Science doesn't need gatekeepers

Ever thought there was a media conspiracy going on, something meant to twist information beyond all recognition? You're probably not alone. Does it happen in science reporting? For the most part, any blind twisting of data or research is the domain of a few mad columnists. News reporting tends to fair and accurate. But things can go tits up sometimes.

Here's an interesting example from the British Association festival of science, which ran last week in Norwich, normally a treadmill of stories ranging from anthropology to nanotechnology. But one tale grabbed more attention than most - a controversial Cambridge University biologist called Rupert Sheldrake who said that he had uncovered evidence for telephone telepathy. If you haven't come across Sheldrake before, just know that he has some very strange ideas about psychic pets and whether animals will wake up if you stare at them.

Telephone telepathy is the phenomenon whereby you supposedly know who is calling before you pick up the phone. Normally banished to the realm of nonsense pseudoscience, it's mostly a harmless pursuit. But Sheldrake had done some experiments and came to Norwich to tell the world. This got some of the press pack in Norwich very upset.

Ted Nield, chair of the UK Association of British Science Writers, writes a colourful account of the day when science journalism began to eat itself on the ABSW blog.

Peace reigned at the University of East Anglia. Bunny rabbits hopped in newly mown grass. The lake, undisturbed in the September sunshine, reflected the angles of Sir Denys Lasdun’s famous ziggurats. Meanwhile, deep in the concrete jungle behind them, the British Association Annual Festival of Science was feverishly connecting, engaging and outreaching. From the Broad’s tranquil shore, you would never have known.

But the British public had only 12 hours to wait before quite a different picture would emerge in the pages of The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The Independent, from which you would think that the shining lake had been a seething morass of angst and bile. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the whole edifice of science was apparently being assaulted and insulted - at the hands of an organisation founded to promote it. Scientists’ screams and moans were drowned only by the occasional sound of breaking glass, as various defenders of scientific rectitude – Lord Winston, Prof. Richard Wiseman, Sir Walter Bodmer, Prof. Peter Atkins and “A Royal Society spokesman” – apparently ripped their heads off in protest and threw them out of the windows. “Uproar at top science forum” thundered the Thunderer. “Festival attacked” screamed the Telegraph. “Scientists angry” asserted the Independent.

Interestingly not one of those allegedly indignant luminaries was anywhere near Norwich at the time.

Read the full article here

I was in the press room in Norwich while the saga unfurled and I was also at the press conference where Sheldrake presented his research.

The sentiment guiding the journalists behind the ensuing witch-hunt was impeccable. Telephone telepathy is a nonsensensical idea that doesn't fit any part of the scientific canon. The best reaction would have been to ignore it, as journalists do every day with flimsy stories. But, by overblowing it (the Times, Telegraph and Independent did several pages of telepathy-knocking between them) into a supposed row over whether the BA should host an event to showcase such research, the only thing they achieved was to give lots of coverage to an issue that didn't warrant it. Even I wrote a very short story.

The explanations proposed by the Sheldrake for telephone telepathy (including quantum entanglement and morphic fields) won't hold up. But it's not because the media points out that he is talking rubbish.

Instead, it will be the scientific method - rigorous experiment, peer review, publishing a paper - that will be his downfall. His pilot study of a few dozen people might have given interesting results (and, statistically, they are interesting, no journalist in that press conference could dismiss that) but bigger studies will no doubt prove him wrong. The work will wither away by itself. If Sheldrake's work holds up in bigger studies then things will certainly get interesting, but I'm not holding my breath.

Science doesn't need human gatekeepers to guide its progress. If anything, it's the human element that is science's biggest weakness. Whenever things have gone wrong, you can usually trace the mistake back to a person. The ego of the principal researcher, the war between competing institutions, corruption in funding or downright fraud - that's where inaccuracy comes from.

By definition, discovery is about walking into the unknown. Many of our greatest discoveries came from counter-intuitive thinking from great minds. Sheldrake shouldn't be stopped from researching his telepathy ideas or even presenting them at the festival of science (which, by the way, is a public engagement forum, not an actual science conference where scientists present results to each other). Apart from the obvious moral scenarios it is, in fact, a little sinister that anyone should suggest that certain areas of study are out of bounds.

Sheldrake doesn't need the media to dismiss his research. The scientific method will do that all by itself.