Science in the Media

As my regular reader already knows, I am a fully qualified Geek, and first class nerd. And I am looking to meet... Phew I don't need to do that any more. But seriously, I do try and keep myself informed of the latest science. As an environmentalist I am not anti science, I just question the way science is applied. Often when a discovery is made, there is a rush to publish and exploit an idea (especially if someone can see a way of making money from that discovery), so it was refreshing that the discovery of the oldest human ancestor, the team spent a long time examining the evidence and working out where this fossilised skeleton fitted in the tree of life.

Reading these scientific papers it is not possible to rush to the keyboard, and post anything meaningful straight away either. The scientific press and the journalists that write on these topics get advance notice of the reports and get to read the details. But under this system can not publish anything until the date of publication in the journals. That enables the journalists and science writers to gain an understanding of the report and write something meaningful.

I tell you this, as just a blogger, I don't have that privilege so I have to read the scientific papers at the same time as everyone else. Thus I need time to absorb and understand what the reports is saying. Normally this would not be an issue, but in the case of Ardipithecus ramidus where the mainstream media were over the story like a rash, the way the media were reporting the story made it even more confusing.

In some reports it was described as the missing link found, in other more serious papers it was put in better context, but I was left wondering if some of the journalists had even read the original scientific paper. Then as I thought about this, I realised that the papers and media that were reporting most accurately were the ones that were less bias than the ones that were distorting the scientific paper. Put bluntly the media with a right wing bias were shaping their reports to meet a right wing view of how the world should be. These are the same papers that have been most sceptical about scientific realities like climate change.

In some the reporting of Ardipithecus ramidus there was even a barely concealed creationist agenda. That is something that here in Britain is fairly new, but it is disturbing to see. However, what is most alarming is the simple fact that the majority of people in this country are being so poorly informed.

While I realise that Ardipithecus ramidus is not that important to most people, and even if we do fully work out human evolution it will not have much impact upon most peoples lives, but other scientific matters are important to peoples lives. I know that mentioning “Climate Change” will cause folks to glaze over, but had “Climate Change” been reported without a political bias perhaps we would not have the mess we have now.

As for Ardipithecus ramidus, it looks as though she was a cousin rather than a direct ancestor. It maybe that she is from an evolutionary dead end and humans branched off from her species earlier in the evolutionary path. The most interesting aspect of the discovery of Ardipithecus ramidus is that it looks likely that chimpanzees, our closest relatives, evolved along side us rather than us descending directly from them. Therefore the mythical “missing link” may not exist. It is likely that there will be a whole series of missing links.