Chris Mooney here explains how journalists contribute to scientific ignorance. Sometimes there aren't two sides to an issue, unless you count the lies and falsehoods. (The point could be generalized beyond scientific issues.) Mooney writes:
"In its most simplistic version, journalistic objectivity means that both sides on an issue should be balanced out against one another. But this definition collapses when it comes to scientific issues. Science isn't a democracy, and in practice, one side in a scientific debate is often much more reputable than another. Findings that have survived peer review, been published in leading journals, and replicated or confirmed by other scientists tend to have much stronger weight attached to them. The current consensus view of the climate science community - that humans are heating the planet through greenhouse gas emissions, though it's debatable exactly how much - is a good example of a robust scientific conclusion. It arises from the highly rigorous global peer review process conducted under the auspices of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and has been confirmed by the United States' own National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
"By contrast, with a few exceptions, the views of conservative contrarians on the climate issue rarely find anything more than superficial support in the peer reviewed literature. However, the media allow these contrarians to get around this problem and keep debate alive through non-scientific channels. On newspaper op-ed pages and in he-said, she-said exchanges presented by news reporters, contrarians battle back against the scientific consensus. They're entirely in their element: Newspaper op-ed pages don't practice scientific quality control. And while career science writers may be well informed about the issues they cover, they may also feel compelled by journalistic canons to present the 'other side' even when scientists themselves have stopped taking that side seriously."
Another apt recent example was the Harvard Law School's newspaper coverage of Lawrence VanDyke's incompetent and dishonest apology for Intelligent Design.
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