Scientists and the media: victims or villains?

Craig Venter - scientists and the media

Taking a good hard look at the relationship between scientists and the media last week was Dr. J Craig Venter, who spoke to a group of journalists, academics and members of the public at London’s Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers & Commerce (RSA). Speaking alongside Venter, was Niall Dickson, a veteran BBC broadcaster and currently Chief Executive of The King’s Fund, an independent UK health foundation.

During the talk, answers to this question fell into two broad themes; firstly, the general negative nature of news, and secondly, the necessity of print and video media to attempt to ‘condense’ or chunk down complicated ideas into easily digestible or sensationalised packages that fit into column sizes, or predetermined seconds of air-time.

Niall Dickson suggested that the nature of news is by nature, ‘negative’. That is to say viewers are not ordinarily interested in news that tells us of benign events – we want to know about things that are threatening and dangerous.

Is this surprising? Perhaps not. Unless we have been affected by disease, injury or made dysfunctional in some other manner, humans possess the facility to predict and plan around perceived and potential threats in our environment. To what extent do we have an ingrained response to threat? Studies of how viewers remember news stories indicate that when faced with compelling news content – composed of both positive and negative news items - research subjects later revealed a far higher tendency to remember those which were ‘negative’ or ‘threatening’. No doubt further research will be required to learn and understand if human memory is ‘tuned’ selectively in some manner.

So far, it seems that culture, history and mass media’s bite-sized formats are all lined up against the scientist and science. Craig Venter commented that the ‘…media have a responsibility to report on science rather than simply sell news.’ And as well, that ‘…communication does not need to be dumbed-down to an 8 year-old level’.

Venter is right. But does the media fulfil this need? Perhaps a good example can be found in an example of news from the previous week. Scientists studying the DNA of Neanderthals found genes which seemed to indicate two things 1) that Neanderthal’s had the potential for a range of skin tones and hair colours, including pale skin and red hair and 2) that they also possessed a copy of the FOX2P gene identical to our own – indicating that they may have had the facility for language. While neither of these two news items is ‘negative’ – one is definitely easier to explain and understand than the other. The ‘hair and skin’ story was widely circulated in the media, largely overshadowing the FOX2P discovery.

Venter also commented that ‘Scientists, as well, who are not receiving media attention, are tempted to make sensational claims in order to attract it’. Our mass-communication age is characterised by an environment in which multitudes of messages are all competing for attention. Especially in affluent urban centres, people are subject to a steady rainfall of ads, images, slogans, many of which are cleverly designed to appeal to easily identifiable, categorised lifestyles.

While there are many scientific discoveries which are news-worthy, there’s not much doubt that they take a back-seat in many cases to those which are marketable. And as mentioned earlier, it would seem that if the story can be made simple, sensational and threatening, then for those looking to sell more units of whatever media they peddle, all the better to attract a crowd.

Many scientific concepts resist explanation in the format of a ‘sound bite’, a quick comment on network news, or even the confines of a newspaper column or magazine article. As science investigates deeper into the world around us, the effect is to reach past what is obvious or attributable to ‘common sense’ and arrive at descriptions and explanations of processes which are not visible to the eye, occur in huge or tiny expanses of time, or defy description in any other language or manner other than mathematics.

A story, attributed to Albert Einstein circulates widely on the internet (apologies if someone owns this – as we were unable to find copyright!)

When asked at a dinner party to explain his Theory of Relativity, Einstein answered in this manner:

One time I was walking in the countryside with a blind friend. It was a hot day and I thought aloud that I would like a drink of milk.

‘Milk?’ my friend asked, ‘I know what a drink is, but what is this milk you’re speaking of?’

‘Well, milk is a white liquid,’ I replied.

‘Hmmm… liquid. I know what that is – but what is white?’ he asked.

‘White is the colour of a swan’s feathers.’

‘Ok!’ he said. ‘I know what feathers are, but what is a swan?’

‘A swan,’ I explained, ‘Is a bird with a crooked neck.’

‘A neck, I can understand,’ he replied, ‘but what is crooked neck?’

I reached out and pulled his arm from his side and bent it at the elbow. ‘That’s crooked’, I told him.’

‘Of course!’ exclaimed my blind friend, ‘Now I know what you mean by milk!’

So there are obvious hurdles in the way of effective portrayal of science and scientists . 

As consumers of media we must overcome old biases warning us to distrust those who don't conform, or those who strive for what is believed to be unachievable.  As well, we must realise that despite how we might wish for easy answers that fit in neat news columns or digestible televised chunks - that genuine understanding will only come through some effort.  Scientists, of course, should and must be trained to better communicate their work.  And individuals who gather and produce media as well as those who direct, edit and ultimately pay them must at the very least make efforts to not trivialise, distort or sensationalise science and scientists for the sake of a sale. 

Problems? Yes. Impossibilities, no.

By the way, we’re sure you know, but Craig Venter, who is quoted in this article is a biologist who has been extremely influential in the field of genetics for most of the last two decades. Dr. Venter has been awarded some important patents on genetic technologies and discoveries - and been refused others. He’s always been controversial. But is he a victim or villain? This article is not long enough to decide.

But we’ll always keep an open mind.

And Dr. Venter, we’ll be watching….

For more information

Science Media Centre
http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/

Dr. M. Nisbet - Science and the Media
http://www.csicop.org/scienceandmedia/

The J. Craig Venter Institute
http://www.jcvi.org/