I have just been reading an article in the Irish Times online about the salary gap for science against medicine, which is interesting in that it is has some data on science communication in it. Unfortunately even though it is an Irish paper, it references UK data. It’s not the first time that I’ve found the author of the article to be a bit out of touch with reality. I recently attended a lecture he gave on the problems of science communication that not only did not say what the problems were, but neither made an effort to suggest a solution.
I have my own opinion of course on the subject. We can communicate science very well in peer reviewed journals to other scientists, we can communicate science reasonably well to other interested parties, the types who read the features in newspaper Sunday supplements. The difficulty is when we try to communicate science to the rest of the public.
They only get to read distilled or bastardised versions from unscrupulous journalists that often have an agenda to promote: Frankenfoods comes to mind.
So what do we do? Educate journalists? Maybe the editor would then spike a well-written balanced science news story. Educate editors?
Isn’t it simpler to educate the public?Maybe it’s time for a specialised science weekly newspaper that competes with the other daily’s… a specialised newspaper that reports the science related news along with the non-science related news, the sport etc.
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