Reporting Science

1. UK-Africa Journalism Education Exchange Network 11-13 April 2012 University of Bedfordshire Reporting Science Ethics in the World of Fact Barry Turner, Senior Lecturer in Science and Environmental Journalism University of Lincoln

2. Reporting Science • Science reporting is one of the growth areas in journalism • A number of factors influence this • The ever extending need for science in our society • Technology as infrastructure • Politics • Demographics

3. The Role of the Science Journalist • The most obvious role is that of the purveyor of scientific knowledge • The translator of scientific language • The story teller • The individual who can bring science to the ordinary person

4. Science is a Social Construct • Only in a few areas is science abstract • Most modern science has an impact on all of us • Medical Science • Environmental Science • Science and Economics • Science and Politics • We need to be informed!

5. Science in Society • Our modern societies face huge challenges • Between now and 2050 our population will grow to over 9 billion people • All of these people need to be fed • Population growth, global warming, declining water supplies new epidemic diseases all require a scientific solution

6. Controversial Science in Our Media • The massive challenges faced by humanity over the next few decades will need massive solutions • Some of them are controversial • And it is our press that make them so • Global Warming • GM Food • Biodiversity

7. Global Warming • The controversy of the 21st century • Made large by politicians • Made larger by the press • Neither the politicians nor the press are taking this seriously • Politicians are creatures of the short term • Just like the media

8. Global Warming and Balance • The concept of balanced reporting has done major damage to scientific debate in the press • The press hold on to an outdated maxim that both sides must be heard for a report to be fair • To the extent that for every theory an opposite must be sought however absurd • Excluding any real or serious debate

9. Politics and Reporting • Large areas of the regular media are failing in the scientific debate • The model of balanced reporting has led to a polarising of opposites • Science in the press is no longer a debate but a loud argument • And the noise of the argument is obscuring the real issues

10. Politics and Reporting • Right wing politicians particularly in the US now consider it acceptable to decry science • Political kudos can be gained from the most absurd anti-science positions • The press are keen to join in the empty rhetoric • An uneducated, or at best humanities educated politician talking about dogma is given as much air time as a scientist talking about science

11. The Purity of Science • As a philosophy science is simply the seeking of truth • There are many underlying philosophies • Doxasticism • Empiricism • Principlism • To name but three…

12. Doxasticism • The Philosophy of belief and doubt… • ‘The first task of the philosopher is to rid themselves of prejudice by calling into doubt all that can be doubted’ • René Descartes • In an ideal world this would also apply to scientists and Journalists

13. Empiricism and Epistemology • In the absence of logical objective and empirically validated evidence a belief cannot be held ethically • In the presence of contradictory evidence the upholding of a belief system is unethical and destructive

14. Principlism • Autonomy- Respect for the individual • Beneficence - Do good as a defining motive • Non-maleficence - Do no harm (Primun non nocere) • Justice– treat all equally and fairly within an ethical framework • These are ethics that should apply to journalists (as reporters of science) as well as scientists themselves

15. Ethical Reporting of Science • Science is a ‘search for’ not a ‘finding’ • It is unethical to report incremental advances as breakthroughs • It is unethical to report scientific scepticism as fact • It is unethical to report dogma as an alternative to real science