On Research…

Fifteen minutes of fame . . .

What’s more believable?

The announcement at a gala, premier event of a new primate fossil, touted as a “missing link” connected to human evolution, and acclaimed by its media-savvy, showmen-scientists . . .

Or . . .

The publishing in a formal, staid science journal that the fossil, along with a distant relative, is more akin to nocturnal lemurs and basically unrelated to humans. . .

Sadly, that’s the kind of dilemma faced by those who follow science in the media. It’s the unsettling challenge that modern research scientists now seem to be facing: Choosing between the newer broad, short-term public interest in the research, or remaining with the plodding, glacial pace of traditional science publication.

Most researchers will quickly say that they’d never sacrifice accuracy and fact for fame and the potential of fortune, but the episode of the Darwinius fossil earlier this spring, as well as other so-called “discoveries,” shows that the answers aren’t always so simple.

Comparing the news media coverage of the two aforementioned events seems to suggest where the public comes down in the battle between flash and fact.

The announcement of the Darwinius fossil, fueled by the opening of a new museum exhibit, the airing of a national documentary and the sale of a popular book, generated nearly 800 stories in the news media within two days.

But this week’s publication in the respected science journal Nature reported that a new early primate fossil, Afradapis longicristatus, and the earlier Darwinius fossil, belonged on a branch of the evolutionary tree far removed from humans. While the published paper basically disproved the claims that were so broadly hyped earlier this year, the research only garnered one-fifth as much news coverage.

Nature's representation of the primate family tree. Credit: E. R. Seifert, Stony Brook University

Marketing folks have long-known that being first with new information can often be more useful than being right. But that kind of mindset has usually been absent in science where the validity of the information has been paramount. Ironically, the nature of science is that the early “discoveries” are often proved less-than-right, if not outright wrong. But that’s as it should be – science is inherently self-correcting and our knowledge shifts as we gain more data.

But seldom do scientists ever use this evolution in our understanding to capitalize on the opportunities to mislead. So when it does happen, seemingly intentionally, as in the Darwinius episode, it suggests a new question:

What’s wrong with promoting findings quickly since other scientists will eventually correct whatever errors are made?

Plenty!

The public’s faith in the competency of researchers hangs in the balance in cases like this. And the fact that the public’s memory for detail is short is no excuse for “gaming” the system. Surveys continue to rank scientists high on the lists of those held in esteem but at the same time, the complexity of science in virtually every discipline is constantly doubling, making it harder for the citizenry to even begin to “understand” most science.

Instead, they’re left with a simple faith in the honesty of science, and of those who do it.

That’s way too valuable to risk on just a few minutes of fame.__Earle Holland

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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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