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Scientific and Journalistic Integrity

  • Sep. 17th, 2008 at 10:44 AM
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A couple of posts ago, I quoted (as I do frequently) Alan Barth:
 
 “If you want a watchdog to warn you of intruders, you must put up with a certain amount of mistaken barking...But if you muzzle him and leash him and teach him decorum, you will find that he doesn't do the job for which you got him in the first place. Some extraneous barking is the price you must pay for his services as a watchdog.  A free press is the watchdog of a free society.” 
 
I read a dissertation about this quote once, and the author (who I can’t recall at the moment) went on at length about this statement. Yes, having a free press is one of the most essential ingredients of a free society. But, the author said, that is only part of what Barth meant by the statement. The other implication, which at least to me is pretty straightforward, is that the press also must maintain some measure of integrity in their reporting.
 
I could go on about this subject for hours, probably even days. I hope most people agree with me in that accurate reporting is the cornerstone of public knowledge.
 
It is this subject of public knowledge (and the systematic destruction of it) that makes me wince. It isn’t just that the press is not being fair. It’s that they dumb it down so much that it loses integrity by default. This is the result of a number of different things, ranging from Dick Cheney and Karl Rove’s systematic destruction of science in the public domain to abysmal public school science knowledge rankings to the “knows almost nothing about everything” nature of most journalists. I’m not placing blame; I don’t know where to start.
 
What sent me off on this topic (today) was this article in the Washington Post. Before you go reading the whole thing, just look at the headline, as I did when I clicked: “Study: Exposure to Plastics Chemical Elevates Health Risks”. You’re probably familiar with this.  Bisphenol-A (BPA), an ingredient in some #7 plastics products, was banned by the Canadian Health Ministry because of studies done in animals showing health problems such as cancer and heart disease. I guess the FDA has done a similar study with people.
 
But here’s where the inconsistencies start. I read the article looking in vain for the “link” they claimed existed. The word “link” was used, but there was nothing that any well-versed scientist or doctor would call that. A correlation between BPA levels in the urine and blood and heart problems and diabetes is not a “link.” Correlations do not necessarily indicate causation. It’s what lawyers refer to as post hoc ergo propter hoc, “after, therefore because of it,” and even courts find it a weak defense.
 
A famous net-culture phenomenon mocked this sloppiness. Global average temperature has been rising since at least 1820, while the number of pirates has been declining. The CFSM’s conclusion is that, therefore, pirates must stave off global warming. How novel! All we have to do is make more pirates, and we’ll save the planet!
 
Obviously this is not true. Which was exactly the CFSM’s satirical point. Just because two statistics show a trend doesn’t mean they are connected. And while sometimes this is the case, these correlations are what scientists think of as “preliminary” or “weak” evidence.
 
To its credit, the WP article notes that scientists are calling strongly for further study to back up these findings.
 
This is not to say that I think correlative evidence is entirely useless. There are many things in science that we know to be true even though we have yet to prove it. Take gravity, for it. Since the time of Gallileo people have been calculating and defining how gravity works, to enormous degrees of success. We have the math, but it’s based entirely on observed evidence: things fall. Observed evidence, under scientific definition, can only go so far as supporting a theory. Gravity is just a theory.*
 
So what would be stronger evidence, you ask? As a scientist, I am qualified to tell you: Strong evidence in the case of a chemical interaction or causation.* Strong, conclusive evidence would be discovery of the chemical reactive process that causes BPA to create abnormal liver enzymes, kill off the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas (which is what causes diabetes), and create artery blockages or other things that cause heart disease. This kind of evidence is much harder to obtain. Research takes more time, is more expensive, and a lot of non-scientists (including reporters) can’t read the findings because they are so technical. In fact, different scientific fields are so specialized that even other kinds of scientists can’t necessarily read them.
 
Here’s the part where I blame the scientific illiteracy of the public at large … at least a little.
 
Even people with a high school education should know—and schools should teach—basic scientific principle. Even someone who never takes a class about biology or organic chemistry should understand the difference between a theory and a postulate, what constitutes evidence, what science considers a “scientific” teaching versus an “unscientific” one. Textbooks often provide an introductory chapter which talks about this subject, but I think many teachers skip or gloss over them…and that many students don’t pay attention because they aren’t tested on it.
 
Understanding the principles behind the practice of science is, I believe, more important than knowing how many biological kingdoms there are or what the pH of pure acetic acid is. And it would clear up a lot of confusion in the domain of public knowledge. Copy editors, journalists and PR directors might benefit from (unintentionally) inaccurate headlines. Maybe it would even be possible to call out politicians when they slaughter statistics and conclusions.
 
I believe this so strongly that I’d go so far as to say it’d be acceptable to replace or even require a year or semester of a specific science discipline with a “foundations” class in middle or high school. Such a class could address not only the concepts addressed above but also how statistics are (and aren’t) useful, how current issues in science are debated (global warming, endangered species, organic food, evolution, etc.) among scientists, instead of the politicians who often misconstrue it.
 
It’s a difficult task to maintain vigil against the onslaught of inaccurate reporting in the news on these subjects, from HPV to BPA to global warming to NASA. Science is the greatest school of rationality, but often a defiance to our natural instinct to “listen to our gut.” But the more people understand the subtle differences, the more people will get the right idea. Society benefits.
 
Complex ideas can lead to deceptively simple results.  It's the first bit that's more difficult.
 
 
 
*Just like evolution is “just a theory.” The word “theory” in the public domain is not the same as the word we scientists use. To a scientist, a theory is actually pretty kick-ass. But try explaining this to a fundamentalist and you get a lot of stubbornly blank stares.

  • Mood: annoyed
  • Music:I Am Jen; Broken in all the Right Places

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On the First Amendment

  • Sep. 2nd, 2008 at 7:14 PM
imperious

Jebus knows I’m not a reporter; professional, amateur or otherwise.  I’m probably closer to a pundit: no necessary qualification or commitment to neutrality.

That having been said, I do respect reporters a great deal.  Aside from the ones who get their ugly falafel-rubbing (NWS) egos smeared all over the major networks, who as I may have implied are not even really that qualified to open their mouths, let alone report any kind of actual news.  Spin isn’t really news, sorry guys.  Capisce?

 So in order to distinguish between those times when I am simply reporting events and when I am generating possibly-biased commentary, I will clearly state which is which.  I feel it especially necessary to do so in this blog entry, to avoid any accusations of hypocrisy.

Here is the unbiased news, take it for what you will.

Yesterday a reporter, Amy Goodman, and two producers, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, all from the progressive site Democracy Now! were arrested in St. Paul, MN.  For any of you who may have missed this, St. Paul is where the GOP National Convention is being held this week.  The producers were arrested by police as part of crackdown against protestors, a few of which had broken off the main peace march and were becoming violent.  Kouddous and Salazar were covering the march.  During the arrest, Salazar was made to lie with her face to the ground, and officers dragged her by one leg across a street, resulting in a bloody nose and scraped face.  Kouddous was also slammed the wall and ground, and sustained injuries to his chest, back, and arms.  Goodman’s arm was twisted violently.

 Amy Goodman was called away from the convention floor and asked to see Salazar.  Here is her account of what happened.

And my commentary?  Oh, where to start.

This is disgusting and blatantly undemocratic, arresting reporters simply for being on the scene.  Salazar and Goodman repeatedly told the police that they were press and were wearing their credentials in plain view.  Police did not witness their involvement in, nor do the reporters have any discernable connection to, any of the violence that broke out at the protest marches.

 As Amy said in her video, the press is protected by First Amendment rights for a reason.  Dare I resort to clichés, but, as Alan Barth (Washington Post) once wrote:

 

 “If you want a watchdog to warn you of intruders, you must put up with a certain amount of mistaken barking...But if you muzzle him and leash him and teach him decorum, you will find that he doesn't do the job for which you got him in the first place. Some extraneous barking is the price you must pay for his services as a watchdog.  A free press is the watchdog of a free society.” 

 

Oppressing the press, arresting them and charging them for no reason is a fascist response, one I (and, I hope, most other people) find morally repugnant.  Yes, we have to put up with a certain amount of crap and bias from the press, but under no circumstances should any enforcement agency be allowed to prevent them from reporting.  When Americans no longer have a choice of news sources, they have lost that essential thing to which their free speech clings.  Free speech cannot truly be free if it is uninformed or misinformed.

I’m not saying that I think all citizens as it stands are truly informed about the world.  Many choose to believe the talking heads like O’Reilly and Scarborough and Hannity and Coulter and Stern (yes, a liberal one too).  But they choose to watch/listen to those commentators. Nothing in the world can stop those who choose to be ignorant…it is not giving them the choice that is irreconcilable.

That is the danger of spin: they try to make it sound like the truth, and once in a great while it is.  But the rest of the time it’s just a pack of blatant lies that appease their audience and infuriate everyone else.  It’s not conducive to teamplay, it’s definitely not nonpartisan, and it makes everyone feel yanked around.

 Some of this event involving Democracy Now! reporters I might have been willing to chock up to a mistake made by an overwhelmed security force, except for the fact that there seemed to be an excessive amount of force (dare I say brutality) done to these people who weren’t resisting.  Full disclosure…Amy may have trespassed on a police line by hopping the fence while demanding to see her producer, and I’m no lawyer, so I’m not going to attempt to dispute the misdemeanor charge.

But this is not an isolated incident.

 (News)  while the Democrats’ Convention was going on in Denver, many freelance reporters were already converging on St. Paul/Minneapolis.  Three from a site known as the Glassbead Collective had their equipment, including computers, cameras and cellphones, clothing and money unlawfully confiscated on a faulty charge of trespassing.  They did not consent to the search, and the police have changed their story a number of times about the charges: trespassing, suspicion of commission of burglary.  The artist/reporters from the Collective are not involved in violent activities and had come to document the free speech activities at the convention.  They are being represented by the National Lawyers Guild.  The NLG asserts that the true purpose of the search was to obtain information about upcoming protests and protestors in the area and stated that it was an egregious violation of first amendment rights.

 You can find video testimony of the incident under the headline “Not Trespassers” at www.theuptake.org.  Sorry, I can’t seem to get a direct link.  The update notes that the video equipment has been returned to the journalists.

 (Commentary)  One of the members of the collective states that part of the reason they had come to document the GOP convention this year was due to the horrible treatment of protesters during the 2004 convention in New York City—over which the city is still being sued.

 The lawyer failed to mention that these reporters’ Forth Amendment rights, which protect citizens from unreasonable search and seizure, may also have been violated.  The reporters were not involved in suspicious activity and refused to allow a search.  Citizens are allowed to refuse searches if no probable cause can be found for exactly the reason why this incident is so outrageous: to prevent intimidation by or from peacekeeping forces, to protect their privacy, those with connections to them, and their First Amendment rights.

 Not to mention all that stuff about them being reporters.  Credentialed or not. 

Probably the story that really got me going on the freedom of the press issue, though, appeared before the conventions.  It was this piece in the New York Times, particularly the part where Kamber and Arango begin to talk about the restrictions being placed on field reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan today.  They are probably the most restrictive rules in the history of war photography.  I agree that it is a complex and delicate issue, but I also think that, as with our favorite pundits, people can make a choice not to pay attention, or pay attention to different things.  But restricting what the press can see, by “protecting” them from the danger they would rather witness, it does the public they are trying to serve a great disservice.  It’s deceptive on the part of the authorities, and wrong. 

Yes, I think a lot of reporters develop a sort of messiah complex, but that doesn’t mean that what they doesn’t affect the world.  The world has a right to see what is happening “on the ground,” whether it is in New Orleans, Iraq, or Minneapolis-St. Paul.  I’m not blaming one particular institution for the state of journalism in this country (although I have some choice words for the current Executive Administration on the subject). 

Falafel O’Reilly and Honky Matthews may annoy the crap out of me, but so help me I will never utter a word about forcing them to shut up.  I do, after all, possess all the willpower necessary to change the channel.  They’re entitled to their opinions, regardless of how *coughwrongcough* they are. 

If they have the right to their incredible closed-minded spin, actual reporters most certainly have the right to bring facts to the air waves.  Or the “freedom” we so value in this country will truly be lost.

  • Location:Dry-Shitties
  • Mood: aggravated
  • Music:The sweet sounds of Fred Thompson putting the GOP Convention audience to sleep

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