Invasive species denialism: a reply to Ricciardi and Ryan

This paper offers a defense against ad hominem aspersions cast in this journal by Ricciardi and Ryan (Biol Invasions 20(3):549–553, 2018) who allege that several articles I wrote represent “invasive species denialism” and “science denialism.” I summarize the arguments found in those articles. They are (1) science cannot define ecological “harm” and thus cannot measure its risk; (2) invasion biologists rely on tautologies, i.e., definitions of concepts like “biodiversity” and “ecosystem intactness,” that exclude exotic species; (3) no empirical evidence shows that introduced plants have been significant causes of extinction; (4) biologists cannot tell by observing a species whether it is native or a naturalized alien; and (5) debates over the meanings and measurements of key concepts in invasion biology have passed the point of diminishing returns. These arguments may be wrong but none is “similar to the denialism that has affected climate science and medical science” as Ricciardi and Ryan aver.     

The Unbearable Lightness of Health Science Reporting: A Week Examining Italian Print Media

Background

Although being an important source of science news information to the public, print news media have often been criticized in their credibility. Health-related content of press media articles has been examined by many studies underlining that information about benefits, risks and costs are often incomplete or inadequate and financial conflicts of interest are rarely reported. However, these studies have focused their analysis on very selected science articles. The present research aimed at adopting a wider explorative approach, by analysing all types of health science information appearing on the Italian national press in one-week period. Moreover, we attempted to score the balance of the articles.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We collected 146 health science communication articles defined as articles aiming at improving the reader''s knowledge on health from a scientific perspective. Articles were evaluated by 3 independent physicians with respect to different divulgation parameters: benefits, costs, risks, sources of information, disclosure of financial conflicts of interest and balance. Balance was evaluated with regard to exaggerated or non correct claims. The selected articles appeared on 41 Italian national daily newspapers and 41 weekly magazines, representing 89% of national circulation copies: 97 articles (66%) covered common medical treatments or basic scientific research and 49 (34%) were about new medical treatments, procedures, tests or products. We found that only 6/49 (12%) articles on new treatments, procedures, tests or products mentioned costs or risks to patients. Moreover, benefits were always maximized and in 16/49 cases (33%) they were presented in relative rather than absolute terms. The majority of stories (133/146, 91%) did not report any financial conflict of interest. Among these, 15 were shown to underreport them (15/146, 9.5%), as we demonstrated that conflicts of interest did actually exist. Unbalanced articles were 27/146 (18%). Specifically, the probability of unbalanced reporting was significantly increased in stories about a new treatment, procedure, test or product (22/49, 45%), compared to stories covering common treatments or basic scientific research (5/97, 5%) (risk ratio, 8.72).

Conclusions/Significance

Consistent with prior research on health science communication in other countries, we report undisclosed costs and risks, emphasized benefits, unrevealed financial conflicts of interest and exaggerated claims in Italian print media. In addition, we show that the risk for a story about a new medical approach to be unbalanced is almost 9 times higher with respect to stories about any other kind of health science-related topics. These findings raise again the fundamental issue whether popular media is detrimental rather than useful to public health.     

A Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction? Were most of Earth's species killed off?

For the past decade, the scientific and popular press have carried frequent articles about a catastrophic mass extinction that supposedly destroyed the majority of the earth's species, including the dinosaurs, approximately 65 million years ago. Since 1980, more than 2000 papers and books have dealt with some aspect of a mass extinction at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) boundary. One authoritative estimate of the severity of the extinctions is that 60-80% of all the living species became extinct at this boundary (Raup 1988). There appears to be a general acceptance of the fact that such a great catastrophe did occur. Most of the argument among scientists now is devoted to the determination of the cause. In this article, I argue that the species changes at the K/T boundary were neither sudden nor catastrophic. They were most likely caused by a regression of sea level that led to a decrease in primary production.     

Biology in the Movies: Using the Double-Edged Sword of Popular Culture to Enhance Public Understanding of Science

Advances in technology typically outpace the public’s understanding of the underlying science, the consequences of which are public distrust and confusion about the actual benefits and risks involved. That popular culture, particularly movies, often misrepresent scientific facts and ideas for the purpose of entertainment is usually viewed as part of the problem. Some movies, however, offer excellent opportunities for teachers to draw connections and parallels between entertaining movie science and exciting real world science. This article illustrates how movies with genetics and developmental biology themes can be used to teach important ideas such as how genes control animal development and evolution, how cloning works, whether DNA is sufficient to create life, and how much genes matter in determining human behavior.     

Professional and popular views of chronic fatigue syndrome.

OBJECTIVE--To study the coverage of the chronic fatigue syndrome in the popular and professional press. DESIGN--Search of all original research papers on the chronic fatigue syndrome published in British journals from 1980 onwards and of professional trade papers, national newspapers, and women''s magazines. Interviews with six medical journalists. SETTING--British scientific, medical, and popular press. RESULTS--37 (49%) articles in research journals did not favour organic causes and 23 (31%) favoured organic causes. By contrast 31 (55%) articles in the medical trade press and 118 (69%) in national newspapers and women''s magazines favoured organic causes. CONCLUSIONS--Press coverage of chronic fatigue syndrome has amplified and distorted divisions in the research community concerning the chronic fatigue syndrome. Articles in the press concentrate on a simple medical model of illness reinforcing the stigma of psychological illness and dissatisfaction with traditional medical authority.     

Nothing but the truth

Many scientists blame the media for sensationalising scientific findings, but new research suggests that things can go awry at all levels, from the scientific report to the press officer to the journalist.Everything gives you cancer, at least if you believe what you read in the news or see on TV. Fortunately, everything also cures cancer, from red wine to silver nanoparticles. Of course the truth lies somewhere in between, and scientists might point out that these claims are at worst dangerous sensationalism and at best misjudged journalism. These kinds of media story, which inflate the risks and benefits of research, have led to a mistrust of the press among some scientists. But are journalists solely at fault when science reporting goes wrong, as many scientists believe [1]? New research suggests it is time to lay to rest the myth that the press alone is to blame. The truth is far more nuanced and science reporting can go wrong at many stages, from the researchers to the press officers to the diverse producers of news.Many science communication researchers suggest that science in the media is not as distorted as scientists believe, although they do admit that science reporting tends to under-represent risks and over-emphasize benefits [2]. “I think there is a lot less of this [misreported science] than some scientists presume. I actually think that there is a bit of laziness in the narrative around science and the media,” said Fiona Fox, Director of the UK Science Media Centre (London, UK), an independent press office that serves as a liaison between scientists and journalists. “My bottom line is that, certainly in the UK, a vast majority of journalists report science accurately in a measured way, and it''s certainly not a terrible story. Having said that, lots of things do go wrong for a number of reasons.”Fox said that the centre sees everything from fantastic press releases to those that completely misrepresent and sensationalize scientific findings. They have applauded news stories that beautifully reported the caveats and limitations of a particular scientific study, but they have also cringed as a radio talk show pitted a massive and influential body of research against a single non-scientist sceptic.“You ask, is it the press releases, is it the universities, is it the journalists? The truth is that it''s all three,” Fox said. “But even admitting that is admitting more complexity. So anyone who says that scientists and university press officers deliver perfectly accurate science and the media misrepresent it […] that really is not the whole story.”Scientists and scientific institutions today invest more time and effort into communicating with the media than they did a decade ago, especially given the modern emphasis on communicating scientific results to the public [3]. Today, there are considerable pressures on scientists to reach out and even ‘sell their work'' to public relations officers and journalists. “For every story that a journalist has hyped and sensationalized, there will be another example of that coming directly from a press release that we [scientists] hyped and sensationalized,” Fox said. “And for every time that that was a science press officer, there will also be a science press officer who will tell you, ‘I did a much more nuanced press release, but the academic wanted me to over claim for it''.”Although science public relations has helped to put scientific issues on the public agenda, there are also dangers inherent in the process of translation from original research to press release to media story. Previous research in the area of science communication has focused on conflicting scientific and media values, and the effects of science media on audiences. However, studies have raised awareness of the role of press releases in distorting information from the lab bench to published news [4].In a 2011 study of genetic research claims made in press releases and mainstream print media, science communication researcher Jean Brechman, who works at the US advertising and marketing research firm Gallup & Robinson, found evidence that scientific knowledge gets distorted as it is “filtered and translated for mass communication” with “slippages and inconsistencies” occurring along the way, such that the end message does not accurately represent the original science [4]. Although Brechman and colleagues found a concerning point of distortion in the transition between press release and news article, they also observed a misrepresentation of the original science in a significant portion of the press releases themselves.In a previous study, Brechman and his colleagues had also concluded that “errors commonly attributed to science journalists, such as lack of qualifying details and use of oversimplified language, originate in press releases.” Even more worrisome, as Fox told a Nature commentary author in 2009, public relations departments are increasingly filling the need of the media for quick content [5].Fox believes that a common characteristic of misrepresented science in press releases and the media is the over-claiming of preliminary studies. As such, the growing prevalence of rapid, short-format publications that publicize early results might be exacerbating the problem. Research has also revealed that over-emphasis on the beneficial effects of experimental medical treatments seen in press releases and news coverage, often called ‘spin'', can stem from bias in the abstract of the original scientific article itself [6]. Such findings warrant a closer examination of the language used in scientific articles and abstracts, as the wording and ‘spin'' of conclusions drawn by researchers in their peer-reviewed publications might have significant impacts on subsequent media coverage.Of course, some stories about scientific discoveries are just not easy to tell owing to their complexity. They are “messy, complicated, open to interpretation and ripe for misreporting,” as Fox wrote in a post on her blog On Science and the Media (fionafox.blogspot.com). They do not fit the single-page blog post or the short press release. Some scientific experiments and the peer-reviewed articles and media stories that flow from them are inherently full of caveats, contexts and conflicting results and cannot be communicated in a short format [7].In a 2012 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, Marco Bertamini at the University of Liverpool (UK) and Marcus R. Munafo at the University of Bristol (UK) suggested that a shift toward “bite-size” publications in areas of science such as psychology might be promoting more single-study models of research, fewer efforts to replicate initial findings, curtailed detailing of previous relevant work and bias toward “false alarm” or false-positive results [7]. The authors pointed out that larger, multi-experiment studies are typically published in longer papers with larger sample sizes and tend to be more accurate. They also suggested that this culture of brief, single-study reports based on small data sets will lead to the contamination of the scientific literature with false-positive findings. Unfortunately, false science far more easily enters the literature than leaves it [8].One famous example is that of Andrew Wakefield, whose 1998 publication in The Lancet claimed to link autism with the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination. It took years of work by many scientists, and the aid of an exposé by British investigative reporter Brian Deer, to finally force retraction of the paper. However, significant damage had already been done and many parents continue to avoid immunizing their children out of fear. Deer claims that scientific journals were a large part of the problem: “[D]uring the many years in which I investigated the MMR vaccine controversy, the worst and most inexcusable reporting on the subject, apart from the original Wakefield claims in the Lancet, was published in Nature and republished in Scientific American,” he said. “There is an enormous amount of hypocrisy among those who accuse the media of misreporting science.”What factors are promoting this shift to bite-size science? One is certainly the increasing pressure and competition to publish many papers in high-impact journals, which prefer short articles with new, ground-breaking findings.“Bibliometrics is playing a larger role in academia in deciding who gets a job and who gets promoted,” Bertamini said. “In general, if things are measured by citations, there is pressure to publish as much and as often as possible, and also to focus on what is surprising; thus, we can see how this may lead to an inflation in the number of papers but also an increase in publication bias.”Bertamini points to the real possibility that measured effects emerging from a group of small samples can be much larger than the real effect in the total population. “This variability is bad enough, but it is even worse when you consider that what is more likely to be written up and accepted for publication are exactly the larger differences,” he explained.Alongside the endless pressure to publish, the nature of the peer-reviewed publication process itself prioritizes exciting and statistically impressive results. Fluke scientific discoveries and surprising results are often considered newsworthy, even if they end up being false-positives. The bite-size article aggravates this problem in what Bertamini fears is a growing similarity between academic writing and media reporting: “The general media, including blogs and newspapers, will of course focus on what is curious, funny, controversial, and so on. Academic papers must not do the same, and the quality control system is there to prevent that.”The real danger is that, with more than one million scientific papers published every year, journalists can tend to rely on only a few influential journals such as Science and Nature for science news [3]. Although the influence and reliability of these prestigious journals is well established, the risk that journalists and other media producers might be propagating the exciting yet preliminary results published in their pages is undeniable.Fox has personal experience of the consequences of hype surrounding surprising but preliminary science. Her sister has chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), a debilitating medical condition with no known test or cure. When Science published an article in 2009 linking CFS with a viral agent, Fox was naturally both curious and sceptical [9]. “I thought even if I knew that this was an incredibly significant finding, the fact that nobody had ever found a biological link before also meant that it would have to be replicated before patients could get excited,” Fox explained. “And of course what happened was all the UK journalists were desperate to splash it on the front page because it was so surprising and so significant and could completely revolutionize the approach to CFS, the treatment and potential cure.”Fox observed that while some journalists placed the caveats of the study deep within their stories, others left them out completely. “I gather in the USA it was massive, it was front page news and patients were going online to try and find a test for this particular virus. But in the end, nobody could replicate it, literally nobody. A Dutch group tried, Imperial College London, lots of groups, but nobody could replicate it. And in the end, the paper has been withdrawn from Science.”For Fox, the fact that the paper was withdrawn, incidentally due to a finding of contamination in the samples, was less interesting than the way that the paper was reported by journalists. “We would want any journal press officer to literally in the first paragraph be highlighting the fact that this was such a surprising result that it shouldn''t be splashed on the front page,” she said. Of course to the journalist, waiting for the study to be replicated is anathema in a culture that values exciting and new findings. “To the scientific community, the fact that it is surprising and new means that we should calm down and wait until it is proved,” Fox warned.So, the media must also take its share of the blame when it comes to distorting science news. Indeed, research analysing science coverage in the media has shown that stories tend to exaggerate preliminary findings, use sensationalist terms, avoid complex issues, fail to mention financial conflicts of interest, ignore statistical limitations and transform inherent uncertainties into controversy [3,10].One concerning development within journalism is the ‘balanced treatment'' of controversial science, also called ‘false balance'' by many science communicators. This balanced treatment has helped supporters of pseudoscientific notions gain equal ground with scientific experts in media stories on issues such as climate change and biotechnology [11].“Almost every time the issue of creationism or intelligent design comes up, many newspapers and other media feel that they need to present ‘both sides'', even though one is clearly nonsensical, and indeed harmful to public education,” commented Massimo Pigliucci, author of Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk [12].Fox also criticizes false balance on issues such as global climate change. “On that one you can''t blame the scientific community, you can''t blame science press officers,” she said. “That is a real clashing of values. One of the values that most journalists have bred into them is about balance and impartiality, balancing the views of one person with an opponent when it''s controversial. So on issues like climate change, where there is a big controversy, their instinct as a journalist will be to make sure that if they have a climate scientist on the radio or on TV or quoted in the newspaper, they pick up the phone and make sure that they have a climate skeptic.” However, balanced viewpoints should not threaten years of rigorous scientific research embodied in a peer-reviewed publication. “We are not saying generally that we [scientists] want special treatment from journalists,” Fox said, “but we are saying that this whole principle of balance, which applies quite well in politics, doesn''t cross over to science…”Bertamini believes the situation could be made worse if publication standards are relaxed in favour of promoting a more public and open review process. “If today you were to research the issue of human contribution to global warming you would find a consensus in the scientific literature. Yet you would find no such consensus in the general media. In part this is due to the existence of powerful and well-funded lobbies that fill the media with unfounded skepticism. Now imagine if these lobbies had more access to publish their views in the scientific literature, maybe in the form of post publication feedback. This would be a dangerous consequence of blurring the line that separates scientific writing and the broader media.”In an age in which the way science is presented in the news can have significant impacts for audiences, especially when it comes to health news, what can science communicators and journalists do to keep audiences reading without having to distort, hype, trivialize, dramatize or otherwise misrepresent science?Pigliucci believes that many different sources—press releases, blogs, newspapers and investigative science journalism pieces—can cross-check reported science and challenge its accuracy, if necessary. “There are examples of bloggers pointing out technical problems with published scientific papers,” Pigliucci said. “Unfortunately, as we all know, the game can be played the other way around too, with plenty of bloggers, ‘twitterers'' and others actually obfuscating and muddling things even more.” Pigliucci hopes to see a cultural change take place in science reporting, one that emphasizes “more reflective shouting, less shouting of talking points,” he said.Fox believes that journalists still need to cover scientific developments more responsibly, especially given that scientists are increasingly reaching out to press officers and the public. Journalists can inform, intrigue and entertain whilst maintaining accurate representations of the original science, but need to understand that preliminary results must be replicated and validated before being splashed on the front page. They should also strive to interview experts who do not have financial ties or competing interests in the research, and they should put scientific stories in the context of a broader process of nonlinear discovery. According to Pigliucci, journalists can and should be educating themselves on the research process and the science of logical conclusion-making, giving themselves the tools to provide critical and investigative coverage when needed. At the same time, scientists should undertake proper media training so that they are comfortable communicating their work to journalists or press officers.“I don''t think there is any fundamental flaw in how we communicate science, but there is a systemic flaw in the sense that we simply do not educate people about logical fallacies and cognitive biases,” Pigliucci said, advising that scientists and communicators alike should be intimately familiar with the subjects of philosophy and psychology. “As for bunk science, it has always been with us, and it probably always will be, because human beings are naturally prone to all sorts of biases and fallacious reasoning. As Carl Sagan once put it, science (and reason) is like a candle in the dark. It needs constant protection and a lot of thankless work to keep it alive.”     

Mobilizing metaphors: the popular use of keystone,flagship and umbrella species concepts

Misrepresentation of terminology is a major impediment for attempts at enhancing public conservation literacy. Despite being critically important for improving conservation practice, there have been few systematic analyses of the popular use of conservation terminology. This paper draws from science communication studies and metaphor analysis, to examine how keystone, flagship and umbrella species concepts are used and represented in non-academic contexts. 557 news articles containing these terms were systematically analyzed. Mammals featured in 60% of articles on keystones, 55% on flagships and 63% on umbrella species. Number of articles explaining the terms keystone (35%) and flagship (31%) was low, and keystones were the most misrepresented term. Keystones were metaphorically linked with balance, flagships with representation and umbrella species with protection. These metaphors influenced public interpretation of scientific terminology, oriented actions towards select species, and led to a valuation of such actions. Together, the findings highlight three important aspects of popular use of conservation terminology: (1) communication is largely biased towards mammals, (2) everyday language plays a vital role in the interpretation of concepts, and (3) metaphors influence peoples’ actions and understanding. Conservation biologists need to engage with issues of language if public conservation literacy is to be improved. Further evaluations of concepts with high public and policy relevance, systematic identification of communication shortfalls, and linguistic assessments prior to promoting new terms are potential ways of achieving this.     

Responding to misinformation and criticisms regarding United States cat predation estimates

Misinformation (or denialism), the disingenuous assertion of information contradicting overwhelming scientific consensus, increasingly poses a challenge for invasion biology. The issue of free-ranging domestic cats (Felis catus) provides an example of this misinformation: overwhelming consensus shows that cats are invasive species that impact wildlife and human health yet free-ranging cat advocates propagate misinformation about such impacts to support policies keeping cats on the landscape. These advocates also attempt to discredit peer-reviewed scientific research on cat impacts, as exemplified by the response to a high-profile paper estimating cats annually kill billions of U.S. birds and mammals (Loss et al. in Nat Commun 4:1396, 2013). Although favorably received by scientific and invasive species management communities, an effort was launched to discredit this paper by criticizing its methods, including a report commissioned by a feral cat advocacy group and a post by a feral cat blogger. These same organizations and individuals have made similar criticisms at scientific conferences and policy roundtables. Given the realized effects of this campaign in influencing invasive species policy, we here respond to these criticisms and show they are characterized by numerous errors and misrepresentations. We conclude that the criticisms are part of the broader campaign to fabricate doubt about outdoor cat impacts and stymie policies favoring removal of cats from the landscape. Because misinformation surrounding cats is emblematic of the broader issue of misinformation and denialism, this response will not only facilitate evidence-based policy for managing cats but also stimulate research and discussion into causes and impacts of misinformation in invasion biology.     

Epigenetic determinism in science and society

The epigenetic “revolution” in science cuts across many disciplines, and it is now one of the fastest-growing research areas in biology. Increasingly, claims are made that epigenetics research represents a move away from the genetic determinism that has been prominent both in biological research and in understandings of the impact of biology on society. We discuss to what extent an epigenetic framework actually supports these claims. We show that, in contrast to the received view, epigenetics research is often couched in language as deterministic as genetics research in both science and the popular press. We engage the rapidly emerging conversation about the impact of epigenetics on public discourse and scientific practice, and we contend that the notion of epigenetic determinism – or the belief that epigenetic mechanisms determine the expression of human traits and behaviors – matters for understandings of the influence of biology and society on population health.     

Bibliography of the living coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae,with comments on publication trends

Synopsis A list of published references on the coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae is provided. All known publications in the scientific literature are included as well as popular articles and press reports that are considered to provide new information or interpretations. Marked trends are noticeable in the literature as different disciplines have been applied to research on the coelacanth over the past five decades. The bibliography lists a total of 823 publications including 490 papers in journals, 37 books, 3 theses, 45 chapters in books, 166 popular articles, 22 reports and 60 newspaper articles. Studies on taxonomy and morphology initially dominated the literature followed by reports on research in the fields of physiology, behaviour, breeding biology, ecology and conservation as frozen and eventually live specimens became available for study. The literature on the living coelacanth is predominantly in English, French, Japanese and German but references in 12 other languages were also traced. The dominant authors in the first decades of coelacanth research were the French scientists J. Millot and J. Anthony and the South African describer of the first and second coelacanths, J.L.B. Smith. In subsequent years French, British, American, South African, Japanese, Canadian and German authors, among others, have made significant contributions.     

Toward a broader notion of community

Both leading scientific journals and the popular press now regularly report the convincing evidence of massive environmental degradation and decline. Yet despite the seriousness of the problems, despite their anthropogenic nature, and despite their profound implications for present and future population health, such topics are rarely discussed in the leading public health journals. When these issues are mentioned, they are examined in the same limited framework as other questions in public health--questions of models and tests of independent causal associations dominate. This approach will not suffice, for both scientific and ethical reasons. If public health scientists wish to sustain human health in the face of such crises, and to retain our integrity as scholars who speak truthfully about public health matters, we will have to broaden the notions of "health" and "community" to include nonhumans. I draw on recent scholarship in moral philosophy and in the philosophy of science to support my argument. Scholars in the health professions must take seriously the words of theologian Andrew Linzey, who states that the attempt to place human well-being in a special and absolute category of its own is perhaps the primary cause of our ecological travail.     

How to (or not to) communicate science

Protagonists for 'the public understanding of science' still sometimes fail to recognize that there is also a need for 'the scientists' understanding of the public' and that for most of science most of the time we are all public. 'Science' is communicated to 'the public' through popular books, museums, TV, the Internet, but far too often the present state of scientific belief is presented uncritically as the onward march of truth as discovered by Euro-American males. This has contributed to a widespread public concern, if not mistrust, in many areas of science, not least genetics and neuroscience. Although researchers often criticize the media for misrepresenting their work, the hype and simplifications often begin with the press releases put out by the researchers, their institutions and the scientific journals themselves. I conclude by looking more optimistically at the ways in which, by bringing natural science into theatre, novels and other art forms, the fragmentation of our culture may be diminished.     

A review on the spot-billed pelican Pelecanus philippensis literature

Literature on spot-billed pelican has not been reviewed lately which could provide a critique of the emerging data. We have now chosen it as a key species through which we suggest a conservation action plan which will benefit several waterbird species. The information provided here is scholastic in nature and is meant to focus on aspects that require attention and help plan future work for applied conservation. All known information on this species is brought together in this review which will also provide an update of its biology. Notes on the breeding biology of the species first published in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. So far, 380 works have appeared on the species; of these, 36 contain material reported in earlier works or appeared as papers subsequently. Most appeared as articles in journals, both national and regional, a few international journals, newsletters/bulletins (48.2%), 4 dissertations, 76 reports and 6 popular science articles in magazines. This review on the species will provide an insight into different factors that can be weighed and combined while making a decision in investing resources in species conservation, i.e. importance of the species, level of threat and the time frame over which results are to be achieved.     

The science behind pre-Columbian evidence of syphilis in Europe: research by documentary

This article discusses the presentation of scientific findings by documentary, without the process of peer review. We use, as an example, PBS's "The Syphilis Enigma," in which researchers presented novel evidence concerning the origin of syphilis that had never been reviewed by other scientists. These "findings" then entered the world of peer-reviewed literature through citations of the documentary itself or material associated with it. Here, we demonstrate that the case for pre-Columbian syphilis in Europe that was made in the documentary does not withstand scientific scrutiny. We also situate this example from paleopathology within a larger trend of "science by documentary" or "science by press conference," in which researchers seek to bypass the peer review process by presenting unvetted findings directly to the public.     

How Often Are Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Said to “Evolve” in the News?

Media plays an important role in informing the general public about scientific ideas. We examine whether the word “evolve,” sometimes considered controversial by the general public, is frequently used in the popular press. Specifically, we ask how often articles discussing antibiotic resistance use the word “evolve” (or its lexemes) as opposed to alternative terms such as “emerge” or “develop.” We chose the topic of antibiotic resistance because it is a medically important issue; bacterial evolution is a central player in human morbidity and mortality. We focused on the most widely-distributed newspapers written in English in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India, and Australia. We examined all articles that focused primarily on the evolution of antibiotic resistance, were published in 2014 or earlier, and were accessible in online archives, for a total of 1639 articles. The total years examined per newspaper ranged from 5 to 37 years with a median of 27 years, and the overall range was 1978–2014. We quantified how many articles included the term “evolve” and analyzed how this varied with newspaper, country, and time. We found that an overall rate of 18% of articles used the term “evolve” but with significant variation among countries. Newspapers in the United Kingdom had the highest rate (24%), more than double of those in India (9%), the country with the lowest rate. These frequencies were lower than those found in scientific papers from both evolutionary journals and biomedical journals. There were no statistically significant changes in frequency and no trends when “evolve” usage was compared against variables such as newspaper circulation, liberal/conservative bias, time, and state evolution acceptance in U.S. newspapers. This study highlights the globally low usage of the word “evolve” in the popular press. We suggest this low usage may affect public understanding and acceptance of evolutionary concepts.     

Robert Chambers and Thomas Henry Huxley, Science Correspondents: The Popularization and Dissemination of Nineteenth Century Natural Science

Robert Chambers and Thomas Henry Huxley helped popularize science by writing for general interest publications when science was becoming increasingly professionalized. A non-professional, Chambers used his family-owned Chambers' Edinburgh Journal to report on scientific discoveries, giving his audience access to ideas that were only available to scientists who regularly attended professional meetings or read published transactions of such forums. He had no formal training in the sciences and little interest in advancing the professional status of scientists; his course of action was determined by his disability and interest in scientific phenomena. His skillful reporting enabled readers to learn how the ideas that flowed from scientific innovation affected their lives, and his series of article in the Journal presenting his rudimentary ideas on evolution, served as a prelude to his important popular work, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Huxley, an example of the new professional class of scientists, defended science and evolution from attacks by religious spokesmen and other opponents of evolution, informing the British public about science through his lectures and articles in such publications as Nineteenth Century. He understood that by popularizing scientific information, he could effectively challenge the old Tory establishment -- with its orthodox religious and political views -- and promote the ideas of the new class of professional scientists. In attempting to transform British society, he frequently came in conflict with theologians and others on issues in which science and religion seemed to contradict each other but refused to discuss matters of science with non-professionals like Chambers, whose popular writing struck a more resonant chord with working class readers. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Defending Scientific Freedom and Democracy: The Genetics Society of America’s Response to Lysenko

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the leaders of the Genetics Society of America (GSA) struggled to find an appropriate group response to Trofim Lysenko’s scientific claims and the Soviet treatment of geneticists. Although some of the leaders of the GSA favored a swift, critical response, procedural and ideological obstacles prevented them from following this path. Concerned about establishing scientific orthodoxy on one hand and politicizing the content of their science on the other, these American geneticists drew on democratic language and concepts as they engaged in this political issue. The relatively weak statements that did emerge from the GSA attracted little attention in the scientific or popular press. The intensely politicized atmosphere of American science complicated the GSA’s task, as domestic concerns about protecting democracy were beginning to constrain academic freedom. In the context of American Cold War culture, Lysenko became just one example of the dangers the Cold War world presented to scientific freedom.     

Misuse of odds ratios in obesity literature: an empirical analysis of published studies

Odds ratios (ORs) are widely used in scientific research to demonstrate the associations between outcome variables and covariates (risk factors) of interest, and are often described in language suitable for risks or probabilities, but odds and probabilities are related, not equivalent. In situations where the outcome is not rare (e.g., obesity), ORs no longer approximate the relative risk ratio (RR) and may be misinterpreted. Our study examines the extent of misinterpretation of ORs in Obesity and International Journal of Obesity. We reviewed all 2010 issues of these journals to identify all articles that presented ORs. Included articles were then primarily reviewed for correct presentation and interpretation of ORs; and secondarily reviewed for article characteristics that may have been associated with how ORs are presented and interpreted. Of the 855 articles examined, 62 (7.3%) presented ORs. ORs were presented incorrectly in 23.2% of these articles. Clinical articles were more likely to present ORs correctly than social science or basic science articles. Studies with outcome variables that had higher relative prevalence were less likely to present ORs correctly. Overall, almost one-quarter of the studies presenting ORs in two leading journals on obesity misinterpreted them. Furthermore, even when researchers present ORs correctly, the lay media may misinterpret them as relative RRs. Therefore, we suggest that when the magnitude of associations is of interest, researchers should carefully and accurately present interpretable measures of association--including RRs and risk differences--to minimize confusion and misrepresentation of research results.     

To hype, or not to(o) hype. Communication of science is often tarnished by sensationalization, for which both scientists and the media are responsible

Scientists and journalists try to engage the public with exciting stories, but who is guilty of overselling research and what are the consequences?Scientists love to hate the media for distorting science or getting the facts wrong. Even as they do so, they court publicity for their latest findings, which can bring a slew of media attention and public interest. Getting your research into the national press can result in great boons in terms of political and financial support. Conversely, when scientific discoveries turn out to be wrong, or to have been hyped, the negative press can have a damaging effect on careers and, perhaps more importantly, the image of science itself. Walking the line between ‘selling'' a story and ‘hyping'' it far beyond the evidence is no easy task. Professional science communicators work carefully with scientists and journalists to ensure that the messages from research are translated for the public accurately and appropriately. But when things do go wrong, is it always the fault of journalists, or are scientists and those they employ to communicate sometimes equally to blame?Walking the line between ‘selling'' a story and ‘hyping'' it far beyond the evidence is no easy taskHyping in science has existed since the dawn of research itself. When scientists relied on the money of wealthy benefactors with little expertise to fund their research, the temptation to claim that they could turn lead into gold, or that they could discover the secret of eternal life, must have been huge. In the modern era, hyping of research tends to make less exuberant claims, but it is no less damaging and no less deceitful, even if sometimes unintentionally so. A few recent cases have brought this problem to the surface again.The most frenzied of these was the report in Science last year that a newly isolated bacterial strain could replace phosphate with arsenate in cellular constituents such as nucleic acids and proteins [1]. The study, led by NASA astrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon, showed that a new strain of the Halomonadaceae family of halofilic proteobacteria, isolated from the alkaline and hypersaline Mono Lake in California (Fig 1), could not only survive in arsenic-rich conditions, such as those found in its original environment, but even thrive by using arsenic entirely in place of phosphorus. “The definition of life has just expanded. As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it,” commented Ed Weiler, NASA''s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency''s Headquarters in Washington, in the original press release [2].Open in a separate windowFigure 1Sunrise at Mono Lake. Mono Lake, located in eastern California, is bounded to the west by the Sierra Nevada mountains. This ancient alkaline lake is known for unusual tufa (limestone) formations rising from the water''s surface (shown here), as well as for its hypersalinity and high concentrations of arsenic. See Wolfe-Simon et al [1]. Credit: Henry Bortman.The accompanying “search for life beyond Earth” and “alternative biochemistry makeup” hints contained in the same release were lapped up by the media, which covered the breakthrough with headlines such as “Arsenic-loving bacteria may help in hunt for alien life” (BBC News), “Arsenic-based bacteria point to new life forms” (New Scientist), “Arsenic-feeding bacteria find expands traditional notions of life” (CNN). However, it did not take long for criticism to manifest, with many scientists openly questioning whether background levels of phosphorus could have fuelled the bacteria''s growth in the cultures, whether arsenate compounds are even stable in aqueous solution, and whether the tests the authors used to prove that arsenic atoms were replacing phosphorus ones in key biomolecules were accurate. The backlash was so bitter that Science published the concerns of several research groups commenting on the technical shortcomings of the study and went so far as to change its original press release for reporters, adding a warning note that reads “Clarification: this paper describes a bacterium that substitutes arsenic for a small percentage of its phosphorus, rather than living entirely off arsenic.”Microbiologists Simon Silver and Le T. Phung, from the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA, were heavily critical of the study, voicing their concern in one of the journals of the Federation of European Microbiological Societies, FEMS Microbiology Letters. “The recent online report in Science […] either (1) wonderfully expands our imaginations as to how living cells might function […] or (2) is just the newest example of how scientist-authors can walk off the plank in their imaginations when interpreting their results, how peer reviewers (if there were any) simply missed their responsibilities and how a press release from the publisher of Science can result in irresponsible publicity in the New York Times and on television. We suggest the latter alternative is the case, and that this report should have been stopped at each of several stages” [3]. Meanwhile, Wolfe-Simon is looking for another chance to prove she was right about the arsenic-loving bug, and Silver and colleagues have completed the bacterium''s genome shotgun sequencing and found 3,400 genes in its 3.5 million bases (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Traces/wgs/?val=AHBC01).“I can only comment that it would probably be best if one had avoided a flurry of press conferences and speculative extrapolations. The discovery, if true, would be similarly impressive without any hype in the press releases,” commented John Ioannidis, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine in the USA. “I also think that this is the kind of discovery that can definitely wait for a validation by several independent teams before stirring the world. It is not the type of research finding that one cannot wait to trumpet as if thousands and millions of people were to die if they did not know about it,” he explained. “If validated, it may be material for a Nobel prize, but if not, then the claims would backfire on the credibility of science in the public view.”Another instructive example of science hyping was sparked by a recent report of fossil teeth, dating to between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago, which were unearthed in the Qesem Cave near Tel Aviv by Israeli and Spanish scientists [4]. Although the teeth cannot yet be conclusively ascribed to Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, or any other species of hominid, the media coverage and the original press release from Tel Aviv University stretched the relevance of the story—and the evidence—proclaiming that the finding demonstrates humans lived in Israel 400,000 years ago, which should force scientists to rewrite human history. Were such evidence of modern humans in the Middle East so long ago confirmed, it would indeed clash with the prevailing view of human origin in Africa some 200,000 years ago and the dispersal from the cradle continent that began about 70,000 years ago. But, as freelance science writer Brian Switek has pointed out, “The identity of the Qesem Cave humans cannot be conclusively determined. All the grandiose statements about their relevance to the origin of our species reach beyond what the actual fossil material will allow” [5].An example of sensationalist coverage? “It has long been believed that modern man emerged from the continent of Africa 200,000 years ago. Now Tel Aviv University archaeologists have uncovered evidence that Homo sapiens roamed the land now called Israel as early as 400,000 years ago—the earliest evidence for the existence of modern man anywhere in the world,” reads a press release from the New York-based organization, American Friends of Tel Aviv University [6].“The extent of hype depends on how people interpret facts and evidence, and their intent in the claims they are making. Hype in science can range from ‘no hype'', where predictions of scientific futures are 100% fact based, to complete exaggeration based on no facts or evidence,” commented Zubin Master, a researcher in science ethics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. “Intention also plays a role in hype and the prediction of scientific futures, as making extravagant claims, for example in an attempt to secure funds, could be tantamount to lying.”Are scientists more and more often indulging in creative speculation when interpreting their results, just to get extraordinary media coverage of their discoveries? Is science journalism progressively shifting towards hyping stories to attract readers?“The vast majority of scientific work can wait for some independent validation before its importance is trumpeted to the wider public. Over-interpretation of results is common and as scientists we are continuously under pressure to show that we make big discoveries,” commented Ioannidis. “However, probably our role [as scientists] is more important in making sure that we provide balanced views of evidence and in identifying how we can question more rigorously the validity of our own discoveries.”“The vast majority of scientific work can wait for some independent validation before its importance is trumpeted to the wider public”Stephanie Suhr, who is involved in the management of the European XFEL—a facility being built in Germany to generate intense X-ray flashes for use in many disciplines—notes in her introduction to a series of essays on the ethics of science journalism that, “Arguably, there may also be an increasing temptation for scientists to hype their research and ‘hit the headlines''” [7]. In her analysis, Suhr quotes at least one instance—the discovery in 2009 of the Darwinius masillae fossil, presented as the missing link in human evolution [8]—in which the release of a ‘breakthrough'' scientific publication seems to have been coordinated with simultaneous documentaries and press releases, resulting in what can be considered a study case for science hyping [7].Although there is nothing wrong in principle with a broad communication strategy aimed at the rapid dissemination of a scientific discovery, some caveats exist. “[This] strategy […] might be better applied to a scientific subject or body of research. When applied to a single study, there [is] a far greater likelihood of engaging in unmerited hype with the risk of diminishing public trust or at least numbing the audience to claims of ‘startling new discoveries'',” wrote science communication expert Matthew Nisbet in his Age of Engagement blog (bigthink.com/blogs/age-of-engagement) about how media communication was managed in the Darwinius affair. “[A]ctivating the various channels and audiences was the right strategy but the language and metaphor used strayed into the realm of hype,” Nisbet, who is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication at American University, Washington DC, USA, commented in his post [9]. “We are ethically bound to think carefully about how to go beyond the very small audience that follows traditional science coverage and think systematically about how to reach a wider, more diverse audience via multiple media platforms. But in engaging with these new media platforms and audiences, we are also ethically bound to avoid hype and maintain accuracy and context” [9].But the blame for science hype cannot be laid solely at the feet of scientists and press officers. Journalists must take their fair share of reproach. “As news online comes faster and faster, there is an enormous temptation for media outlets and journalists to quickly publish topics that will grab the readers'' attention, sometimes at the cost of accuracy,” Suhr wrote [7]. Of course, the media landscape is extremely varied, as science blogger and writer Bora Zivkovic pointed out. “There is no unified thing called ‘Media''. There are wonderful specialized science writers out there, and there are beat reporters who occasionally get assigned a science story as one of several they have to file every day,” he explained. “There are careful reporters, and there are those who tend to hype. There are media outlets that value accuracy above everything else; others that put beauty of language above all else; and there are outlets that value speed, sexy headlines and ad revenue above all.”…the blame for science hype cannot be laid solely at the feet of scientists and press officers. Journalists must take their fair share of reproachOne notable example of media-sourced hype comes from J. Craig Venter''s announcement in the spring of 2010 of the first self-replicating bacterial cell controlled by a synthetic genome (Fig 2). A major media buzz ensued, over-emphasizing and somewhat distorting an anyway remarkable scientific achievement. Press coverage ranged from the extremes of announcing ‘artificial life'' to saying that Venter was playing God, adding to cultural and bioethical tension the warning that synthetic organisms could be turned into biological weapons or cause environmental disasters.Open in a separate windowFigure 2Schematic depicting the assembly of a synthetic Mycoplasma mycoides genome in yeast. For details of the construction of the genome, please see the original article. From Gibson et al [13] Science 329, 52–56. Reprinted with permission from AAAS.“The notion that scientists might some day create life is a fraught meme in Western culture. One mustn''t mess with such things, we are told, because the creation of life is the province of gods, monsters, and practitioners of the dark arts. Thus, any hint that science may be on the verge of putting the power of creation into the hands of mere mortals elicits a certain discomfort, even if the hint amounts to no more than distorted gossip,” remarked Rob Carlson, who writes on the future role of biology as a human technology, about the public reaction and the media frenzy that arose from the news [10].Yet the media can also behave responsibly when faced with extravagant claims in press releases. Fiona Fox, Chief Executive of the Science Media Centre in the UK, details such an example in her blog, On Science and the Media (fionafox.blogspot.com). The Science Media Centre''s role is to facilitate communication between scientists and the press, so they often receive calls from journalists asking to be put in touch with an expert. In this case, the journalist asked for an expert to comment on a story about silver being more effective against cancer than chemotherapy. A wild claim; yet, as Fox points out in her blog, the hype came directly from the institution''s press office: “Under the heading ‘A silver bullet to beat cancer?'' the top line of the press release stated that ‘Lab tests have shown that it (silver) is as effective as the leading chemotherapy drug—and may have far fewer side effects.'' Far from including any caveats or cautionary notes up front, the press office even included an introductory note claiming that the study ‘has confirmed the quack claim that silver has cancer-killing properties''” [11]. Fox praises the majority of the UK national press that concluded that this was not a big story to cover, pointing out that, “We''ve now got to the stage where not only do the best science journalists have to fight the perverse news values of their news editors but also to try to read between the lines of overhyped press releases to get to the truth of what a scientific study is really claiming.”…the concern is that hype inflates public expectations, resulting in a loss of trust in a given technology or research avenue if promises are not kept; however, the premise is not fully provenYet, is hype detrimental to science? In many instances, the concern is that hype inflates public expectations, resulting in a loss of trust in a given technology or research avenue if promises are not kept; however, the premise is not fully proven (Sidebar A). “There is no empirical evidence to suggest that unmet promises due to hype in biotechnology, and possibly other scientific fields, will lead to a loss of public trust and, potentially, a loss of public support for science. Thus, arguments made on hype and public trust must be nuanced to reflect this understanding,” Master pointed out.

Sidebar A | Up and down the hype cycle

​AlthoughAlthough hype is usually considered a negative and largely unwanted aspect of scientific and technological communication, it cannot be denied that emphasizing, at least initially, the benefits of a given technology can further its development and use. From this point of view, hype can be seen as a normal stage of technological development, within certain limits. The maturity, adoption and application of specific technologies apparently follow a common trend pattern, described by the information technology company, Gartner, Inc., as the ‘hype cycle''. The idea is based on the observation that, after an initial trigger phase, novel technologies pass through a peak of over-excitement (or hype), often followed by a subsequent general disenchantment, before eventually coming under the spotlight again and reaching a stable plateau of productivity. Thus, hype cycles “[h]ighlight overhyped areas against those that are high impact, estimate how long technologies and trends will take to reach maturity, and help organizations decide when to adopt” (www.gartner.com).“Science is a human endeavour and as such it is inevitably shaped by our subjective responses. Scientists are not immune to these same reactions and it might be valuable to evaluate the visibility of different scientific concepts or technologies using the hype cycle,” commented Pedro Beltrao, a cellular biologist at the University of California San Francisco, USA, who runs the Public Rambling blog (pbeltrao.blogspot.com) about bioinformatics science and technology. The exercise of placing technologies in the context of the hype cycle can help us to distinguish between their real productive value and our subjective level of excitement, Beltrao explained. “As an example, I have tried to place a few concepts and technologies related to systems biology along the cycle''s axis of visibility and maturity [see illustration]. Using this, one could suggest that technologies like gene-expression arrays or mass-spectrometry have reached a stable productivity level, while the potential of concepts like personalized medicine or genome-wide association studies (GWAS) might be currently over-valued.”Together with bioethicist colleague David Resnik, Master has recently highlighted the need for empirical research that examines the relationships between hype, public trust, and public enthusiasm and/or support [12]. Their argument proposes that studies on the effect of hype on public trust can be undertaken by using both quantitative and qualitative methods: “Research can be designed to measure hype through a variety of sources including websites, blogs, movies, billboards, magazines, scientific publications, and press releases,” the authors write. “Semi-structured interviews with several specific stakeholders including genetics researchers, media representatives, patient advocates, other academic researchers (that is, ethicists, lawyers, and social scientists), physicians, ethics review board members, patients with genetic diseases, government spokespersons, and politicians could be performed. Also, members of the general public would be interviewed” [12]. They also point out that such an approach to estimate hype and its effect on public enthusiasm and support should carefully define the public under study, as different publics might have different expectations of scientific research, and will therefore have different baseline levels of trust.Increased awareness of the underlying risks of over-hyping research should help to balance the scientific facts with speculation on the enticing truths and possibilities they revealUltimately, exaggerating, hyping or outright lying is rarely a good thing. Hyping science is detrimental to various degrees to all science communication stakeholders—scientists, institutions, journalists, writers, newspapers and the public. It is important that scientists take responsibility for their share of the hyping done and do not automatically blame the media for making things up or getting things wrong. Such discipline in science communication is increasingly important as science searches for answers to the challenges of this century. Increased awareness of the underlying risks of over-hyping research should help to balance the scientific facts with speculation on the enticing truths and possibilities they reveal. The real challenge lies in favouring such an evolved approach to science communication in the face of a rolling 24-hour news cycle, tight science budgets and the uncontrolled and uncontrollable world of the Internet.? Open in a separate windowThe hype cycle for the life sciences. Pedro Beltrao''s view of the excitement–disappointment–maturation cycle of bioscience-related technologies and/or ideas. GWAS: genome-wide association studies. Credit: Pedro Beltrao.