Scientific Hype

Rosemary Joyce, anthropology professor at Berkeley, writes about how journalistic imperatives shape the reporting of archaeological discoveries, transforming good science into bad archaeology. Read her piece here.

It's a real problem in the field of archaeology which is often portrayed as a global treasure hunt rather than a serious attempt to understand the dynamics shaping human cultures. And the problem is not confined to archaeology -- it exists in all fields, particularly environmental and medical science. When it comes to science, don't take as truth what you read in the papers, or see on the boob tube.

Journalistic Incompetence

Once again ignorant journalists screw up a science story. Newsweek has a feature article on human evolution. It's a cover article, so you would think that they would try to get it right, but you would be wrong.

John Hawks systematically dismantles the Newsweek story, showing that it contains a number of basic errors both of fact and interpretation.

You might think that the editors would catch some of these, but apparently they are just as ignorant as the staffers who wrote the story.

Read it here. It's devastating!

Here's the point. There is a continuing controversy, much of it focusing specifically on the subject of human evolution, as to the reliability of scientific authority. But how is the public to be informed on this matter if mainstream organs like Newsweek cannot be bothered to get basic facts and interpretations right? And, if the magazine screws up this badly on this subject, how can it be trusted on other, more important, matters?