Atrocious science writer clichés

Wired's Betsy Mason, who plainly has better taste and better sense than the average science writer, has an entertaining list of

5 Atrocious Science Clichés to Throw Down a Black Hole

A black hole is the perfect place for stuff you never want to see again. So Wired Science is joining Wired.com’s extended black hole party by chucking in some of the worst, most overused science clichés.

I heartily endorse all of her picks, especially the first three. Online comments to the article add a number of other choice clunkers.

In that spirit, I'll add a few of my own.

• atom smasher – actual atom smashers largely ceased to be big news in the 1950s or so, shortly before they were superseded by particle accelerators, like the Stanford Linear Accelerator (1966), designed to smash the constituent subatomic particles of atoms
  
• god particle – nauseating term for the Higgs boson, designed to appeal to the religiously obsessed by people who really should know better; New York Times writer Dennis Overbye actually covered himself in... well, something, when he attempted to defend this merde, instead of casting it into the outer darkness
  
• black hole machine – a popular circumlocution used by writers who seize up at the thought of using the proper name Large Hadron Collider, based most unfortunately on the widely circulated nonsense about the possibility a microscopic black hole created by the LHC might destroy the universe (a feat that, in spite of much to be said in its favor, even black holes a billion times more massive than our sun are incapable of)
  
• pave the way – a hoary metaphor that must date from the days of Telford and McAdam, if not the Romans and their roads; it's now full of potholes, and most commonly used to refer to some scientific finding of no great importance at present, but for which its discoverers are hopeful of being recognized at some indefinite time in the future
  
• groundbreaking – another construction metaphor equally as odoriferous, and inane, as "paving the way"
  
• breakthrough – what some writers call a scientific finding, just before they say it "paves the way"
  
• a possible cure for _____ – a way to describe a biomedical discovery that will probably also be described as "groundbreaking" or "a breakthrough", even though the odds are heavily against it leading to a cure for anything
  
• shed light on – listed by Betsy also, but so awful it needs to be repeated in this list. (Added 10/15/09: see this for an egregious example that combines, in the title and first two paragraphs, the last three types of atrociousness.)
  
• guardian of the genome – what writers who are too cowardly to write "p53" use for the name of said protein and its gene, apparently because they think that the public appreciates authoritarian metaphors
  
• Lou Gehrig's disease – a neurological disease whose proper name is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, named after some American athletic dude of the 1930s who's mostly remembered now for having contracted the disease; also referred to by Brits as "motor neurone disease" when, if they had any sense, they'd call it Stephen Hawking's disease
  
• key to unlocking the mystery – as if scientific "secrets" are highly classified memoranda or cabalistic esoterica kept under lock and key... I suppose this sort of thing appeals to detective story fans and conspiracy theorists; great for promoting science as a form of infotainment, but a cliché nevertheless, as is most of the genre it's based on; this cliché is akin to "paving the way", because it's useful for describing results that fall short of resolving a question
  

A fear of pheromones

The following news item has me somewhat steamed:

Ban on Calif. Pesticide Spraying Lifted

The spraying of a pesticide to fight a crop-eating moth can resume after a judge said Friday he was satisfied with a government plan to address environmental and health concerns.

Earlier this month, Judge Robert O'Farrell issued a temporary injunction against the spraying on California's central coast amid concerns over the long-term health effects of CheckMate, which was first dropped in the area last month.

CheckMate is a pheromone spray developed specifically to keep the moth from mating without killing it.

The problem, of course, is that a pheromone is not a pesticide (such as DDT or any other). In common English usage the Latinate suffix "-cide" means killing something or someone. (E. g. "suicide", "genocide", "fratricide".) Pheromones do not kill, either moths or anything else (to the best of anyone's knowledge).

Why is this a problem? Because (in my opinion) it is irresponsible science journalism. And it has consequences. I happen to live in the affected area, and I know there is a lot of heated opposition to this spraying. But I think the opposition is misguided. People are up in arms because they have this general fear of the aerial spraying of strange "chemicals". And it is especially unhelpful for "journalists" and news agencies like the Associated Press, which ought to know better, to be putting out releases that misclassify pheromones as "pesticides".

To be sure, there might still be human or animal health issues associated with the spraying of pheromones. There are certainly some people who are sensitive or allergic to a lot of "chemicals". I do not know for sure whether there are such issues in this case, although it is claimed that "numerous state and federal agencies tested the product and all its ingredients and determined it was safe."

But I do know that the journalism in this case is seriously flawed, and is probably causing a lot of people to worry when they should not need to, simply by calling the pheromones "pesticides", when they are not that at all. Sometimes, not always, chemical sensitivities are psychosomatic. And this is much more likely if the chemicals involved are incorrectly called "pesticides".

Here's a press release from the US Department of Agriculture that says a bit more about the pheromone in question:

New Pheromone Sprayer Leads Amorous Moths Astray

For decades, apple and pear growers have "adorned" their orchards with hundreds of plastic dispensers that emit a chemical sex attractant, or pheromone, to disrupt codling moth mating. Now, thanks to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) studies in Wapato, Wash., growers could soon be spraying the pheromone instead.

Sadly, the Associated Press, even a few days later, was still putting out faulty journalism:

Gov. orders resumption of disputed apple moth pesticide spraying

Something the general population certainly doesn't need is more media confusion about scientific subjects from sources that demonstrate a lack of trustworthiness – and contribute to popular cynicism about journalism in general.

Update (1/18/08): This sort of journalistic malpractice continues: Calif. residents say moth spray dangerous

Residents of Monterey and Santa Cruz counties filed 330 formal complaints to the state related to the light brown apple moth insecticide spraying, and about 300 more complained to doctors or public interest groups, said a report by the California Alliance to stop the Spray, the Santa Cruz (Calif.) Sentinel reported Sunday.

And the same brief article also refers to the pheromone as a "pesticide". Does this sort of incompetence matter? Of course it does. It's quite likely that most of the complainers are reacting to journalistic reports of "pesticides" and "insecticides" rather than what was actually used. Sort of an inverse placebo effect. Misinform people that they've been sprayed with a "poison", and of course some will feel ill. Is it possible there was some real effect? Sure. Whatever substance is involved – including any number that are "organic" or "natural" yet allergenic – there are bound to be at least a few people who might have an adverse reaction. But this can only be greatly magnified by sloppy journalism.

Tags: journalism, pheromones, apple moth, cynicism

Scientists and writers: a great idea

SciTalk is a website that promotes contact between scientists and writers (of novels, short stories, poetry, plays, screen plays, etc.) in order to facilitate the realistic portrayal of scientists in art.

Scientists need to show writers — poets, playwrights, novelists – the wealth of possibilities that are opened up to fiction by using science and scientists in their work. Just as a novel with an accountant as a main character need not be about accountancy, a novel with a scientist need not be about science. Scientists need writers to show that they are 'normal people' from all backgrounds, with normal concerns.

SciTalk offers a way for scientists to communicate their expertise and their enthusiasm to writers, and a way for writers to find out about science and how scientists ‘work’ — through personal contact and meeting face-to-face, not just by email or phone.

Scientists contribute personal information and contact details to the site in order for writers to arrange meetings. There is a very detailed directory of scientific specialties that can be browsed for working professional scientists.

Bad science journalism

Really good article by Ben Goldacre in the Guardian: Don't dumb me down

I won't try very hard to summarize it, since it has a lot of meat. Just read it if you're interested in the subject. (And you probably are if you're reading this blog.)

The first half is a taxonomy of bad science journalism. Basically there are three kinds: "wacky stories", "scare stories", and "breakthrough stories". A common characteristic they have is their purpose, which is much more to entertain than to inform. Sort of a piece with the journalistic principle that "if it bleeds, it leads". I. e., stories about war, pestilence, famine, and death sell a lot of newspapers.

The balance of the article assesses possible reasons for all the bad science writing. In general, Goldacre's thesis seems to be that it's all because science journalism tends to be practiced mostly by people who majored in humanities rather than science.

There's probably a lot of truth to that. And we can also concede that when science writing is done by people with a real science background, it ofter suffers because the writers would really prefer to be doing science rather than journalism. (Though there are numerous exceptions to this -- names like Sagan, Weinberg, Mayr, Watson, etc.)

But I have to wonder whether a lot of the reasons for the problems with science writing have to do not with the writers but with the audience. And by extension, with that part of society whose job is to educate the audience, namely the educational system.

There are some quotations attributed to Einstein, such as: "If you can't explain something simply, you don't know enough about it." "You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother." "It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid." Unfortunately, I have to disagree somewhat. There are some things that require a fair amount of education to understand properly, and most of modern science is among them. We wouldn't expect one could explain so quickly how financial derivatives work or a symphony in sonata form is constructed. Except at so high a level as to be of little actual use. Why should cosmology or molecular biology be any different?

In particular, people often complain of too much "jargon" or "technobabble" in writing about scientific and technical subjects. People want things explained in "plain English". I think that this demand is unrealistic and is an important reason that science writing is dumbed down as much as it is.

The fact is, language is built upon a hierarchy of concepts, and scientific or technical concepts correspond to carefully chosen, specialized "technical terms", "terms of art", and the like -- i. e. "jargon". This is just as true in fields like law, journalism, and the game of baseball as it is in medicine, genetics, astrophysics, and higher mathematics. Simply put, it is much simpler and more economical to explain a technical subject using the terminology appropriate to the subject, rather than in terms of "plain English", where one needs repeatedly to use long, inaccurate circumlocutions instead of the proper technical terms.

To take a specific example, consider elementary particle physics. By now terms like "protons" and "neutrons" and "electrons" are familiar enough to the public, and even, perhaps, "quarks". (Not that most of the public could give anything like a satisfactory definition of any of them.) But to really get into the subject, you need terms like "baryons", "strong force", "symmetry", "bosons", and so forth.

Of course, on first introducing such terms, you should give "plain English" definitions using words that are presumably more familiar. And ideally, describe the concepts using nice, crisp analogies and metaphors. But after that, heaven help you if you can't count on the audience to remember the definitions and you must instead repeat them every time you need to invoke the concept.

And don't make the related mistake of avoiding proper technical terms with Greek or Latin roots in favor of terms of your own devising using more "common" Anglo-Saxon vocabulary. While this may conceivably make your immediate job easier, the effort will be wasted when people in the audience are later unable to identify your ad hoc terminology with what is actually used by people in the given subject area.

The problem can be illustrated in particle physics. If instead of "bosons" you talk about "force-carrying particles", not only is the result clumsier, but the audience will eventually wonder what force it is that a "Higgs boson" carries if and when they come upon the term elsewhere. This is especially a problem with the use of mathematical terms. How many writers have the guts to use a term like "homeomorphism", even when it's appropriate?

Enough said about that. I think there is one other problem that accounts for a lot of bad science writing, and that is the use of mathematics in any way. Simply put, too many people seem to be scared to death of mathematics, so that when statistical ideas are needed to discuss a subject or a few well-chosen equations can make things clearer, writers will try to avoid them so as not to "frighten the horses". Or because an editor insists that use of equations will turn people off and depress sales.

What should be done if some math is really needed to explain something? I don't know. Punt?

In any case, failure to use proper technical terminology and failure to use mathematics (when appropriate), seem to me to be the most common characteristics of dumbed-down science writing. Both these problems arise when the writer has to assume that the audience will have a lot of trouble with mathematics and technical language. (Of course, this is only if the writer actually does sufficiently understand what he/she is writing about.)

But how can such an assumption be avoided if the audience hasn't been properly prepared after a dozen or so years of elementary and secondary education? That's a rhetorical question, I guess. Unfortunately, the assumption generally can't be avoided.

The problem's not limited to science either. How can the public understand journalism about politics or the economy or international trade if basic education in history, geography, civics, logical reasoning, and critical thinking isn't adequate?