Scientists vs Scribes
Scientists and Scribes: Strange bedfellows
THAT faint gurgling sound you hear wafting across Seattle this weekend is the Sound of Science, generated in the grey matter of some 5,000 biologists, geologists and other-ologists who have convened downtown.
The giant sucking sound, on the other hand, can be attributed to some 600 journalists who have converged upon the same meeting place, there to roam about in desperate search of something new and startling to report.
This is a curious relationship. The scientists are here to exchange notes on what they've learned in the last year or so. The journalists are here to eavesdrop, glean something newsworthy and tell the rest of the world.
When science and journalism mix, the result is a volatile chemistry. Scientists are deeply suspicious of journalists; they believe we have little real understanding for what they do, and tend to fracture it in the reporting.
We reporters are equally wary of scientists, whom we suspect spend many years in graduate school learning how to obfuscate and torture the English language.
But we need each other, which is why everybody is trying to get along down at the convention center.
At bottom, we both seek Truth. Our mission is to increase humanity's understanding of the world. And we all feel vaguely underappreciated and not-so-vaguely underpaid for our efforts.
The similarities end there.
We ask different questions. Scientists ask: "What is this and how does it work?" Journalists ask: "So what and why does this matter?"
This gets us both in trouble - particularly when we deal with issues such as risk. Solid research on things like cancer becomes distorted when our reports stretch the results into Page One stories.
Scientists are specialists who know a lot about a few things. Journalists are generalists who know a little about a lot of things. I went to college in the '60s, studied literature and politics and the social sciences. I negotiated a "C" in college biology only by promising to never again darken the door of my professor's classroom.
Thirty years later, I've developed a belated respect for science, and even a few street smarts. In my next life, I plan to be a marine biologist. Meanwhile, I have to constantly remind myself of the difference between "induction" and "deduction."
To scientists, truth is determined only by data derived from repeated experiments. Their bible is the scientific method, an orderly process of inquiry that requires maximum precision and caution. Their findings are tentative and qualified; they don't believe there is a last word on anything.
The reporter's scripture is the democratic process and especially the First Amendment. We value freedom of speech and an open exchange of ideas that has little to do with precision. We mix science with politics and business. We try to track the flow of money, and speculate about why people do what.
We believe truth can emerge from conflict. If we depict both sides of an issue, truth will ultimately win out. This is a concept that baffles most scientists.
Most important, journalists are communicators. We believe knowledge and ideas are valuable only to the extent they are communicated. To do that, we resort to storytelling and anecdotal evidence that frequently fracture the scientific method. If something is lost in the retelling, too bad.
Most scientists are loners. They work alone, conduct their experiments, and eventually submit their findings to other scientists for review - usually in a jargon unintelligible to others.
This is a potentially fatal flaw. Most scientists still work for the government - at universities or research institutions such as the marine labs at Sand Point. These days, their jobs and their work are in real jeopardy. Congress already has slashed spending on science, and the pending crisis in Medicare and other programs creates budget pressures to cut even more.
"Science can only be funded if the electorate and their representatives remain convinced of its value and contribution," writes Dr. Neal Lane, director of the National Science Foundation, who is attending the Seattle convention.
Reporters are obligated to increase their understanding of the scientific method, of statistics and risk management. Ignorance is a weak defense, at best. We need to resist the impulse to turn tentative research findings into Page One blockbusters.
But scientists are equally ill-served by their instincts to hibernate, to operate behind closed doors, and to speak and write in terms understandable only to other scientists. That approach plays directly into the hands of the budget-cutters, who would rather not know what society is losing.
For all our ill-conceived "cure for cancer" stories, scientists are equally guilty of poor risk management when they use the risk of miscommunication as an excuse to not communicate at all.
