Should we scrap science news?

Comments (14)

• 1 David Petersen MA June 9, 2008 6:11 PM

  Sometimes is doesn't make any difference. Sure it is great to be informed of developments in physics but when it comes to actually reading the relevant article I am denied access and nudged to subscribe or pay a horrendous fee for the privilege to read a five page paper that may or may not be relevant to my ultimate needs or interests. But access to a specific journal's content is entirely another issue. Specifically..."Should we only report on such critical research? If so, where do we draw the line?"...it's a matter of judicial choices. One cannot always be correct and use the best criteria of evaluation possible. Stay the course and see what happens.

• 2 Michael Gmirkin June 10, 2008 1:05 AM

  On the idea that we should only cover the "consensus view," I must heartily disagree. Some of the most major breakthroughs only came at the expense of going against consensus or "current thinking." To say that we should only promote "current thinking" seems antithetical to one of the major good things in the sciences: new ideas!

  So, no, I don't think that the current system should be "overturned" in favor of a new system. Perhaps ADDITIONAL articles on the "current state of consensus" should be considered, but not as a "replacement" for the current somewhat egalitarian system.

  I know, it's not entirely egalitarian, as some ideas are "more equal" than others. But, there seems to currently be wide coverage of all manner of "new science." I'd hate to see that flow of information be curtailed into a trickle that only promotes the status quo, at the expense of innovative new ideas.

• 3 Ben June 10, 2008 2:05 AM

  I just returned from the ASM Microbiology conference and having spent time talking to students about publishing and where they conduct online research it seems that the quality of news becomes the contention point. They are primarily just interested in finding information about research. So the question is a good one and my thought is that if you are a scientist you want research info. If you are lay person you want to see science trophies for humanity (first time this, save a life that, moons of Jupiter ready for condo's). Keep the news coming we need to bridge this gap.

  Thanks!

• 4 Andrei Kirilyuk June 10, 2008 1:19 PM

  An objective answer is clearly seen already in this blog results. Just compare the record-breaking 90 (for the moment) comments on the recent cold fusion information (rarely seen even in popular "social" news sources) with close to zero response to "ordinary" stuff. All intermediate response numbers also show a good correlation with subjectively "interesting" information about "contradictory" and (at least potentially) "breakthrough research": the closer the presented research is to that category, the higher is the interest. And note that it concerns both "amateur" and "professional" responses. After which they complain about "poor public interest in physics"! The point is that today's highly educated public is much less stupid than the official science system trying to artificially, deliberately suppress any breakthrough, "unconventional" research and waste public money on fruitless scholar mediocrity. It is that kind of dominating senseless, fruitless research that is at the origin of all problems, in physics and other fields, including the alleged gap between professional science and public interest. It's enough to start talking about really interesting, creative science, and the "officially established" gap disappears in a moment, so that one has rather the opposite, but merely technical problem of the huge flux of various, professional and amateur reactions. As the above "cold fusion experience" has shown, that wide interest doesn't tend to remain at a usually assumed superficial level: it often contains instead a deep enough, professional level of interaction, where "professional" and "amateur" views, attitudes and contributions become inseparably mixed, giving rise to a new, intrinsically creative kind of science-based interaction, where virtually everybody can participate directly in fruitful science development. It is especially this kind of interaction that should be developed with the help of new internet tools and replace the progress-killing "official" mode, where "officially great" science priests report their non-existent "results" (containing NO problem solution, not even its realistic possibility) with the help of mercenary science journalists estimating them as living genii, "future Einsteins", etc. (see e.g. http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/13-e-nste-n/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C= for only one recent example).

  The advent of intrinsically creative science interaction is an inherent part of what I call the "last scientific revolution" ( http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.4562 ), which has already started and leads to permanent (though maybe varying in intensity) creation in science, as opposed to the still dominating mode of extremely rare breakthroughs (traditional, Kuhnian "scientific revolutions") thoroughly suppressed by the dominating unitary science "establishment" using the total amount of research funds, information sources, etc. That's why it will be the LAST scientific revolution, introducing a qualitatively new, intrinsically complete (reliable) and "sustainable" kind of knowledge and way of its development. Or else, there will be nothing at all, in science and beyond (as everything else is also reduced to human intellectual creation, and why should it ever be different from that new, intrinsically creative and unified science to which everybody can participate and contribute constructively?!). And it is here and now that the choice is made, on this particular human network called internet. As to the official temples of knowledge deeply infected by self-interested parasites, they may unfortunately contain only rare exceptions (hopefully growing) of creatively thinking opponents to the dominating totalitarian regime of peer-review mafia ("I support you, you support me, and that's OK") whose "top results" are well known: no real novelties, no problem solutions, and therefore no public interest in their perverted abstractions (see http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00004046 for numerous examples, discussion and further references). This very special today's situation transforms all science information professions and efforts into a very nontrivial, real adventure, where the whole civilisation can regain or lose forever its way. And let's not be mislead by the ambient superficial spectacle of a "calm", ultimately replete and self-content society (especially in its topmost, "educated" and "elitist" layers), with its "establishment science" without novelty: such superficially dominating society and science state only indicates the verge of approaching very big, deeply rooted change (see http://arXiv.org/abs/physics/0509234 for a scientifically rigorous analysis of the situation). And that is the key news about science news today.

• 5 Aiya-Oba June 10, 2008 10:41 PM

  Scrapping science news is one of the impossibilities of the 21st Century.

• 6 Malcolm June 13, 2008 7:01 AM

  Behind your question there are other large issues. It cannot be answered effectively without recognizing the medium of publication. If you are particularly referring to your Web publication, then articles should be rich in outgoing links and resources -- quite the reverse of print media, which draw attention in.

  Secondly, it must be recognized that much science coverage these days amounts to cheerleading for Received Views. Alternative schools of thought are almost always treated with mild derision, or ignored completely. The process of discovery, on the level of the individual scientist, and on the collective level of the scientific and technical communities, is only mentioned when scandal erupts (as in the Sokal affair).

  As a result, many science publishers have not right to complain that the public does not appreciate science. They are being denied science, and served packaged dogma instead.

  More than that, much science journalism is written in an historical vacuum. Usually, a sterile history is offered, dismissing ancient writers or early science as the work of fools, or claiming that we magically woke up one day during The Enlightenment. Thus, science loses much of its human content. We hear how wonderful Newton and Descartes and Leizniz were, but we only hear about alchemy and theology in terms of aberration, scandal, or specialist books designed to tuck these inconvenient facts away.

  Finally, as a publisher of science news, you could take advantage of Web technology to offer your readers customizable pages aggregating topics of interest across all academic and scientific publishers. Let the reader design his/her own science news page.

• 7 Prof. N.S.Prasad June 13, 2008 12:53 PM

  In my view only significant advances in fundamental sciences, especially physics, to be publicised, and at he same time innovations in all fields and major events like conferences, research facilities must also be covered.
  Prof. N.S.Prasad, Bangalore, India.

• 8 David Hall June 13, 2008 4:20 PM

  Your Physics News has a good blend of thought provoking information. Hopefully, you will continue your work, improve with the years, and leave a lasting legacy of keeping all of us informed. You should let us know if you need help with anything since we are the beneficiaries of your service.

• 9 RTSC would be nice June 13, 2008 9:14 PM

  I honestly think it is good how it is now (at least at physicsworld). You state the major research, theories, counter-theories, experimental method, and have links going to everything else about the subject.

  Just like any news, you need to follow it all the time for it to make sense and watch as ideas develop. This is no different than anyother news. The news is there just to bring things to the surface, if the viewer is truly interested in what is presented they will research further. Thats why the good links are awsome.

• 10 Noran Taylor June 14, 2008 2:58 PM

  "So, I would like to raise a question: should we bother to comb the journals for the biggest developments, or should we give up reporting research news altogether?"

  I don't think so, as we see the world progress faster and faster, we need to know what is the right way to proceed with the progression of the planet. We may have a grave moment in the planets progression and the solution may be scraped because we didn't take the time to read or report on all the journals for the biggest developments that may save us.

• 11 Rod Dalitz June 17, 2008 10:39 AM

  I personally value science news, the problem is how to select. In comparison with regular news, daily papers are ephemeral and record too much trivia, whereas weekly publications like Time and The Economist report overviews with greater depth - for example, years ago, no-one but the Economist explained the cultural background of the Hutus and Tutsis. Daily newspapers are trapped into adding increments to the latest trend, like knife incidents, while they disregard the bigger picture.

  It is exactly that kind of depth and perception which is needed to make sense out of progress in science and technology. But whose perception is valid? The value a good editor should add is judging when a review article is due, and being able to see how several small developments piece together. A recent example is algae and bacteria tuned to produce biofuel, which I see as a dramatic change from hydrogen. Another is RoHS and tin whiskers, which is not particularly new or fast-moving but deserves a major story on PC political interference with science and engineering.

  Leaving out science news is not a sensible option in the 21st century, when we rely on science to survive.

• 12 Sunil June 18, 2008 3:29 PM

  You have raised important question but I am sure you do not mean that science news should be completely scrapped, you seem to want more control on the quality of papers being published.

  The problem is that there is total lack of path-breaking research not only science but in almost all fields of knowledge. Einstein comes along only once in a century and so does Shakespeare. Mere mortals look only at the surface.

  The real issie is that our education system is such that we do not encouratge new ideas specially in science and more particularly in physics. We are also in the habit of creating heroes or even Gods where none exist.

  Everything that falls in the domain of knowledge is questionable and should be questioned but as a children, we are told that this or that is 'truth' and cannot be questioned. This is the beginning of the problem.

  The only silverlining is that one such paper may take us to the truth. As a physicist one only wants to understand nature.

  The real news for any scientist is not what concerns only scientific community, the real news is the news that is of interest to the general public. Such news is most unlikely to surface through the journals or may be.... Let us not lose hope in our abilities.

• 13 R Mike Longden-Thurgood June 21, 2008 12:07 PM

  Is the answer whether or not to scrap science news not a matter of how many people are interested in reading about the latest results of research work, especally in fields in which the individual doesn't, or has never, worked?

  Of course there has to be discrimination in what research reviews are covered when there is so much reserch work being published in the learned journals.

  I have only just come across physicsworld and, being retired, I can select what articles I wish to read in detail. It's not a matter in my case of using the facility of physicsworld to broaden my knowledge in what was my specialist field of work, but simply to find out what is going on across the world in a spectrum of fields, who is doing what, and why, and how are the results likely to be of benefit to mankind, not just for the personal benefit of research workers.

  I can do this in my retirement at leisure, and without having to pay exhorbitant subscriptions for learned journals which, from my experience when working, +90% of the published matter was never of interest to me. That remains the situation for the three journals which I do receive.

  Academics should avoid being to narrow in their viewpoints: although I have no stats to hand, I am sure that there are lots of people with similar views to mine.

• 14 Mark Iverson July 20, 2008 11:55 PM

  No, I personally don't think PhysicsWorld.com should stop this kind of reporting. I find it of value, however, limited. What can be frustrating is when I read somewhere else something that is an essential or material fact which was not in the article that I initially read in some other sci-news report, and which really wasn't that difficult to find out. That makes me really question the thoroughness, objectivness, or competence of the original reporter, and thus any further reports by him/her...

  Here are 3 questions which should ALWAYS be asked (of the researchers) and should be included at the end of the article:

  1. What were all the funding sources for this research?
  2. Does any of your research get at least partial funding from sources that could have a vested interest in the outcome of this current research?
  3. Have you accepted money, trips or gifts of any kind from sources that might desire a particular outcome from this research?
  4. Are there any other potential conflicts of interest that might desire a particular outcome from this research?

  This puts them on the spot in that IF there was any outside influence on the researchers' work, they'd be on record as saying that there wasn't. If future developments uncover facts that contradict their answers to these questions, then they will have to pay the consequences of their actions.

  Unfortunately, at this time in human evolution, these kinds of 'checks and balances' are necessary to maintain the integrity of the scientific institution; in fact, there are significant recent examples that strongly suggest that the checks and balances aren't strong enough, and show how politics and egos degrade and hamper the process of scientific inquiry... really a shame since we desperately need science to work so we can, as a planet, make the best decisions about what technologies to support.
  -M