Summarized -- Lowering Expectations at Science's Frontier - New York Times

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/weekinreview/15wade.html

But scientific claims are meant to belong to a different category of  
truth: They are the certified knowledge of a community of scholars  
who have rigorously tested their ideas through experiment and mutual  
criticism.

...Little wonder that Richard Doerflinger, an official of the United  
States Conference of Catholic Bishops, ridiculed the dreams of  
therapeutic cloning in a statement last week, scoffing that  
scientists were chasing miracle cures "in pursuit of this mirage."

The contrast between the fallibility of Dr. Hwang's claims and the  
general solidity of scientific knowledge arises from the existence of  
two kinds of science - a distinction that is often blurred when new  
advances are reported first by scientific journals and then by the  
news media.

...But the roughness of the proceedings is not prominently advertised  
by journal editors, except when cases of blatant fraud are detected,  
whereupon they proclaim that peer review cannot reasonably be  
expected to detect fraud....  Because of Science's authority, Dr.  
Hwang's claims to have cloned human embryonic cells were prominently  
reported and presented to the public as if they were important  
breakthroughs.

But any new advance belongs to frontier science, which is inherently  
fallible, and a journal's imprimatur, though worth something, is no  
guarantee of truth....  This presents a serious problem for  
journalists: many scientific claims, including those in leading  
journals, turn out to be overstated or wrong, and science reporting  
that presents these journals' products as gospel is likely to be  
misleading.

...As Donald Kennedy, the editor of Science, observed when the Hwang  
case first broke, journals often publish work that is innocently wrong.

...But last week Dr. Kennedy announced he was considering revising  
the journal's publication procedures, though not with any great hope  
of preventing future cases of fraud....  Dr. Schatten accepted senior  
authorship of - and thus responsibility for - one of Dr. Hwang's  
papers, even though Dr. Schatten had performed none of the  
experiments and was not in a position to vouch for them.

...A more effective protection against being surprised by the likes  
of Dr. Hwang might be for journalists to recognize that journals like  
Science and Nature do not, and cannot, publish scientific truths.

-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/