2008年7月25日
Sense about Science
As a follow-up to my lament on the mis-presentation of science by the media and misconceptions in the public, someone recently sent me a link to Sense about Science. It's a charitable trust involved in promoting science to the public, with emphasis on good evidence and aiming to help clear up inaccuracies in scientific debate. Do go and have a look!
2008年7月17日
Press perspective
A couple of months ago, there was a seminar I wanted to attend on the responsibility that scientists have to represent their science correctly to the public. Unfortunately I had another course I had to attend at the same time, and wasn't able to go.
A large proportion of the scientific research in the biological and biomedical sciences in the UK is funded by public money. Therefore it's natural that the public should be made aware of what their money is being used for. In recent years there has been an increasing amount of debate over whether research is being made transparent enough to the public, and increased pressure to make scientists more accountable for the way they use their funding money and when presenting the results that they find. Fair enough up to a point.
But why is there not more pressure on the press to stop them from wilfully misrepresenting the science? If scientists misled people in the same way about their work they would be heavily penalised by their peers and by the press themselves. But journalists are 'allowed' to write scaremongering stories with very little responsibility for any consequences. You might argue that it's up to the scientists to respond to such stories and educate the public, but once an idea has been planted in people's minds, it takes much much more to persuade them that it is incorrect. Journalists are also prone to paraphrasing and are capable of twisting quotes and scientific 'facts' to fit their whims. 'Chlorine in tap water doubles chances of having deformed children' sounds so much better than 'Study carried out in Taiwan suggests a tentative correlation between chlorine in treated water supplies and defects in newly born babies, but doesn't take into account other socio-economic factors in the areas sampled' (story from June 2008)
Dramatic headlines always sell more papers, and people carry on buying more newspapers to keep up with any updates. If the newspaper later has to qualify the original statement, the damage is still done, and the seeds of worry and doubt have been sown. They flourish so much better than the seeds of confidence and common sense. Sometimes though, these stories can have worrying longer-term effects. Stories on what are 'cancer-causing' and 'cancer-defying' agents are a case in point. Up to a few years, vitamin C was THE wonder vitamin, it helped cure colds, eczema, headaches, cancer, etc etc. You could never have too much of it, so people took tablets with far higher amounts of vitamin C than their bodies could ever absorb. Then, it transpired there was a link between overly high levels of vitamin C in the diet and development of cancer. Cue panic.
The best diet is a well-balanced diet. All the press about 'wonder vitamins' only serves to put lots of money into companies that cash into the demand for extract of ginkgo, extract of aloe vera. Not to say that these don't have health benefits - but they won't help if you take them after smoking half a pack of cigarettes and neglect having any fresh veg in your diet.
It's important that we keep up-to-date, and to be aware of any research on risks to our health. But our information should come with an awareness of perspective, and what it means in terms of how we live our everyday lives.
One of my friends pointed out that the science editors for magazines and newspapers are mostly only trained in one discipline and one area of that discipline at that. Although they may be trained as an ecologist or zoologist, they commission and edit articles on physics, genetics, nutritition, the lot. This may be a partial reason (or excuse) for some of the rubbish that newspapers churn out but it needs to be remedied. The press have a lot of power, but with little of the sense of responsibility that should go with it.
A large proportion of the scientific research in the biological and biomedical sciences in the UK is funded by public money. Therefore it's natural that the public should be made aware of what their money is being used for. In recent years there has been an increasing amount of debate over whether research is being made transparent enough to the public, and increased pressure to make scientists more accountable for the way they use their funding money and when presenting the results that they find. Fair enough up to a point.
But why is there not more pressure on the press to stop them from wilfully misrepresenting the science? If scientists misled people in the same way about their work they would be heavily penalised by their peers and by the press themselves. But journalists are 'allowed' to write scaremongering stories with very little responsibility for any consequences. You might argue that it's up to the scientists to respond to such stories and educate the public, but once an idea has been planted in people's minds, it takes much much more to persuade them that it is incorrect. Journalists are also prone to paraphrasing and are capable of twisting quotes and scientific 'facts' to fit their whims. 'Chlorine in tap water doubles chances of having deformed children' sounds so much better than 'Study carried out in Taiwan suggests a tentative correlation between chlorine in treated water supplies and defects in newly born babies, but doesn't take into account other socio-economic factors in the areas sampled' (story from June 2008)
Dramatic headlines always sell more papers, and people carry on buying more newspapers to keep up with any updates. If the newspaper later has to qualify the original statement, the damage is still done, and the seeds of worry and doubt have been sown. They flourish so much better than the seeds of confidence and common sense. Sometimes though, these stories can have worrying longer-term effects. Stories on what are 'cancer-causing' and 'cancer-defying' agents are a case in point. Up to a few years, vitamin C was THE wonder vitamin, it helped cure colds, eczema, headaches, cancer, etc etc. You could never have too much of it, so people took tablets with far higher amounts of vitamin C than their bodies could ever absorb. Then, it transpired there was a link between overly high levels of vitamin C in the diet and development of cancer. Cue panic.
The best diet is a well-balanced diet. All the press about 'wonder vitamins' only serves to put lots of money into companies that cash into the demand for extract of ginkgo, extract of aloe vera. Not to say that these don't have health benefits - but they won't help if you take them after smoking half a pack of cigarettes and neglect having any fresh veg in your diet.
It's important that we keep up-to-date, and to be aware of any research on risks to our health. But our information should come with an awareness of perspective, and what it means in terms of how we live our everyday lives.
One of my friends pointed out that the science editors for magazines and newspapers are mostly only trained in one discipline and one area of that discipline at that. Although they may be trained as an ecologist or zoologist, they commission and edit articles on physics, genetics, nutritition, the lot. This may be a partial reason (or excuse) for some of the rubbish that newspapers churn out but it needs to be remedied. The press have a lot of power, but with little of the sense of responsibility that should go with it.
2008年7月4日
the biofuel debate
A report accessing the effect of current biofuel production on world food shortages has just been leaked from the World Bank. It estimates that biofuels have contributed to the increase in global food prices by up to 75 %.
This is a pivotal point in the future of biofuel policy. It's evident that we need to find alternative energy sources to fossil fuels, but the current policies for biofuel production are not substainable. It's all very well encouraging and even legislating the inclusion of biofuels as an energy source, but this shouldn't come at the cost of reducing world food supplies, which are already insufficient for those in developing countries.
So what is wrong with encouraging biofuel production as it stands? Where should I start?
Instead of using good quality crops for food, we are burning them for fuel. And these crops are frequently grown in countries that have intense poverty and food shortages already, whilst their governments pocket the money they get. The rainforests in Brazil have been cut back again and again to use the fertile land for soy production - the most idiotic thing being that although the land is fertile and would be very good for many food crops, it doesn't support soybean. So they have to pump fertilisers and chemicals into the soil, affecting the ecosystem, whilst the local farmers who would have kept livestock and crops on the fringes of the forest lose their livelihood. Of course, this problem goes much further back than the current debate over biofuels, but it can only get worse if we insist on using soy for energy.
The idea of using biofuels as a more environmentally and substainable energy source is completely contradicted by the current methods of production. The Kenyan government has recently approved a biofuel project that would involve using a large chunk of the Tana river delta as a sugar cane plantation. This is in a continent where drought and shortage of fertile land is a problem - can you imagine the impact of damaging the river delta ecosystem, both on the people who rely on the delta for food and livelihood, and on the many species of birds and animals that live there?
Nor is Kenya the only African country that has joined in, without properly considering the long-term problems. The Guardian report on the sugar cane plantation project also says this:
If the policy-makers don't stand back now and take a good look at what is really happening, then although biofuels were originally supposed to be a relatively eco-friendly solution to our fuel problems, in the long run we are just escalating the problem of world poverty, food shortage and climate change. Biofuels are currently produced for the profit of private companies. Perhaps we need international organisations like the World Bank to become more involved and keep an eye on the long-term effects of these biofuel projects.
This is a pivotal point in the future of biofuel policy. It's evident that we need to find alternative energy sources to fossil fuels, but the current policies for biofuel production are not substainable. It's all very well encouraging and even legislating the inclusion of biofuels as an energy source, but this shouldn't come at the cost of reducing world food supplies, which are already insufficient for those in developing countries.
So what is wrong with encouraging biofuel production as it stands? Where should I start?
Instead of using good quality crops for food, we are burning them for fuel. And these crops are frequently grown in countries that have intense poverty and food shortages already, whilst their governments pocket the money they get. The rainforests in Brazil have been cut back again and again to use the fertile land for soy production - the most idiotic thing being that although the land is fertile and would be very good for many food crops, it doesn't support soybean. So they have to pump fertilisers and chemicals into the soil, affecting the ecosystem, whilst the local farmers who would have kept livestock and crops on the fringes of the forest lose their livelihood. Of course, this problem goes much further back than the current debate over biofuels, but it can only get worse if we insist on using soy for energy.
The idea of using biofuels as a more environmentally and substainable energy source is completely contradicted by the current methods of production. The Kenyan government has recently approved a biofuel project that would involve using a large chunk of the Tana river delta as a sugar cane plantation. This is in a continent where drought and shortage of fertile land is a problem - can you imagine the impact of damaging the river delta ecosystem, both on the people who rely on the delta for food and livelihood, and on the many species of birds and animals that live there?
Nor is Kenya the only African country that has joined in, without properly considering the long-term problems. The Guardian report on the sugar cane plantation project also says this:
The merits of growing biofuels are the source of increasingly acrimonious debate in east Africa, where vast tracts of open land in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania are attracting the attention of local and international agriculture firms hoping to cash in on the demand from the US and the European Union for clean energy sources such as ethanol.So the local governments want the money, as do the agricultural firms. But what happens to the people and ecosystems that are already there?
If the policy-makers don't stand back now and take a good look at what is really happening, then although biofuels were originally supposed to be a relatively eco-friendly solution to our fuel problems, in the long run we are just escalating the problem of world poverty, food shortage and climate change. Biofuels are currently produced for the profit of private companies. Perhaps we need international organisations like the World Bank to become more involved and keep an eye on the long-term effects of these biofuel projects.
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