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How it’s ’sposed to be . . .

As far as anthropology goes, 2009 is becoming a banner year for the field. While the scientists themselves may point to a host of discoveries, the lay public will likely only remember two – “Ida” and “Ardi.”

The announcements surrounding the unveiling of each of these two ancient primates filled approximately 1,000 stories each in the news media and held the public’s interest for days. But while they’re similar in the “buzz” they inspired, the two episodes differ drastically in how their stories were told.

They were, quite frankly an example of the worst and the best of communicating science to the public.

Ida’s story, spurred by its behind-the-scene marketing (here, here and here), filled the public eye late this past spring. “Ida”, a superbly preserved fossil of Darwinius masillae, dated back perhaps 47 million years and was unveiled at the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo, Norway. Described first at a much-touted press conference, the fossil find was also the subject of a two-hour documentary on the History Channel and a companion book describing its finding and study.

Book based on Darwinius fossil find

Billed as a “missing link” in human evolution, television ads promoted the discovery with claims such as “the most important find in 47 million years” and “this changes everything,” in hopes of increasing the television documentary’s viewership.

Information about the discovery had been withheld from science writers until the last moment, resulting in much of the reporting being done by journalists who lacked the basic understanding of the field, and who therefore were unable to critically judge the importance of the announcement.

At the time, researchers involved in the Darwinius effort defended their strategy , explaining that “pop bands and athletes are doing the same thing” as they did in promoting the discovery. And when, after a few days, knowledgeable reporters found a myriad of falsehoods surrounding the announcement, the public had already moved along.

Marketers could look on the Darwinius example as a grand success, given the attention it garnered. But it was explicitly the worst-case scenario for explaining science to the public.

Last week’s announcement of the fossil remains of Ardipithecus ramidus, however, was picture-perfect, an example of the best practices in science communications. Fifteen years after the first of ”Ardi’s” bones was unearthed in Ethiopia, a team of nearly four dozen researchers described their discovery through 11 scientific papers published in the journal Science. A handful of news stories, an editorial and the cover of that issue of the journal were devoted to the find.

Issue of Science featuring Ardipithicus

As with all content in the major science journals, science journalists had been alerted in advance to the upcoming publication and spent the week before publication preparing their reports, questioning experts and affirming the discovery’s importance. The release of the information to the public was flawless, thanks to the planning and partnership of communicators at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science’s publisher, and members of the research team.

According to Scott Simpson, an associate professor of anatomy at Case Western Reserve University and a member of the Ardi team, the scientists had agreed in the beginning on a set of guidelines about discussing the fossil find and the project.

“It isn’t like we were being spiteful by sitting on this information for 17 years,’ he said. “It’s just that we wanted to be right when we announced it.”

Speaking after a lecture Friday at Ohio State University, Simpson said, “Some people will pick up a fossil in the field and then run to the nearest city and have a press conference. Doing so can bite you in the ass!”

As for the Darwinius episode, he said, “There actually was an ulterior motive – self-promotion” on the part of the discoverers. “They went over the top and said that it (the fossil) rewrites human evolution. I don’t think they were being very responsible,” he said.

“I believe they tried to make it so extraordinary that they stretched the bounds of what they themselves knew to be true.”

Historically, anthropology has been a somewhat contentious field. Experts within the discipline will disagree passionately over interpretations and significance of new finds, and that is how it should be.

But in the case of this year’s two main discoveries, both offer insight – the latter as a model to emulate and the former as a strategy to avoid.__Earle Holland

UPDATE: The Discovery Channel aired a new documentary within a week after Science published its reports on Ardipithecus, but the good news is that the program’s trailers avoided grand statements and overblown hyperbole. Perhaps they learned something from the Darwinius experience.__EH

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Are huzzahs enough?

Perhaps naively, I’ve always thought myself open to new ideas.

Partly, I suppose, it’s because innovation is seen as progressive and positive, and who wouldn’t want to be seen as being receptive to new invention? More accurately though, it’s probably traceable to the general premise that one cannot embrace science without supporting new discoveries.

Regardless of the inherent bond between the appreciation of science and open-mindedness, there simply have to be limits. That’s my explanation for the fiercely visceral reaction I have to some of the efforts now underway that claim to be in support of science.

Science Cheerleaders

Topping the list should be the website “Science Cheerleader,” an effort by a former cheerleader for the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team to more vividly bring science to the public. Darlene Cavalier explains that her early years as both a college, and then professional, cheerleader and a job at Discover Magazine eventually led her to earn a master’s degree.

. . . I realized I need to combine the academic attitude of UPenn, the mass reach of Disney, and the in-your-face, pom-pom waving personality of a 76ers Cheerleader to kick-start the process.

I founded the Science Cheerleader to get the conversation going, rally the troops, solicit views from all sides and change the tone of science and science policy in this country.

Optimistic? Sure! Energetic and determined? Of course! I’m the Science Cheerleader!

The first stop at the Science Cheerleader website is a page offering a “Brain Makeover” that promises to reveal “what everyone needs to know to be a science literate” (sic). Eighteen little video vignettes fill that page with messages like . . .

“The universe is regular and predictable”

“Atoms are bound by electron glue”

“All living things are made from cells, the chemical factories of life.”

The USAToday-like factoids are offered by attractive young women in full cheerleader garb, replete with shaking pom-poms, in an effort to raise the scientific literacy of the website’s visitors.

But aside from acknowledging that some viewers’ will likely experience a sudden enhanced activation of their endocrine system, I can’t see what this will do to improve their understanding of science. Bare midriffs may have helped auto dealers sell more cars in the 1970’s but I hardly see how they’ll make quantum mechanics any less dense today.

Perhaps Cavalier’s project represents a street-savvy effort to foster a public “appreciation” of science. In recent years, the traditional goal of a public “understanding” has given way to the alternative “appreciation,” if for no other reason, to acknowledge the growing complexity of science. It’s far easier to appreciate than to understand, or so the logic goes.

Lord Paul Rudd Drayson

And perhaps that was what was behind the position taken British Science Minister Lord Paul Rudd Drayson last month when he debated a well-known critic of British science journalism, Dr. Ben Goldacre. The exchange, touted widely within the science communications world and still available on the web, was anticipated because the two speakers were diametrically opposed in how they saw the way the British news media’s efforts at reporting on science.

For his part, Lord Drayson was congratulatory of the reporting arguing repeatedly that the continuing coverage of science and medicine in that country’s newspapers kept the fields foremost in the minds of British readers.

Goldacre, who operates a popular website called “Bad Science“, however, saw the situation with a glass-half-empty view and pointed to the glaring inaccuracies, exaggerations and sensationalism that he said permeated their national science coverage.

Dr. Ben Goldacre

Drayson suggested any science coverage helped the cause and therefore should be applauded while Goldacre withheld tolerance – much less praise – for reporting that ultimately was wrong and misled the public.

And that, I guess, is the sad state of affairs that now exists.

We’re either torn between attitudes where we are so desperate for any attention given to science that we’ll rejoice at the mediocre and accept the inaccurate, or we demand a level of precision and fact that requires more from most readers than may be reasonable to expect.

Science, like most subjects, isn’t easy – it takes effort. Then again, most things worth knowing take work.__Earle Holland

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A matter of time . . .

There’s been a recent trend among the scholars and science communications’ practitioners to suggest that researchers and scientists should speak out more publicly in explaining their work. If more researchers were visible and vocal, the logic goes, the public would be better informed about the science affecting public policy decisions today.

On its face, that makes a lot of sense. But it is fundamentally flawed.

All things scientific have become enormously complex in the past decades. Grasping the implications that new research advances bring requires a basic understanding of the subject. How can the public seriously discuss the merits and risks of genetically modified organisms or stem-cell research if they don’t understand the basic biology of DNA, or how proteins and enzymes work in the body?

The gap between the public’s basic collective knowledge and the scientists’ understanding has become gargantuan. Bridging it requires more than just better presentation skills on the part of researchers.

But that concept – that scientists should learn to be better communicators – is at the core of a movement supporting “framing science,” and one of the country’s most vocal proponents of it, Matt Nisbet, is touting its benefits in an upcoming paper in the American Journal of Botany. A column last week in the respected Columbia Journalism Review focused on this issue.

The basic notion of framing is, as I understand it, that to effectively convey information to an audience of readers, viewers or listeners, one has to tailor the message so that it corresponds to audience interests. These “frames,” as they’re called, are the architecture by which information is conveyed, the structure around which facts and context are built.

In essence, the teller-of-the-tale determines the best path along which to lead the audience.

Where this seemingly logical approach falls flat is the fact that the “teller” plans beforehand where he/she wants the audience to go. That’s straight-forward persuasive communications, but traditionally scientists – and science journalists, for that matter – are supposed to be providing information, not swaying opinion.

In essence, doing so differs little from the current trend of marketing and “messaging” where a specific set of statements is continually thrown at an audience in hopes that with time and repetition, the audience will absorb the new mindset. As a tactic long used in advertising, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with this approach. In the area of public health, for example, it is the wisest and most effective method available. We want the public to adopt safe activities and actions – our motives are transparent.

But that doesn’t apply for most of the sciences where the object is to uncover information and make it available to all. This issue of the intent of the story-teller is problematic for science.

But that’s not the biggest problem:

Simply put, most researchers simply don’t have the time to enhance their communications skills and, if they did, few have the time available to undertake the kind of evangelism to the public that these “science framers” would like.

In my response to the CJR posting touting the Nisbet paper, I wrote:

In 2007, more than 6,000 researchers responded to a survey by the Federal Demonstration Project intended to gauge how scientists spent their time while working on federal research grants. The report said then that 42 percent of the researchers’ time was now “devoted to pre- and post-award administrative activities – not to active research,” and that compliance issues — adherence to regulations, and the simple management of projects — stole time away from their doing the actual science.

And the case here at Ohio State University, for example, seems even worse concerning available researchers’ time. According to Julie Carpenter-Hubin, director of Institutional Research and Planning, the results of a 2007 faculty survey provide a clear picture of the challenge of faculty finding more time for public engagement.

According to the survey, university faculty say their typical workweek lasts 57 hours (for assistant professors), 56 hours (for associate professors) and 58 hours (for full professors). All faculty surveyed were either tenured or tenure-track.

Assistant professors report spending 36 percent of their workweek on research. Associate professors say they spend anywhere from 21 percent to 29 percent of their time on research and full professors say 31 percent of their time can be spent on research. The rest of their time, they said, was spent on non-research activities like teaching, meeting with students and preparing for class.

Surprisingly, both associate professors and full professors said that they spent 1 percent of their time “talking with the (news) media.”

The question rests with how researchers should spend their time. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press showed that the public’s respect for scientists and their work was substantially greater than it was for clergy, journalists, lawyers and business executives, in that order. One assumes that it is the work scientists do that’s held in such high regard.

What’s worrisome about all of this is the notion that some so-called experts continue to suggest approaches that are unrealistic. How are research faculty supposed to find the additional time to devote to more communications when their average workweek already surpasses the standard American’s by 25 to 50 percent?

Scientists are not opposed to doing more science communications.

But they’d much rather do more science instead.__Earle Holland

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Of packrats and horseshoe crabs . . .

The office as attic

Most people don’t realize that writers are really just collectors.

They collect stories, tidbits, anecdotes, experiences, opinions, triumphs and tragedies and then salt them away until an opportunity arises to regurgitate them to hungry readers.

Sciencewriters are no different, except that most of the things they collect are “sciency” stuff, mementoes of former tales of discovery, artifacts of their on-the-job education. We tend to be pack-rats as well, saving all this stuff for some far-off day in the future, with aspirations that our treasure-trove of memorabilia will amaze young colleagues or, at the least, feed the grandkids’ curiosity.

I recalled this fact-of-life the other day while rooting through the stacks of accumulated material that clutter my office, looking for a specific document. Regardless of the urgency of my need for what I sought, the process literally stopped time.

An “organizational expert” – one of those new-age folks we hire to bring order to the chaos of our lives and teach us feng shui – would cringe over my office, the floor dotted with stacks of unread journals and files of past discoveries and disasters, the detritus of a career spent watching as science goes by. How would such a person react to the seemingly endless mass of questionable stuff?

When the great science fiction and fantasy writer Ray Bradbury agreed to host a syndicated television program based on his stories, the producers wisely filled the room behind him with strange and wonderful objects that fans would recognize from his tales, gargoyles and ghouls, devices of wonder, all manner of stuff. It was there that Bradbury would sit, introducing a tale, and viewers would be swept into the mindset of things to come.

In my office, videotapes of old television science programs are stacked on shelves along with press-kits from NASA’s Viking planetary missions and for Skylab, our first “space station.” Elsewhere, there are the official reports from the Challenger Disaster and the “cold-fusion” debacle, and the ill-fated superconducting supercollider that was never built. There’s a self-portrait taken from the reflection of the mirrors making up the Whipple Observatory 10-meter telescope on Mount Hopkins, Arizona. Stuffed toys in the shape of the ebola virus and a trypanosome – the vector for African sleeping sickness – share space with a small alien that asks to be taken to “your leader.” Wind-carved ventifacts picked up at Taylor Valley in Antarctica and lava bombs from cinder cones above McMurdo Station sit atop one filing cabinet. A test kit for gonorrhea made from the blood of horseshoe crabs rests inside one drawer, too unique to discard but fundamentally useless.

James Harder's letter

Tucked away are other oddities, some so strange I occasionally have to pull them out just to assure myself that I didn’t make them up. One clipping from a 1950s issue of the Cleveland Plain Dealer that speaks seriously about university research aimed at perfecting head transplants. Another told of preparations at Ohio State for a heart transplant a decade before the procedure actually worked at Stanford. These and others are reminders of the sometimes strangeness of science.

Perhaps that is why I got that one particular letter.

It was 1985 and the envelope was addressed to “The University of Ohio” in Columbus but I assume the Post Office figured out the sender’s intent. The gentleman from Memphis had information to offer and someone along the way decided the university’s sciencewriter was the perfect recipient:

Dear Sir:

On Feb. 1, 1984 at 11:00 AM, I learned of life on other planets. We can never surpass them. They have conquered speed, sound and gravity. Their space ships can carry 3 million people faster than light. I have written people all over the world, from the President to the Queen of England. Please believe me. I have seen 3 space ships in one year. They have two means of propulsion.

Yours truly,

James Harder

p.s. A lord of England responded, as did the White House and NASA.

I have no idea what Mr. Harder saw, or what motivated him to send it to OSU, and ultimately to me. But considering what else fills my workspace, it probably belongs here as much as anywhere else. And given the basic nature of science – that we accumulate data with no real assurances of what it might yield in the future – it’s probably worth saving as well.__Earle Holland

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Mere bumps in the road . . .

The news last week that the Large Hadron Collider, the massive particle accelerator deep underground at the European physics laboratory CERN, suffered another major setback seemed to garner a much milder response than some people might have expected.

Tunnel at the Large Hadron Collider

Officials running the huge device staged an impressive soiree early last fall for dignitaries and journalists to tout the near completion of what could be argued as one of the most complex construction projects of all time. And while all concerned understood that the event was mostly symbolic — that is, they weren’t “starting” the actual physics work – it was important then to signify what had been accomplished and to increase the anticipation for when experiments actually began.

But then disaster struck in the vast 17-mile underground tunnel when an explosion killed power to some of the huge superconducting magnets meant to guide the subatomic particles, damaging electrical connections and halting work leading to the experiments. Instead, all attention turned to repairing the damage and rechecking equipment. Those inspections yielded other problems with wiring splices that could limit the effectiveness of the giant superconducting magnets.

The verdict: The start of actual scientific work is now postponed until this fall and even then, the apparatus will be run at only about half of its planned capacity for some time until the researchers are confident all the bugs are worked out of the machinery.

What’s surprising about all this is not these unexpected delays and postponements, or even the stepping back from pushing the machinery to full power. Engineers and researchers alike will quickly point to the fact that massively complex projects like this will inevitably face delays and unexpected hurdles, and when they are encountered, caution and prudence is the only wise approach.

No, what’s surprising is that there has been no loud outcry about delays and cost overruns on a project that’s already taken 15 years and cost $9 billion. A look back at earlier big, expensive science projects almost always included loud voices when deadlines were missed and the price tags rose. The public, often fueled by politicians, complained over additional costs and seemingly unkept promises.

Consider the Hubble Space Telescope, for example.

Originally proposed to cost around $500-600 million, delays and construction problems forced a near tripling of that cost. When it was finally launched, the Hubble was seven years behind schedule and $1 billion over budget. And then came the problem with the instrument’s blurred vision which required a Space Shuttle mission to replace components and correct its “eyesight.” Add to that the cost of operating the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and several “servicing” missions to the Hubble by the Shuttle and the total costs for the project as of this year has been estimated at more than $10 billion.

Where is the outrage that we’ve come to expect over the unplanned cost of major science projects like the Hubble program?

Perhaps in the current economic situation, with a global recession and governmental bailouts reaching trillions of dollars, the idea of spending more tens of millions on the project seems small potatoes in comparison.

The widely viewed Pillars of Creation image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

More likely, it simply vanished in the awe and fascination that came with the wonderous images of the universe that Hubble has produced. When looking at the now-famous image of the Pillars of Creation, where massive clouds of interstellar gas and dust form the birthplace of stars, how can one worry about the price?

Hubble let us peer into the vastness of space, to see for the first time the far reaches of our universe and the magic of creation. In doing so, it humbled us somewhat, reminding that regardless of how serious our problems appear, we are but a speck in the cosmos.

The LHC should do likewise, peering into inner space and the vastness of the subatomic world, to seek out the most elemental building blocks making up all that we know and all that we are. And if it costs a bit more money and time, I, for one, am patient, anticipating the as-yet-unseen Hubble-like wonders it should bring.__Earle Holland

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Sympathy ill-placed . . .

Last month, the publication The Scientist did something really weird. In its July issue, it devoted several pages and an editorial that, in effect, supported some researchers who had acknowledged their scientific misconduct.

The magazine story, “Life After Fraud,” detailed three cases where researchers recalled their experiences after being the focus of misconduct investigations by both the feds and their own institutions. One of the cases involved a respected Ohio State researcher, although the names in all three cases had been changed.

These vignettes, told largely from the researchers’ points of view, all explained that the individuals involved had signed voluntary agreements with the federal Office of Research Integrity acquiescing to the charges and agreeing to sanctions generally prohibiting their serving on review panels and receiving federal support for research, usually for a period of three years or less.

These findings were then reported in ORI’s own publications and on its website, as well as being cited in the Federal Register and other government publications. Those latter citations were the crux of these researchers’ statements that they were being victimized long after their penalty periods had expired, since the information was searchable on the internet.

The premise of the story was that these researcher’s admissions of misconduct, by signing the ORI agreements, were lifelong sentences since a simple internet search by potential employers routinely yielded details about their cases to anyone who was interested.

Sympathetically, the story suggested the consequences guilty researchers faced were too harsh.

Surprisingly, the magazine’s editor, Richard Gallagher, in an editorial flatly said that the punishments in these and other scientific cases were too harsh, and advocated a purging of the records after the short “sentences” ended. While one can applaud Gallagher’s sympathy and altruism towards these scholars, it seems odd that the boss for a publication claiming to be the “magazine for the life sciences” would so easily forego the traditional watchdog role that journalists routinely play.

But Gallagher writes: “It reminds me of the system present in US prisons, in which even after ‘serving their time,’ prisoners will still have trouble finding work because of their criminal records. But is it fair to compare felons to scientists who have, for instance, fudged their affiliations on a grant application when they were young and naïve?”

In fact, the rules and guidelines that govern oversight in cases of alleged scientific misconduct are extremely cautious and generous to those accused. The proceedings in these cases routinely extend for months, and in some cases years, before a finding is determined. The federal authorities rely on the accused’s institution, and therefore his/her peers, to investigate the allegations. Those investigations are staged in seriousness, based on the implications of the evidence, allowing accusations without merit to quickly crumble through lack of substance. And all such inquiries and investigations are kept secret until the point when a finding of misconduct is reached to protect the reputations of those who are subsequently cleared.

Information about the cases remains confidential until after an institution’s investigation has been completed and the findings are submitted to federal authorities for their concurrence. At that point, most researchers will have signed voluntary agreements agreeing to sanctions, as happened in the case of the scholars cited in this story.

What’s missing in Gallagher’s charitable stance is an acknowledgement of what the actual crime is – a breach of the public trust.

Our society has long-since agreed that people in certain roles may have a higher-than-normal obligation to the rest of us. Ministers must do no wrong. Lawyers and doctors have codes of conduct demanding professional behavior. Even journalists understand that a single incidence of plagiarism can cost them a career and embarrass them before tens of thousands of readers.

Why should researchers be held to a lower standard?

The truth is that scientific misconduct is an exceedingly rare event, and that rareness, in essence, is why when cases do occur they become such newsworthy episodes and remain in our collective electronic memory, the internet.

Few humans can say that they have never made a mistake, nor paid a price for it. As a society, we tend to be forgiving of those who admit their frailties and show remorse, and that’s as it should be. But scientific misconduct betrays both our trust and the culture of science itself.

Rules of behavior for researchers are clear for all to see. They just need to be followed.__Earle Holland

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One last, fossilized point . . .

Shoulder of Darwinius fossil

One would hope that the last two postings here dealing with the media extravaganza surrounding the Darwinius fossil hoopla would have been sufficient to quench one’s interest.

But alas, a bit more must be offered . . .

What made this whole debacle somewhat distasteful wasn’t the science, such as it was. The depressing aspect was the seemingly endless hype centered more on a commercial book and network documentary applauding the discovery. Serious scientists seldom proclaim their discoveries as “missing links,” as did participants in this episode.

And even though the researchers themselves might not have actually touted the discovery as such, clearly their publishing and broadcasting partners reveled in doing so as part of an elaborate plan to heighten viewership of the documentary and perhaps purchase of the accompanying book. Various quotes from the science team, both during and after their epic press conference, discussed the partnership intent on garnering visibility.

Researchers self-aggrandizing in the name of supposedly promoting science, while uncommon, may seem inappropriate but it really doesn’t break any of the “rules” of modern research. But, as we pointed out in our second commentary on this topic, the researchers actually did break the rules when it came to disclosing their connections and potential conflicts.

Their paper, published in the online journal PLOS One, was bound by the publication’s rules for authors, including a clause covering “competing interests.” It reads:

“A competing interest for a scholarly journal is anything that interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, review, or publication of research findings, or of articles that comment on or review research findings. Competing interests can be financial, professional, or personal; hidden or declared; actual or perceived.

“Competing interests can be held by authors, their employer (whether academic institution, commercial company, or other), sponsors of the work, reviewers, and editors. They can arise in a relationship with an organization or another person.”

When queried about this rule earlier this month, and the claim in the paper that “The authors have declared that no competing interests exist,” managing editor Peter Binfield agreed that the concerns were “very valid” and that he would be “following up with the authors on this issue.” One assumed that, knowing our interest, Binfield would have reported back on the authors’ reply.

That didn’t happen, but he did, apparently, report the response to Discover magazine writer Carl Zimmer for his blog, The Loom. Binfield pointed Zimmer to a comment on the original paper that was posted on June 10 that read:

“The authors wish to declare, for the avoidance of any misunderstanding concerning competing interests, that a production company (Atlantic Productions), several television channels (History Channel, BBC1, ZDF, NRK) and a book publisher (Little Brown and co) were involved in discussions regarding this paper in advance of publication. However, to clarify, none of the authors received any financial benefit from any of these associations and these organizations had no influence over the publication of this paper or the science contained within it. The Natural History museum in Oslo will receive some royalty from sales of the book, but no revenue accrues to any of the scientists. In addition, the Natural History Museum of Oslo purchased the fossil that is examined in this paper, however, this purchase in no way influenced the publication of this paper or the science contained within it, and in no way benefited the individual authors.”

In essence, the authors’ message said that none of them profited financially from the hype, so that made it all okay. But PLOS’ policy on competing interests – like most reputable journals – doesn’t limit conflicts to whether authors make money on the deal. Situations like this offer researchers numerous opportunities to benefit in other ways during the process.

And that’s not necessarily bad.

But when submitting the paper itself, the authors claimed no conflict existed, actual or perceived. That was clearly false. Moreover, the revised disclosure that Binfield posted on behalf of the authors on June 10th is still stuck on the comments section of the journal, while their original claim of no conflict remains a part of the formal paper, and therefore part of the official record.

One could argue that a change takes some time but surely for an online journal, the correction to the false disclaimer should have occurred by now, two weeks later.

People whose interest in Darwinius – or in science, for that matter – is fleeting will have little concern over the hype, hoopla and conflict in this case. But for researchers and science students, it’s a cautionary tale worth noting.__Earle Holland

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Darwinius exaggeratus, part 2 . . .

In the future, scientists and science junkies alike will look back at the Darwinius discovery and recognize its place in contemporary science history. But their categorization isn’t likely to match the hopes and plans held by the cohort that stage-managed its unveiling last week.

Already, commentators are drawing comparisons between this fossil find and the cold fusion debacle of the late 1980s. [See our first take on this episode here.]

X-ray of Darwinius masillae fossil And while there is no question that the amount of coverage this ancient creature received was huge, the number of follow-up stories taking issue with how the news was released, and how accurate the researchers’ claims actually were, is large as well. Couple that with the hyperbole reeking from the promos touting Monday night’s airing of “The Link,” the History Channel documentary extolling the saga of “Ida,” as the fossil has been nicknamed.

The Darwinius authors have proclaimed that their coordinated publicity campaign, replete with the press conference at the American Museum of Natural History, a new book, a website and the TV show, were grand successes in efforts to increase the public’s interest in science.

Jorn Hurum, a co-author of the PLoS paper on Darwinius, told reporters, “This specimen is like finding the Lost Ark for archeologists.” And David Attenborough, the BBC’s famed naturalist, proclaimed, “The link they would have said up to now is missing - well it’s no longer missing.”

But now that most Americans have seen the images of the scraggly remains of this ancient creature, what they’re hearing now is how the claims about its importance were severely overblown, and the interest that originated from the announcement is shifting towards skepticism. Sadly, that growing disbelief isn’t limited to this episode alone, or even to paleontology. It is seeping into the public’s perception of what science is, and how trustworthy scientists are.

Consider the following:

Prior to the press conference, only a handful of select reporters got an advance look at the scientific paper, and they were sworn to secrecy until the unveiling. Normally, scientific journals will share advance copies of such papers with science writers who will have enough time to accurately report the story, not just parrot back statements offered at a press briefing. This insures input from experts in the field who aren’t a party to the research, providing balance to grand claims.

But in this case, the journal, PLoS One, didn’t release the paper in advance. The behind-the-scenes leaking of the paper to some select journalists was handled by Atlantic Productions, the company that had produced the documentary for the History Channel.

PLoS One’s managing editor, Peter Binfield, said in an email that the media “did not have access to the final paper,” adding that he “had no idea what version they [the reporters] did look at, but clearly it could have been any of the prior versions that the authors would have had access to.”

What’s strange about this is that most journals strictly warn authors about releasing pre-published papers to the media – although PLoS apparently has no such restriction – and researchers are universally skittish about leaking such material, for fear it might jeopardize its publication.

What seems clear is that an early version of the journal paper was handed off to Atlantic Productions by someone on the research team, contrary to typical behavior among scientists, to help facilitate the media blitz. In a later email, Binfield concurred that the most obvious conclusion is that an author leaked the paper.

Then consider “The Link,” the documentary that aired for two hours on Monday night. While reviewers reported that it garnered 2 million viewers – a healthy showing for History Channel programs – that viewership is far less than the normal viewership of PBS’ “NOVA,” the dean of television science programming.

What is, perhaps, most distressing was the overbilling of the program. Promos touted it, comparing it to other milestones in history, including the attack on Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President John Kennedy, and the Apollo program’s landing on the moon. The blustering was, quite frankly, far beyond the pale:

“A Global Event:” “Witness the most important find in 47 million years,” and “This changes everything.”

Such exaggeration doesn’t help promote science. It hurts it! Surprisingly, there were no comparisons to earlier scientific discoveries.

PLoS One logo But perhaps the most egregious act in this episode is hidden in the small type on the first page of journal article. It reads:

“Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.”

PLoS’ policy on this reads:

“A competing interest for a scholarly journal is anything that interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, review, or publication of research findings, or of articles that comment on or review research findings. Competing interests can be financial, professional, or personal; hidden or declared; actual or perceived.

“Competing interests can be held by authors, their employer (whether academic institution, commercial company, or other), sponsors of the work, reviewers, and editors. They can arise in a relationship with an organization or another person.”

It also says:

“If authors know that organizations or institutions that have provided support for the work or for authors’ salaries have received any grants from other institutions or companies that have been involved or have an interest in the work described, such information should be declared.”

That seems pretty clear. The affiliation with the television documentary, royalties from book sales, even the indirect benefit that Hurum expressed to one reporter that increased visibility for this work would likely lead to support for future efforts – amounts to a probable conflict of interests on the authors’ part, or at the very least, the perception of one.

It warranted disclosure and they didn’t.

Even assuming the most altruistic motives for all concerned with this, they should have known better. The potential damage to research that exaggerated claims can bring threatens all of science, and anyone looking at the story of Darwinius as a case study in science communications should really think again.__Earle Holland

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Tags: Researchers, Science Communication, Science policy by earleholland
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Darwinius exaggeratus . . .

As it usually happens in anthropology, the actual scientific importance of the fossil “find” announced earlier this week won’t be decided until years from now. But that fundamental unknown didn’t stop the identification of Darwinius masillae from being the science story of the week, or perhaps the month.

Darsinius masillae fossil Fueled by a public relations campaign worthy of the next Star Wars movie, a sextet of researchers on Tuesday announced a true rarity in paleontology – a skeleton that they said was “the most complete fossil primate ever found.” Their lengthy paper in the journal PLoS One, an online offering from the Public Library of Science, explained that the fossil clearly showed the animal’s skeleton, an outline of its body and remnants of its last meal.

Discovered in 1983, divided between two private collectors and then sold over the years, the recent merging of the two halves allowed the research team to place the creature where it seems to belong on our species’ family tree. More accurately, it’s more an ancestor of tree-living, rain-forest primates than of the anthropoids that eventually walked across the prehistoric savannahs.

But that distinction was routinely lost in many of the abbreviated news stories touting the discovery. A Google News search produced more than 700 versions of stories a couple of days after the announcement, and Google itself joined the celebration offering its own Google logo depicting the fossil on its web search page for a day. Google logo on day of press conference

As interesting as fossil finds are to science geeks – and to much of the public as well – what sets this episode apart from the norm is the extent of machinations involved to hype this discovery before the public.

And also, there’s the underlying question of whether such publicity-mongering is good or bad for science?

The research team partnered with the History Channel, the A&E Network, an independent filmmaker, ABC News and others to tout the discovery at a press conference held at the American Museum of Natural History, as well as to hawk an upcoming film and book about the fossil find. Subsequent stories claimed the discovery as the “missing link” and one of the “most important finds in 47 million years,” the estimated age of the fossil.

A New York Times story reported that at Tuesday’s press conference, one researcher was asked about all the hoopla surrounding this announcement. His response:

“Any pop band is doing the same thing. Any athlete is doing the same thing. We have to start thinking the same way in science,” he argued.

No we don’t!

Rock music and athletics are poor models for scientists to emulate when thinking about how to raise public interest. Advocates of that approach forget the simple truth that the public recognizes the appeal in those realms is emotional, and that fans willingly embrace the sensationalism that accompanies them. It’s all part of the game.

But science should be different. The public needs to trust that scientists, when announcing discoveries, are basing their exuberance on the significance of their finds, both to science and to society. Raising rabid interest in announcements that are linked to book sales or TV viewership shouldn’t be part of their job.

The rush of cheerleading stories has died down following the press conference and coverage now focuses more on evaluating how important this research really is. That’s how it should be.

Discussion now centers on how significant the find actually is. Clark Spencer Larsen, head of anthropology at Ohio State and once a student in a graduate course given by one of the Darwinius discoverers said simply, “I think it is being overly hyped.”

Scott McGraw, a colleague in the same department, said,” The exciting element of this story is the completeness and preservation of the new specimen, not the information content of the fossil itself. By and large, the fossil offers little new information . . . So it is – at best – an old and distant cousin – but not a direct ancestor [to humans].”

Assuming that’s a fair statement, this episode seems more inclined towards a publicity stunt than it is an effort at the public understanding of this science.

John Noble Wilford, science writer at the New York Times and probably the most respected American journalist covering archaeology and paleontology, seems resigned about the whole affair. His story ran in Saturday’s issue of the Times, prior to the big Tuesday press conference but only after the Wall Street Journal had reported on the find.

He acknowledged that in fields like archeology and paleontology, where government support for research is scant, “promotion on a modest scale has long been important” for researchers to continue their work.

But, he said, “This exceeded just about anything I had come across in recent years. It was so blatant, and some of the promoters were using strong-armed tactics in negotiations.

“It seems that’s just part of getting science to the public in our modern media age.”

His recognizing that more researchers today seem willing to hype their science doesn’t mean that he supports the practice. But his noting that these episodes are becoming more frequent is a serious warning to all who do research.

Once lost, the public’s trust in science may be hard to regain.__Earle Holland

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