How "Balance" Gives Pseudoscience Unfair Equity with the Real Stuff

In other words, how it gives undue respect to faith-based fantasizing.


http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/6/mooney-science.asp


State of the Beat

Blinded By Science

How ‘Balanced’ Coverage Lets the Scientific Fringe Hijack Reality
By Chris Mooney

On May 22, 2003, the Los Angeles Times printed a front-page story by Scott Gold, its respected Houston bureau chief, about the passage of a law in Texas requiring abortion doctors to warn women that the procedure might cause breast cancer. Virtually no mainstream scientist believes that the so-called ABC link actually exists — only anti-abortion activists do. Accordingly, Gold’s article noted right off the bat that the American Cancer Society discounts the “alleged link” and that anti-abortionists have pushed for “so-called counseling” laws only after failing in their attempts to have abortion banned. Gold also reported that the National Cancer Institute had convened “more than a hundred of the world’s experts” to assess the ABC theory, which they rejected. In comparison to these scientists, Gold noted, the author of the Texas counseling bill — who called the ABC issue “still disputed” — had “a professional background in property management.”

Gold’s piece was hard-hitting but accurate. The scientific consensus is quite firm that abortion does not cause breast cancer. If reporters want to take science and its conclusions seriously, their reporting should reflect this reality — no matter what anti-abortionists say.

But what happened next illustrates one reason journalists have such a hard time calling it like they see it on science issues. In an internal memo exposed by the Web site LAobserved.com, the Times’s editor, John Carroll, singled out Gold’s story for harsh criticism, claiming it vindicated critics who accuse the paper of liberal bias. Carroll specifically criticized Gold’s “so-called counseling” line (“a phrase that is loaded with derision”) and his “professional background in property management” quip (“seldom will you read a cheaper shot than this”). “The story makes a strong case that the link between abortion and breast cancer is widely discounted among researchers,” Carroll wrote, “but I wondered as I read it whether somewhere there might exist some credible scientist who believes in it . . . . Apparently the scientific argument for the anti-abortion side is so absurd that we don’t need to waste our readers’ time with it.”

Gold declined to comment specifically on Carroll’s memo, except to say that it prompted “a sound and good discussion of the standards that we all take very seriously.” For his part, Carroll — now editing his third newspaper — is hardly so naïve as to think journalistic “balance” is synonymous with accuracy. In an interview, he nevertheless defended the memo, observing that “reporters have to make judgments about the validity of ideas” but that “a reporter has to be broad-minded in being open to ideas that aren’t necessarily shared by the crowd he or she happens to be hanging around with.” Carroll adds that in his view, Gold needed to find a credible scientist to defend the ABC claim, rather than merely quoting a legislator and then exposing that individual’s lack of scientific background. “You have an obligation to find a scientist, and if the scientist has something to say, then you can subject the scientist’s views to rigorous examination,” Carroll says.

and be given the same amount of weight.

It's sad and frightening how fast we are hurdling back into the dark ages. We even have our very own crusades!

Good read, thanks!

to not seeming liberal than to truth and accuracy. Carrol is a powerful media guy. I'm sure he's reflecting the priorities of a whole class of powerful media guys.

I'll give credit where it's due. The radical right was so successful in branding the media as "liberal" and clubbing them over the head with it and demanding an equal say that they can now get ANY ludicrous or ridiculous claim equal time, merely by espousing it and saying "well this is OUR side and you HAVE to give us equal say or your LIBERAL!!" And then the media presents that side without hardly any critical examination.

have equal validity

This affects so many issues where we need a reasoned dialogue. The media either gives us the type of "balance" noted above, or the type of "forum" we see on Crossfile, where scientists arguing for evolution or action on global warming are ripped apart by the likes of Tucker Carlson or Bob Novak.

It impacts the recent discussion of nanotechnology - specifically 'molecular nanotechnology' (MNT). When Eric Drexler started talking about nanotechnology, what he was talking about was the ability to manipulate matter on the molecular level (see http://foresight.org ). More recently, nanotechnology has been redefined to mean anything done with a precision of 100 nanometers or less.

Since nanotechnology is now the favored buzzword, and the accepted 'next big thing', a lot of R&D is being reclassified as nanotechnology to get federal funds dedicated for nanotechnology research.

I'll post more on this later - gotta get back to the 'day job.'

I could spend way too much time there. ;)

Welcome to DU, by the way. :toast:

Also, try Howard Lovy's Nanobot blog: http://nanobot.blogspot.com/
There's a good intro at: http://nanotech-now.com/nano_intro.htm

Like I said, I'll post more later; this is a really important issue.

strikes again. This is getting out of hand. According to them, EVERYTHING is just theory, while the word of the Lord is eternal, never to be questioned and unchanging. :eyes: Give these whackos enough rope and they'll hang themselves. A few more months of this type of horseshit and they'll be marginalized again. It can't happen too soon for me.

Scalia touted the "equal time" ethic rubbish in his Edwards v. Aguillard dissent. The future of the court doesn't bode well for science.

Dear Mr. Carroll,

The next time one of your reporters writes a story about Christian beliefs, you have an obligation to find a credible scientist to discredit them.

Sincerely,

Dr Darwin