Biasing BBC coverage in favour of mainstream science opinion
The BBC Trust has been asked to bias science coverage in favour of mainstream science opinion. Prof Steve Jones made this recommendation in a review of BBC Science coverage. Is Prof Jones concerned only about public education on the pure facts of science? Or is this an effort by a mainstream scientist to silence opposition to the application of some controversial new sciences to our everyday lives?
Prof Jones claimed an ‘over-rigid’ application of BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality has led to the BBC giving equal prominence to fringe scientific option and mainstream science opinion. The safety of the MMR vaccine and GM crops were given as examples of the damage that can be caused with this approach by the media.
Yet we know that at least some the public empathy with fringe opinions stem from a fear of the unknown and this is fuelled by some spectacular failures by scientists to get things right in the past. I am old enough to remember films of the new materials marvel called asbestos. I have lived in the time when DDT was going to eradicate malaria and the District Nurse was showering DDT powder on the hair of local children found with lice. Then there was the thalidomide tragedy.
Moving from particular examples to whole countries getting it wrong I was truly shocked when the collapse of communism revealed how the Communist Block, with its total control of the media, had successfully hid the most environmentally cavalier way in which science based industries had been operating – with the full support of the State mainstream scientific opinion. In sharp contrast “the fringe opinions” in the West, led by authors like Rachel Carson, provoked huge public debate and led to tough environmental regulations…which gave the West more progress at a fraction of the environmental damage. Had Dr Jones had his way Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring would not have even got a mention in a BBC book review?
Prof Jones warns the BBC to take special care distinguishing well-established fact from opinion, and communicating this distinction to audiences. This is disingenuous. There are considerably more things we don’t know than know when massively complex scientific applications are moved at speed from the laboratory into wide deployment in a massively more complex inter-connected world. Progress in the application of science is always a calculated risk that works on the presumption that something is safe if nothing unsafe has (yet) been uncovered.
This is not to argue for the world of applied science to operate in any other way. We simply could not reap the benefits of science if the burden of proof were to be reversed. Yet its implications are profound on the bond of trust between the public and the scientific community. This is where Prof Jones is wrong to present this as an issue of scientific facts (the things we know). What the public fear (with some justification) are the all the things scientists do not know (the unknown unknowns). There may be examples of some fringe group or other coming out with complete nonsense in the face of rock solid scientific facts. These are not the cases that sway the general public. Where the public have the potential to become alarmed (and susceptible to media presentation) nearly always fall into a grey area where the real nature of the science debate comes down to risk and benefit. The debates that get particularly heated are usually where consumers are being given no choice to opt out.
If the scientific world is to carry the public along this remarkable (accelerating) journey of applying science then a public platform has to be given to the maverick scientists and the fringe lobby groups. Each plays a different but essential role. The maverick scientist is there to shake up complacent assumptions by mainstream science. The fringe groups represent a political backlash to the applications of science. These applications of science are often driven by global multinational giants who fund a high percentage of applied science and employ many of the scientists who influence mainstream science opinion. Under these circumstances should the BBC really be giving less prominance to “fringe opion”?
There has to be the public debates where scientists step up and argue their case. It may not be a debate of equals in terms of academic qualifications and scientific experience. However it is a debate of equal stake holders…those driving the science and those being asked to accept the results being applied to their everyday lives.
Where the BBC have an essential but difficult job to do in applied science is helping the public understand “risk” and creating a sense of proportion between risks of doing things or not doing them and across different risks. It is also helping scientists step out of their jargon filled world to put their case in ways understandable to the public. This is not about science it is about the politics of science? Good politics in open societies is about having the debates and not suppressing them.
It is interesting how the BBC reported on Prof Jones’ recommendations and pointedly did not seek the balancing views of any maverick scientists? The science itself may be complex…perhaps at time too much so for journalists…but the fundamental issues of free speech, open debate, impartiality and balance are well within the BBC skill sets. The BBC needs to avoid being seduced by scientists, no matter how eminent, trying to make life for themselves more comfortable.
There is certainly a herd mentality when it comes to science coverage. Often it is the public self-rationalising in its own self-interest. In the 80s it was an era of greed, so science showed that damage to the environment was an acceptable limited side-effect to the progress that was providing so much wealth. Those into renewable energy were fringe scientists, and proposing wind power as a major power contributer was ridiculed as much as somebody proposing a perpetual motion machine (despite prior successful large projects in hydro-electrics). Now Denmark is producing a quarter of its power through wind.
Then Europe enjoyed prosperity and subsequent introspection in the “caring 90s”. Suddenly Green issues were able to gain traction. The fringe became mainstream: organic food, climate change, greenhouse gases, reducing an over-dependence on powerful antibiotics. Yet American values failed to change and so a schism grew between what constituted scientific mainstream between the two societies. American scientific consensus showed no link between human activity and global warming. European scientific consensus was the opposite. No coincidence that the country with 4% of the world’s population and producing 25% of the world’s pollution, hence with most to lose though change, did no see any point changing their habits (eg signing up to the Kyoto protocol).
You are correct that perception of risk is now often deemed more important than actual risk. After the Tsunami in Japan, Germany promptly announced it was abandoning all nuclear power. France promptly announced it was going to build €1bn more of nuclear power stations.
If there was an explosion in a British nuclear power station, the newspapers would be all over it and MPs would be forced to announce an investigation to reassure the public they are doing everything they can. This is because the British public has a fragile relationship with nuclear power, with high-profile environmental groups publicly protesting (ironically prolonging the use of fossil fuels), and a hysterical tabloid media needing dramatic sounding scare stories to sell newspapers. Explosions do happen occasionally in French nuclear power stations yet they do not make the front pages of French newspapers (though the last one in Tricastin still made the Guardian in England). The French accept nuclear power as a safe and clean fuel.
So I would agree that Prof Jones is incorrect and that the wide spectrum of scientific opinion should be represented. Science is not politics, proposed hypothesis are tested and then re-tested by scientists around the world who then publish their results. Fringe scientists will fail to gain momentum unless they can produce solid replicable results. GM crops have not been proven safe, and people are right to ask why they live in a country with no food shortage and should be asked to be Guinea pigs for a potential dangerous new technology so supermarkets can shave a couple of pence from the price of a loaf of bread.
As you say, many come out with nonsense and the public still laugh them off. Remember the Professor that claimed the Hadron Collider created to find the Boson-Higgin particle was going to cause a black hole that would destroy the Universe? He had plenty of platforms to expound his theory and it received coverage in all the papers, but the experiment went ahead and we are still here.
Maybe the BBC should recognise that mainstream science opinion is that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is held as a model of how species evolve. One key aspect of his theory is that of random genetic mutation. The mutation will either naturally die off or will eventually spread to become the norm. If the BBC starves all mutations of scientific opinion they could be hindering the development of our scientific evolution.
Phillip.