08.21.11
Lickspittle journalism
Quote of the day, on the reaction of some science mind, on a blog, debunking some gee-whiz science story reported by all the lickspittle journalists in the mainstream:
“In which hopelessly inept journalists reduce me to having to debunk a school science project.”(The post as of this moment is temporarily unavailable, though we link to the cache.) The post indicates: “This is, I’m sad to say, clear nonsense. I’ll take this in two parts: one, why his experiment is, unfortunately, completely broken (sorry again). Two, why the imagined result is impossible nonsense.”
This, in reaction to an apparently widely reported story, one I assiduously ignored, on a solar power scientific breakthrough “discovered” by a “13-year-old”:
A 13-year-old who, observing trees, takes it upon himself to read up on the Fibonacci series and propose a way to better utilize solar energy is the feel-good story at its finest. So naturally, media outlets including us [the Atlantic] have been sharing the tale of seventh grader Aidan Dwyer’s solar power “breakthrough” science project.
Journalists don’t understand science, any of the laws of science, matter and energy, the scientific method, critical thinking, mathematics, biology, chemistry, or any other hard science. Period.
Even those with sissypants degrees in majors like “History of Science”
or “Science Writing” or “Science & Health Journalism.”
And I’ve stumbled across them again and again in the last ten years. They can’t write accurately about anything that requires a grasp of the laws of nature and cogent thinking without either being taken in by people playing them or running amok with news of the allegedly miraculous.
This one falls into the latter category: Kid! Disovers! What! All! The! Ph.D’s! Can’t!
Science doesn’t work that way. It didn’t work that way back when Edward Jenner discovered the cure for smallpox, either.
But American journalists and editors love magical and fantastical thinking. And jargon. I would bet one hundred bucks all the people involved in this had to see was an e-mail or press release containing the words “Fibonacci series” and it was off to the races.
Paradoxically, the Atlantic’s blogger — Ujala Sehgal — had this headline for the news about ricin bombs last week:
Why the New Bombs Al-Qaeda is Building Are So Terrifying
What these stories have to do with is another trait Americans, including journalists, have embedded in their genetic code. And it’s one all the readers of this blog have seen again and again.
The inclination to believe, pass on and recommend rubbish based on the number of others who have adopted belief in the same rubbish.
There’s another way of putting it, much less politely: The belief in the rube that if the number of people spouting the bullshit reaches a certain critical mass it suddenly becomes not-bullshit.
This was also called groupthink and it meant bad brains. But that’s way too nice a term for our times.
Ironically, when this occurs only scientific argument can rip them a new one. And sometimes even that doesn’t work. As everyone can see everyday.
Song, as it applies to everyone involved in this story, not just the employees of MSNBC, the NY Times and the Atlantic, in the slideshow.