An entomologist warns -- don't believe the hype over disappearing honeybees. Yes there have been die-offs of one species of bees, the European honeybee, affecting some beekeepers in some parts of the US, but they are insignificant in relation to the total number of honeybees. Only some growers and some hives have been affected. Others in the same environment are unaffected. This strongly suggests that the problem is hive management, not something in the environment. Moreover, this is only the most recent of many die-offs stretching back for over a century. This suggests that the problem does not involve recent factors, like pesticides.
The problem is that some "scientists" like seeing their names in the papers, and ignorant reporters are quick to generalize from a few cases. The result is bad journalism and worse science. In this case you have misrepresentation by journalists of information originally misrepresented by their sources.
The author's conclusion: "it's never a good idea to believe what the media are telling you." He points to a similar media misrepresentation of facts in the recent cell phone scare.
Read the whole thing here. [hat tip Instapundit].
I heartily agree.
A friend of mine who is a physicist once issued a similar warning, specifically saying not to believe anything you read in the New York Times Science Section.
And the authority of "Science" and the MSM takes yet another well-deserved hit.
