What's New Robert L. Park 01 Dec 2011

WHAT=92S NEW  Robert L. Park  Friday, 15 Dec 2011  Washington,DC=20
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1. HACKS: SHODDY PRESS COVERAGE OF SCIENCE.
The Leveson Inquiry into the standards and ethics of the UK press, headed=
=20
by Lord Justice Brian Leveson, was prompted by the News of the World phon=
e-
hacking scandal (WN 22 Jul 2011). The seamy British tabloid was the top-
selling English-language newspaper in the world when owner Rupert Murdoch=
=20
had to close it five months ago after its news-collection methods were=20
exposed. The intense public interest in the sex and drug culture of=20
celebrities is certainly troubling, but the same journalistic standards=20
applied to science news may be more dangerous.  In 1998, for example,=20
Andrew Wakefield, an obscure British gastroenterologist, set off a=20
worldwide vaccination panic when he falsely identified the common MMR=20
vaccination as a cause of autism.  Widely reported by the press,=20
Wakefield's irresponsible assertion led to a precipitous decline in=20
vaccination rate and a corresponding 14-year rise in measles cases.  An=20
editorial in the current issue of Nature (8 Dec 2011) urges scientists=20
to "fight back against agenda-driven reporting of science."  Who could=20
disagree? It is, after all, a fight against ignorance.=20

2. IGNORANCE: THERE'S PLENTY MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM.
A commitment to intellectual openness provides a mechanism for self-
correction that sets science apart from the unchanging dictates of reveal=
ed=20
religion, raising the prospect of transforming Earth into something close=
=20
to biblical paradise, at least for Homo sapiens.  Directions to this=20
earthly paradise, however, are written in mathematics. In particular, the=
=20
dialect of scientific progress is differential equations. Unfortunately,=20
few people speak mathematics or have any interest in learning it. In the=20
modern world, the engine of scientific progress is driven by a subset of=20
the human race that speaks mathematics as a second language.  This is not=
=20
healthy.  Many people, unable to distinguish science from pseudoscience,=20
are duped by crackpots and swindlers who attempt to mimic scientists, and=
  =20
often manage to fool themselves.  How do they do it?
 =20
3. LET ME COUNT THE WAYS: PSEUDOSCIENCE IS AN ENORMOUS FIELD =20
There are, I think, many more of them than there are of us. Let me mentio=
n=20
just a few of the more notorious:  Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishman, who=
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gave us Cold Fusion in 1989, are the most famous in the Free Energy=20
Category. Even so, physicists had their number in a couple of weeks. More=
=20
recently (2006) in the same category, the Steorn Company in Dublin gave u=
s=20
Orbo, a classic perpetual motion machine.  So classic it gets reinvented=20
every century or so. Unfortunately Orbo is shy and refuses to perform whe=
n=20
anyone=92s watching. In the Chicken-Little Category, Devra Davis says the=
 5=20
billion cell-phone users are toast when we reach the latency period of=20
brain cancer.  Alas, I'm reaching my limit and there are hundreds more on=
=20
my list. Maybe I'll write a book, or did I already do that?

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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