On Research…

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.]

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.

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

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

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.

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

Tags: Researchers, Science Communication by earleholland
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I traveled back in time this week – just over 25 years and one month, to be precise.

Reading Tuesday’s story in the Columbus Dispatch did it, sent me reeling into a place I usually try to avoid.   The story announced an international conference, set at Ohio State, that would honor the career of mathematician Harvey Friedman.

For four days, the paper said, “mathematicians, professors, musicians, philosophers and scientists will discuss such subjects as absolute infinity, transducers, axiomatic theories of truth and empirical Platonism,” and Harvey will bask in it all.

When he arrived at Ohio State as a full professor in math in 1977, he already had gained fame a decade earlier as the country’s youngest professor, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, because of his appointment at Stanford.  Luring him here had been a real coup.

My phone rang one day early in 1984.  Jack Renirie, the chief public information officer for the National Science Foundation was calling to ask a favor.  NSF had selected Friedman to receive the agency’s Alan T. Waterman Award, one of its highest honors and given to rising stars in research who were younger than 35.  While drafting a news release for the award, one of his staffers had struck out in trying to understand the research Harvey was doing.  Would I take a crack at it, he asked.

I hadn’t met Friedman at the time but I knew he was a year younger than me and was already a world-renowned scholar.  And mathematics and I had seldom been friends in the past.  (Had that not been so, I might have succeeded as a chemical engineer rather than as a science writer.)

I agreed to Renirie’s request and scheduled an afternoon interview a day or so later.  Harvey was gracious and energetic and, after a bit of small talk to warm up, the interview started.

For science writers beginning discussions with researchers, this is the crux moment.  To understand the studies at issue, the researcher and writer usually begin a somewhat disjointed dance as they seek common ground, a baseline on which to build the conversation.  In some cases, it is seamless and takes seconds.

In my case with Harvey, it was endless.  I was seeking a reasonable explanation of what his work entailed – something that non-scholars could vaguely understand and defeat their often strong phobias against math.

He would begin with a point and I would have to stop him for translation and clarification.  I would offer an interpretation of what I thought he had said and he’d grade my answer as wrong, leaving me a failure at math once again.

Like two lousy ping pong players, he’d serve and I’d miss; I’d serve and he’d miss.  We never seemed to get a volley going.

After a fruitless hour or so, we agreed to a time out, planning to resume the match the next afternoon.  But sadly, we fared no better in that second session than the first.  As his patience clearly wore thin, exasperation set in and he said:

“Earle, I don’t get it.  You’re a smart guy.  This is something that any first-year grad student in mathematics understands.  Why don’t you?”

“Harvey,” I explained, “The average American newspaper is written for a fifth-grade reader.  They’re not graduate students!”

And that was the moment, I thought, the instant when the math whiz would grasp the magnitude of the void between his mind and dullards like me.  That would bridge the chasm between us . . . not!

“Well what can we do to get the readership levels higher?” he asked, and my heart hit the floor.

Eventually, I was able to write the release, share it with NSF, and Harvey’s award got the media coverage it deserved.  But there was more writing “around” the math in that release than there was writing “about” math, and we’re probably the worse for it in some way.

I’ve surely done more than a thousand interviews since then, probably many more, but the dialogue with Harvey always stands out as a reminder of the challenges of science communications.

There is a vast gap between the interests of scientists and those of the rest of us.  And that distance grows exponentially as new discoveries are made.  Our dwindling public attention span has amplified the problem, as has the deluge of messages we receive daily.

True communication between scholar and citizen is tougher now than ever before.

But the rewards are great.  Researchers should make the effort to reach down and give the rest of us a hand up, so that we can understand, if only slightly, the wonders of the world they explore.

And we, the public, need to make the effort to learn some of the stuff that, at first glance, may seem too hard.__Earle Holland

Tags: Researchers, Science Communication by earleholland
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The telephone call in the middle of the afternoon was, frankly, a bit unnerving.

It was almost like when your first-borne asks about sex.  Only with the sex question, most of us who are parents know how to gauge our answer, to duck and weave and estimate the right amount of information for that given moment.

A somewhat hesitant woman’s voice asked simply, “I’m interested in getting started in research — can you tell me how to begin?”

As a science writer for more than 35 years, I clearly understand research in dozens of fields, having talked to countless experts and scientists about their life’s work.  I can offer up a decent basic understanding of the human immune response, of tectonic drift, of quasars and quarks, and a healthy dose of anthropology.  I know the scientific method and the idiosyncracies of the culture of science, and consider myself skilled in explaining research to the public.

But with that question, where does one begin?  What field of research was she interested in, I asked.

“I haven’t really decided on that yet,” she answered.

Are you a student, I inquired hopefully?  “No. I’m just interested in getting into research – how can I do that?”

I apologized to her for stammering a bit as I struggled for a starting point for the discussion.  She seemed sincere, though immeasurably naïve.  Her question, I explained, was sort of like asking how do you play the piano, or parachute from airplanes, or do brain surgery.  Any explanation requires a common starting point and we, apparently, had none.

I explained that researchers are usually scientists or scholars who have studied, won academic degrees in specific fields, and have gone on to investigate fundamental questions that interest them.  Some questions, I said, require more than a lifetime to answer – if then.

We chatted for a bit more.  I suggested that, as a start, she pick a field that interested her, and a school where she could become versed in the topic.  She could grow from there.

She was appreciative, or sounded so, thanked me and hung up.  And after a bit of honest consternation, I admit, I recounted it to colleagues and we all laughed.  But that episode hasn’t faded.  It just hangs there in memory as a reminder of the void between science and the public.

Her’s was an honest call and question, and it deserved a decent answer.  But a valid response required a shared understanding and she simply didn’t have it.

Those who do science, as well as those of us watching from the periphery, often worry about the public’s inability to grasp science policy issues – stem cells, climate change, genetically modified organisms, evolution, and on and on and on.  We throw up our collective hands and wail in wonder at the public’s preference for the simple over the complex, the pseudo-science over real science.

Surely, the citizenry has an obligation to invest the energy to learn enough about the complexity of the world, and science in specifics, if they are to be an informed electorate.

But we are also obliged to lend a hand to those who express interest, but who are sadly uninformed.  Otherwise, how can there be positive change.

I hope the caller felt that was what I did.__Earle Holland

Tags: Researchers, Science Communication, Science policy by earleholland
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