representatives from academia and industry from around the world. I sat in on several presentations, interviewed many attendees, and took many pictures over the three days of the conference. I submitted a 1600-word article to the Oracle, and presented the Biology professor with a copy. My editor hacked it down to 500 words. The professor presented my article, which appeared as the cover story of the next month’s issue of the International Biotechnology Journal, unedited, with the pictures I took.

To the OP, it is usually not the scientists who are to blame for the outlandish hype that frequently gets reported in the media. From my experience dealing with a microcosm of the media at USF, the mindset of the people who control the levers of information does not allow them to appreciate the nuances of research. Their goal seems to be strictly sensationalism, even for a “free” publication like the Oracle.

20

This doesn’t relate directly to the story described in the OP - but a major annoyance to scientists (and a hazard to understanding by the general public) are the compulsion by news media to create a controversy where none exists, and to give “equal time” to the responsible, evidence-based view and the cranks.

In the back of too many science reporters/editors’ minds is the possibility of getting credit for discovering the falsity of conventional wisdom and/or coverup of a Truth that only the Brave Mavericks are trumpeting.

It’s a lot duller to soberly report what the best evidence shows without embroidery.