Assignment 6

Francis Bacon believed that the senses deceived us in two distinct ways. They either alter our perception of what is actually occurring or they completely fail us. When he wrote the New Organon, which is the foundation of modern science, he wanted us to abandon our dependency on the senses and instead use experimentation to acquire knowledge. Basically, he started the argument between trusting our instincts and disregarding them.
A lot of conventional wisdom revolves around going with our gut feeling. It is said that on a multiple-choice test the first answer you circle is typically the right one. And when it comes to taking a risk we are supposed to "not think about it; just do it." But is all this gut-trusting really something we should welcome into the scientific community? Yes and no. Basing an experiment on a hunch is what science is all about. We think that maybe X is true so we test it, but instinct should never make it into the laboratory. When we are in the lab and a suddenly gas Y is seen evaporating off the reaction we should not just assume it is hydrogen and move on. Maybe it's nitrogen and that could change everything.
Instinct also has a place after we perform the experiment. That's basically what a theory is. We have all this data and our gut says, "This data seems to insinuate that X causes Y." Granted, we have something to back up our gut with, i.e. scientific data, but even with numbers our idea may not be true. Just because one guy figured something out does not mean it is correct.
Which brings me to the science writer. Is it their place to use their gut when writing a story? No. Not at all. First of all, as a journalist they should not be reporting on anything except what is factual or what is stated in interviews. Secondly, to include educated guesses or gut feelings from you, the writer, is not accurate. You are not an expert and have no place to be making such an assessment.
Things become a little less clear when we are quoting our sources. If a doctor lays out three possible theories for why X causes Y then all three should be included. Even though all three possibilities are based on the gut feeling of a scientist, they are educated proposals.
What if the whole subject matter is based on a gut-feeling, though? Is it fair to write about it? Is it fair to call it science journalism? To talk about something that we are not sure is true is to propagate falsehoods and animosity towards science. Take the bees for instance. It seems there are millions of different reasons why people seem to think that the bees are disappearing from their hives. It's global warming, pesticides, diseases, parasites, loss of habitat, genetically modified pollen, cell phone towers, industrialization of the bee industry, and so on and so on. Some of these allegations seem to have more merit than others, but every time we see an article about the bees it is hard to tell if this is an article based on a hunch or research.
As discussed in my last post, the propagation of misinformation is awful for the public. It is damaging to our perception of truth and science. It is possible that a hunch is correct, but a science writer should never state a hunch as fact. If they do want to include an expert's speculation the comment should be labelled as such.
And it is easy to understand why a science writer wants to write a sensationalist piece about a hunch. For one, if it is a really juicy story then that means they can get their name out there. Also, it is understandable that maybe we feel obligated to publish a gut-feeling before the research has moved forward because if people believe it and the gut-feeling turns out to be correct then you saved a lot of people from a lot of trouble.
But it is still important to wait for the data and to only report on data. It is also important to label all speculation as such. When writing about science it feels right to stay grounded in research because you are being honest with the reader. So when writing an article, just go with your gut: stick to the facts.