h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Been given a new assignment for science, after asking for advice on possible topics on here worked so well last time I hope you wouldn't mind if I asked again.

The task this time is the public perception of science as understood via the media.

I've got to discuss whether concerns raised in the media are justified or sacremongering?

We are prompted to consider the MMR vaccine, swine and bird flu, SARS, disease and the DNA database.

But are there any examples knocking about the heads of the SExperts where the public perception of science was either really laudable or damnable that you think I could focus on.

I was also thinking about the rather broad interpretation that media permits so not just Newspapers and tv but obvious places to start.

What course are you doing, Clive? I'm starting an MSc in Science and Society in February covering much of the same ground

BTEC Forensics, it's a module on scientific background.

MRI was called NMRI (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging) but people were too worried about the word nuclear so the scientists took the appropriate action and renamed it MRI. Nobody is scared of magnets.

Outside medical areas the scare about the turning on of the LHC last year was one area.

If you're looking for a laudable contribution to public understanding of science, you could probably do worse than start with Ben Goldacre's Bad Science website: http://www.badscience.net

Mmm I was wondering about the LHC. There was a rather excellent two-page spread about it in today's metro on the train , actually, that was really hard the fault. (Headline: Free Newspaper is - gasp uncondescending report shock!) I kept a copy!

Re: "nuclear" interesting about "keywords, I'd not thought of that.
but the pattern I'm looking for is

Science says X
Media says Y
Public does Z.

And the trying to explain Z's perception of X; was Y valid and justified or not?

Is Y always negative or can it be positive? Does Y ever get it right or is there always a filter: (think the magic pill / end of the world) see-saw you sometimes get on the news when Science is only covered if it's gonna destroy the world or will save it instead.

These are the things I'm thinking about

Goldacre got ordered from amazon last night.

Science says X
Media says Y
Public does Z.

Take MMR...

Appallingly done, possibly biased science says 'MMR vaccine causes autism'.
Media says 'OH MY GOD - MMR CAUSES AUTISM!!!!'
Public stops using MMR vaccine.

Reputable, methodologically sound - but less sensational - science says 'no evidence whatsoever for link between MMR and autism'.
Media says 'First they say it causes autism, now they say it doesn't - can't they make up their minds. It's BSE all over again'.
Public remembers initial media scare and still doesn't use MMR vaccine.

Mmm MMR is a good candidate, its on my target list.

Thinking about it, though again outside medicine but more on the naming thing.

There is current work on an experimental Fusion reactor called Iter. This now is "offically" because it is Latin for "the way" or some such. Originally ITER stood for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. Politicians felt they could not back it with that name because of fear of a public backlash. It happened a little but the change happened before many papers got hold of it.

Talking of BSE...

Entire continents banned import of british meat. How many people have *actually* died of vCJD?
How many, are - and always have been vegan or vegetarian?

The response to this was out of all proportion to any known risks. Even scientist fell in to this one though.
Never has so much money been spent on so much research for such an insignificant killer.

Even swine flu has a much higher strike rate than vCJD.

BTW, was anyone actually ever really outraged or scared by the word nuclear in NMR?
We certainly still call it that in chemistry (because it is nuclear magnetic resonance )and I've heard the stories saying that the word nuclear scared people, but I've seen no actual evidence of this.


Also, many people have been scared by magnetic fields. There was a media scare a decade or so ago about electric step-down stations giving those living nearby brain tumours.
Whatever happened to that eh?

>Never has so much money been spent on so much research for such an insignificant killer.<

Having said that, Chris Dobson at Cambridge has done some pretty seminal work on protein folding as an upshot of the BSE scare.

"Entire continents banned import of british meat. How many people have *actually* died of vCJD? How many, are - and always have been vegan or vegetarian?"

That battle was lost as soon as Tory politician John Gummer declared that beef was entirely 100% safe, ate a burger on television and tried to force one down his daughter's throat. Enough to make anyone vegan for life...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/16/newsid_2913000/2913807.stm

Ok but you have to explain to people why they should be scared of magnetic things, nuclear just is scary.

It is still called NMR everywhere except in medicine and I am sure I saw some cases of people refusing it because of the nuclear bit but I don't know if the rate of that has gone down.

>Having said that, Chris Dobson at Cambridge has done some pretty seminal work on protein folding as an upshot of the BSE scare<

An upside!

Dunno if anyone's heard about folding@home. People use their graphics cards or processors tot simulate protein molecules and their computers are used to help find cures for stuff like cancer etc. Dunno if its useful or not and the web will give you a better description of what it's about than my garbled explanation

News to me.

But what a wonderful idea.


I'm just looking at the NHS 'behind the headlines' page dedicated to putting out the facts about medical stories after they've been "headlined" in the national press.

http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx

What conclusion might I reach, I wonder, judging by the very fact of the necessity of it's existence?

"headlined" is the word...

When a broadsheet newspaper (although I can only really speak for the 'Independent' here) publishes an article about a breakthrough clinical trial in reasonable depth (a 2-page spread, which counts as depth for a newspaper!) it can often be quite well-written and balanced (though rarely straying too far from the drug company's press release...). The problem comes when some headline writer sticks a sensationalist headline over the top of it, often one that bears no relationship to the content or conclusions of the article itself

Part of the task is to produce a poster outlining concerns of how science is covered in the media.

I was thinking I might title it, in red: "Poster causes cancer"

Re: "Headlined" I think I'm developing my thesis for the third part of the assignment - "analysis" - and that will form a central plank of it.