Oct 09 2008
Dowsing for Journalists
There is good and bad journalism out there. Recently the quality of science journalism has taken a hit, most likely due to decreasing revenues for major news outlets. But every now and then I run across a piece of journalism at a major outlet that is so horrific I have to comment.
Yesterday in the New York Times, Jesse McKinley published a terrible piece about dowsing that was virtually devoid of any useful information. McKinley informed us that there is a drought in California – if you didn’t already know that, then you learned something new. Otherwise the piece was worse than useless, utter drivel.
McKinley seems to think it’s news that there are people who dowse – who walk around with sticks and think they can find water by the movement of these sticks. He gives us riveting anecdotes to reveal this amazing information:
“A neighbor’s well had gone dry, and this old fellow came out and he witched it, quite a ways away from the other well. Doggone it, I’ll be darned if they didn’t get water. That made a believer out of me.”
Aw, shucks. But if you were hoping for more technical information, don’t fret none, McKinley obliges.
“It’s got to have leaves on it, and it can’t really be bigger than your finger,” Mr. Stine said. “And you got to find one with a fork in it.”
Oh, the dowsing rod needs to have a fork in it! I learned that from Bugs Bunny (or some other cartoon character) probably when I was four or five. Unless you have been living in a cave, you have likely absorbed from the culture more information about dowsing than McKinley presents in this brain-dead article.
McKinley does not even do a good job and the mindless “balance” that incompetent reporters think substitutes for real journalism – you know, actual information and perspective. This is all we get.
Thomas Harter, a hydrologist at the University of California, Davis, who runs workshops with farmers looking to drill wells, said there was no scientific evidence that dowsers had special talent at finding water. They are, however, usually much cheaper than the various scientific tools, like electromagnetic imaging or seismic studies, that can help find aquifers.
“It’s worth a bottle of whiskey to have a guy come out,” Dr. Harter said.
But Dr. Harter also said men like Mr. Stine, who worked in the irrigation business for nearly half a century, could have an intuitive sense of where water was, simply by dint of knowing the territory.
OK – there is one notion in there with some value: perhaps dowsers may just be using their knowledge of the land to get a feel where there is more likely to be water, and they are just confirming this knowledge with the dowsing. But be careful, or you may miss this subtle point in all the anecdotes. The point is useless by itself, however, because McKinley does not put it in perspective.
First, there is no reason to think that these dowsers do any better than chance at looking for water. Has there every been any controlled study? McKinley doesn’t tell us, probably because he never bothered to find out (don’t get crazy, now, that might take some actual journalistic investigation). McKinley could easily have learned about the fact that James Randi has tested numerous dowsers under controlled conditions, and they have all failed. In fact there has never been a well-controlled study that shows that dowsing is anything more than self-deception.
He writes:
On Mr. Assali’s and Mr. Cotta’s land, Mr. Stine worked fast, practically speed-walking. And then, after about 150 feet, the willow bowed suddenly — inexplicably — toward Mr. Stine’s chest.
Inexplicably? It is only inexplicable in that McKinley has apparently never heard of the ideomotor effect – which is an explanation for the movement of dowsing rods. The rods move by subconscious muscles movements of the dowsers. This is well established.
McKinley missed the real story here. He could have taught his readers about the need for controlled observations, the potential for self-deception, and the nature of the ideomotor effect. He could have told us how much time and money dowsing potentially wastes, and if he were ambitious maybe we could have learned something about scientific methods for finding underground water.
Instead McKinley gave us Bugs Bunny level, gee-golly, grade A nonsense.
How does such an article get into the New York Times? Well, it probably has something to do with the decreasing resources I mentioned above. McKinley used to be the arts reporter for the times, now he is doing general reporting. Further, I can predict what McKinley would say in his defense – this is a “fluff” piece. Fluff pieces are for “human interest” (read “carnival freak show”) and therefore do not require any journalistic standards. They are to entertain only.
Further, journalists generally do not consider it their job to teach the public science. Sharon Begley, the science editor for Newsweek, told me in an interview that, while science reporters try to get the story right, they are not responsible for the poor science education in this country and the general level of scientific illiteracy. I disagree with her – the public learns much more from the mass media (right or wrong) than from the classroom. The press is one of the few professions protected in the Constitution for a reason – the job comes with a public responsibility.
McKinley should stick to writing stories about kittens, art shows, or something else within his sphere of competence (assuming he has one). Science stories are not fluff pieces simply because there is bad science involved. How many people will read his article and as a result hand out money to a con-artist with a dowsing stick? Also – any such story, even if the topic itself is not consequential, is an opportunity to either educate the public about science and critical thinking or to confuse them. It doesn’t really matter what the topic is if the reader walks away less critical and more confused about science in general.
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41 Responses to “Dowsing for Journalists”
I love that first quote, from Richard Cotta, the chief executive officer of California Dairies, a Central Valley cooperative, recalling that event from when he was six years old. I’ll bet that same year, the presents under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning made him a believer in Santa Claus, too, but I assume he has re-evaluated that belief during the intervening years.
Mr. Cotta (why am I thinking of Vinnie Barbarino) was and importantly still is apparently impressed that the dowser found water “quite a ways away from” the dry well. I guess he would otherwise normally be inclined to drill his new well right next to the dry one. Good thing his family thought to call in an expert. With a stick. A nice forked one with some leaves on it.
Unfortunately the Times has been including all sorts of woo pieces lately. They’ll write about pet psychics and dowsing in a very matter of fact way without a shred of skepticism. It’s still one of the best publications around, but it seems to be folding under the weight of the public hunger for magical stories. Too bad really!
I listened to the interview with Sharon Begley and quite honestly I was expecting one of you guys to take her to task for that comment of hers. I guess you were trying to be polite and not become too confrontational about it. Nevertheless that sort of attitude on the part of the science journalists is making the true problem of poor science education even worse.
If they throw all standards out of the window then what makes the Times any better than National Enquirer?
Looking at the related articles, the newspaper of record has a rather abysmal record with dowsing:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE2DD113BF937A1575AC0A963958260&fta=y
“Dowsing is not granted much credence by the scientific community, but thousands of well owners swear by it. Mr. Bull claims a success rate “in the high 90’s.”
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE3D8133CF933A15750C0A96E948260&fta=y
“As a result, dowsing, which usually costs between $25 and $50, is an accepted preliminary to building. “
[...] Dowsing for Journalists | NeuroLogica Blog – "Science stories are not fluff pieces simply because there is bad science involved … any such story, even if the topic itself is not consequential, is an opportunity to either educate the public about science and critical thinking or to confuse them. It doesn’t really matter what the topic is if the reader walks away less critical and more confused about science in general." [...]
Dr Novella, interesting that you’d dismissively equate writing about art as being equivalent to writing about fluffy kittens. Sadly, it not only ignores the fact that human interest stories come in all flavors – science and pseudoscience being only two, and ones that are often seeded by researchers, drug companies and Big SCAM who claim to be promoting science – and it ignores the fact that art criticism at the NYT and other newspapers has equally suffered from the same erosion as science journalism. Art criticism is yet another victim of the move away from critical thinking in journalism (no doubt your unaware of discussions about this within the art world). Of course, you may not value art, cultural dialogue and all that encompasses (just as many people don’t value science or scientific accuracy so become shruggles, as many people do about things they don’t care about personally or that tend to use specialized, and sometimes quite hermetic, language). However you do yourself, your readers and even your call for the application/return of more critical and intellectually rigorous thinking in journalism a disservice by not understanding what’s actually going on in the newspaper industry, how it effects editorial across the board and why populism has become more important than facts in mainstream media (particularly print publications that attempt to serve and attract a wide, mainstream audience). Not only that, it shows a lack of understanding of cause and effect regarding what’s going on in the mainstream media.
While I think there’s valid criticism to be made of turning science stories into lifestyle ones that distort the facts – this distortion of facts and contextualization as a lifestyle story often starts with the PR departments of universities (Big Ed?), Big Pharma and Big SCAM who promote it to the media as a lifestyle story and with lots of hype. It’s a double edged sword to ask people to trust science and scientists (since even someone with a degree in science who’s a science writer can’t be conversant in ALL of science) and then have scientists and their representatives presenting distorted facts, hype or pseudoscience as science. Sure individual scientists tend to shy away from this when interviewed in person but they still allow PR departments to sell the hype (and sometimes contribute themselves, even in person if they’re attention seeking…something that seems to be more prevalent in medicine than other branches of science). Expecting journalists to be the gatekeepers (which they are in some cases) rather than looking at the whole issue – cause and effect – seems very short sighted and, quite frankly, not that different from the kind of lifestyle articles that are being taken to task for not being adequately concerned with facts, cause and effect, and appropriately critical. That’s okay, clearly you understand that emotion and drama sell, it’s just not that wise to hold others up to standards we’re not upholding ourselves! Particularly when holding them up for not being sufficiently critical or informed! That said, I don’t personally expect anyone to be perfect or understand that ideals are something we strive towards and not actually the way things usually are. Otherwise they wouldn’t be “ideals” would they? They’d simply be what is.
My apologies – for the many punctuation errors (sorry I just don’t treat a blog comment like an article!) but mainly for a misplaced use of “or”.
“That said, I don’t personally expect anyone to be perfect AND understand that ideals are something we strive towards and not actually the way things usually are. Otherwise they wouldn’t be “ideals” would they? They’d simply be what is.”
I can agree with Fifi.
I would like to point out that this is not a new situation.
Over the years I have been a witness to many incidents that were later reported in the newspaper. The newspaper got it wrong almost every time. (The major exception to this is in the sports pages oddly enough)
The article you complain about might even be one that could be considered accurate (I doubt it, but)– did they get the quotes right?
If so, that is better reporting than what I have observed.
It is not the reporters job to understand anything- it is the reporters job to correctly transcribe facts- “so and so said…”
They don’t even do that all that accurately.
Readers be warned—
Fifi,
But I did specifically comment on cause and effect – the diminishing ad revenue is leading to staff cuts, which likely led directly to the arts editor writing stories about pseudoscience as lifestyle. Specific writers and editors are giving way to generalists, leading to a drop in quality. I said nothing to imply this problem was unique to science coverage.
I am sure the art coverage at the NYT has suffered tremendously from this – it is simply not the topic of this blog entry or this blog in general.
You bring up another point – the desire for drama and sensationalism in news coverage. This is also a factor, but I think it played a minor role if any in this particular piece.
The point about press releases distorting science news reporting is legitimate, and I have covered this topic before (I forget if it was here or on the podcast). But again – it was not relevant to this article.
I did not mean to equate fluff reporting (kittens) with art reporting. Rather, I was pointing out that McKinley should stick to writing about stuff he knows (which does not imply that it is not important) – and I will add that if he ventures beyond his comfort zone because he is forced to, he just might have to spend a few more minutes doing background research or consulting experts.
Finally, you should not imagine that I do not care about art – that would be a false assumption on your part.
I’d also like to point out that, ideally, a journalist should be presenting all sides of a story so that the reader can make up their own mind based on the facts. (Talking ideals here, not how newspapers actually function in reality. Politics, money and ideology play a part in the reality of the publishing industry – as they do in all areas of life, including science and academia.)
The reality is there never existed a time when selling newspapers wasn’t a concern for publishers and editors, that populist and sensational stories weren’t run or that publishers didn’t use their publications for political purposes. (How bad young people are is an eternally popular sensationalist story since older people tend to be more interested in buying newspapers and like to blame young people for ruining society, which I’ve always found ironic since it’s generally the older people with most of the money and political power that shape society and raised the young people! But I digress, it’s one of the hazards of middle age…
Sonic – I disagree with the point that it is not the reporters job to understand anything. This depends greatly on the piece. If an article is simply a news item, then you are correct that what matters is getting the facts correct and complete.
But, if the piece is a feature, editorial, column, analysis, etc. – then the reporter better understand what they are writing about.
If you are going to attempt to put a story into any kind of context – that requires understanding.
The bottom line is that this is just poor journalism. I will add (although this will likely be the subject of a future post) that I am pushing back hard against poor journalism because I think the system needs to change. It is clearly broken (even though there is still individual good journalism going on). It is broken for some fundamental reasons, but all exacerbated by the current situation – a major transition between dominant media. We are in the midst of something like radio giving way to television, and having to completely change its nature.
Print media have to fundamentally change. They will cede great territory to the internet, and if they want to survive they need to come up with a new approach. What they are doing now is the same old thing they are rapidly losing, only they are doing it much worse.
This article represents that. It is a symptom of what is killing papers like the NYT.
I further think that bloggers who are experts in a specific areas will (and are) take over for the crappy reporting the major outlets are producing.
[...] Read more here [link] Tags:hackademic, Journalism, NYTimes, Readership, science [...]
Dr Novella – I’m glad to hear you care about art (because I care about art so I’m always happy to hear others do too, the same applies to science and medicine for me). However the impression you gave by equating art with fluffy kittens is that you consider writing about art and fluffy kittens to be equivalent – it wasn’t particularly ambiguous in the way you wrote it. I’m not assuming you don’t enjoy looking at some art (or don’t care about fluffy kittens, for that matter), I’m simply noting that you put writing about art shows on the same level as fluffy kittens and don’t equate it with criticism or critical thinking. I’m not assuming this, you expressed it yourself quite clearly. No doubt you’re unaware of all the discussions within the arts community and less likely to notice the slow erosion of art criticism in mainstream newspapers, I wouldn’t expect you to be since it’s not your focus of professional interest. Similarly, I’m sure most people who aren’t very conversant in science haven’t noticed the erosion in science writing. We all tend to be more vigilant regarding our own turf (as my noting the slight to art highlights
The point is that it’s not just science journalism that’s taken a hit (though obviously since this is a science blog that’s what’s relevant) – it’s investigative news reporting, as well as art criticism and any other area that demands investing time and energy into journalists and the work, and taking a stand that might offend. Not that I don’t think individual journalists should be called out (they should!), at a certain point kicking the people who have no power and who are on the bottom of the totem pole doesn’t do much good. Plus, many of the things you’re assuming are purely in control of individual journalists may well be editorial decisions or a publisher’s policy. Reading a newspaper and expecting total objectivity is, at best, naive (and ignores the history of newspapers and publishing!). Wanting it is being an idealist – a worthy cause but best tempered with an acceptance of reality if one aims to change reality to look more like the ideal! Ultimately the general nature of newspapers and general interest publications is also the reason why specialty publications exist and their editorial policy is important and sets them apart – particularly regarding professional journals.
I’d also like to note that I’m old enough (almost 45, woohoo!
) to remember reading (and watching) shoddy and hype infused reporting about science and medicine back in the 70s and 80s – it helped that my parents would point out distortions and untruths when they ran across them. So attributing the erosion in critical thinking or misrepresentation of science in publications purely to the rise of digital communications doesn’t seem accurate to me – though certainly cost cutting at paper publications (from newspapers to magazines, though magazines have faired better being specialized) and the erasing of total departments at various mainstream newspapers has gutted the profession and made it hard to do in-depth, researched writing on most topics. The LA Times’ publishers’ war on editorial was probably the last stand for journalistic integrity the US (not exactly the bastion of great news publishing to begin with!) – not surprisingly the editor lost (it used to be a great newspaper, despite being located in LalaLand!). In Canada, the only independent daily newspaper is the Toronto Star – it’s pretty easy to spot the difference in quality between them and the other Canadian dailies, if one’s a critical thinker of course…
Steve “It is broken for some fundamental reasons, but all exacerbated by the current situation – a major transition between dominant media.”
Of course, this is true in the UK too. It does seem here that Ben Goldacre is a lone crusader in a dangerous world, to coin a phrase.
But I must take you to task for letting Sharon Begley off far too easily in that interview. You let her get away with a ‘cop out’.
Re the art industry, it’s always been business…emperor’s new clothes etc. I remember an artist friend telling me his sales pitch “give ‘em some wine, tell ‘em it’s ‘questioning gender roles’ or some shit”
Dr Novella – It’s not surprising that you’re a cheerleader for blogs, I agree they’re great. However, pretty useless and hardly a replacement for a well edited publication with a clear editorial policy if you’re not a critical thinker. Someone who can’t discern fact from fiction in print won’t be able to do so online either. Then, because blogs are essentially e-journals and about expressing individual opinion, it’s very easy for people to categorize it all as differences of opinion. Of course, over time one can become established as a go-to blog for something specific but that doesn’t guarantee that they’ve got their facts right, don’t have biases (open or concealed), will correct/retract falsehoods and so on….all the same issues as with print journalism except magnified and without oversight or accountability of any kind really (unless specifically implemented, which is the same in any medium).
Steven,
I’m not suggesting that it is not a good idea for a reporter to understand. I’m suggesting that it is not part of the job description. The best reporters learn their subjects overtime, but the actual job usually entails finding a quotable source and getting the quote right. I know this from experience. My point being that they often fail at even that low standard of accuracy.
I agree that this situation is not a good one, but we would be wise to recognize that what you are complaining about regarding science reporting is true for all forms of reporting (with the possible exception of sports reporting– odd but true)
A little history– the largest newspapers in North California are famous for inventing ‘yellow journalism’.
By the way, I didn’t mean to agree with Fifi regarding you and art. When I read your posts I get the impression that you and art are not strangers.
cuervo – I was by no means saying the art industry is different than any other – quite the opposite in fact, all industries and their sales arms function in similar ways. Free lunches – or wine and cheese – and flattering the intended customer/target is as prevalent in art as it is in the medical industry. Artists, much like scientists, often scorn the industry they practice/work within and like to distance themselves from it and the practices that the people who sell their work engage within. (“Purity” can be just as much a preoccupation of some artists as it is of some scientists, plus many artists like to pretend they don’t care about money or approval while caring very deeply about money and approval. Add in that much of the art world is full of faux rebels – whether we’re talking sculpture or rock and roll – and complaining about the business is a required cliché and an image thing (self and in other people’s eyes). It’s a bit of a tired cliché for an artist to whine about the industry while posturing at their opening when clearly they want not only to sell their work but be praised for it (otherwise they wouldn’t be showing at a commercial gallery, it is a choice).
Fifi,
You keep going back to the kittens vs art vs science and I don’t quite understand why you are so confused about the point that Steve is making.
Science is about discovering how the real world works. It is a quest for truth. It has no entertainment value, such as a piece of art has, let it be a painting, music or movie. As such, when reporting about science there are no two sides of a story, because the truth about our world is objective, not subjective.
Art is largely subjective, as such it makes sense to talk about how different people think about it. Take for example movie critics. The same movie will get various scores ranging from A to F depending on which critic is reviewing it. Some people love “The Godfather” some hate it. Art is largely a matter of personal taste, not hard empirical fact.
Science on the other hand is independent of personal taste. I can’t say that I don’t like gravity. Well I can say that, but that does not mean that all of a sudden there are two sides to gravity. Any science journalist should act scientifically, and evaluate and present the facts not what people think about facts. The first would be real scientific journalism, the second would be a fluff piece, or an art piece.
Writing about people’s fantasies and delusions may sell papers, but it is not scientific journalism. There are standards when it comes to journalism. The publications that don’t follow those standards clearly label themselves. They are known as tabloids.
Sonic is quite correct about this being a problem in all areas of reporting, but I’d like to be a little more specific about exactly how and why that is.
Glenn Greenwald had a great piece in Salon yesterday examining exactly this topic from the point of view of political reporting. If a journalist takes note of how virulently negative one candidate’s campaign has turned, it is pretty much holy writ that the journalist must also report how negative the other candidate is being. This prevails even if there is a massive discrepancy in the level and amount of negative campaigning coming from one side or the other.
Journalists are taught, from the beginning, to value “balance” in their reporting over everything else. The reason is actually a lot simpler than anything that’s being discussed here. It’s the classic CYA legal theory. They don’t want to be sued for libel.
Journalists believe that they MUST give equal time and weight to both sides of an issue to avoid potential lawsuits. This concept was ingrained in me as a journalism student and later as both a writer and editor.
It’s simply easier, in the case of a potential lawsuit, to prove how evenhandedly the issue at hand is covered than it is to find out what is literally “true,” which is, of course, the ultimate defense against libel. You can print anything you want about anyone at any time, provided you can prove that it’s true.
It’s a lot easier to simply muddy the waters and make the discovery of truth impossible. Thus, when I wrote a story about a local health food store that was selling shark cartilage as an arthritis cure, I had to include the owner’s b.s. anecdotal stories about cartilage’s efficacy to “balance” the scientific consensus. My editor wouldn’t have run the story otherwise.
“You can’t just say that shark cartilage doesn’t work,” she said.
“Why not? It doesn’t. That’s the truth.”
“Maybe, but it would save us a lot of problems if you’d just report the owner’s side of the issue.”
End of discussion.
Finally, it is DAMNED odd that the sports section is the only place where this doesn’t hold. You can say the home town team’s second baseman stinks like poop on toast and not worry about it for a second. And it doesn’t have to be an opinion piece. You can write an entire sports news story, and the opening sentence can say something like, “Statistics show that Steven Novella is the worst second baseman in the National League,” and you’re home free.
Sure, you’ll want a quote from the manager and the second baseman to fill out the story, but you can make the entire focus of your story about how awful “Butterfingers” Novella is, and no one will raise an eyebrow.
But if you try to suggest that the local chiropractor is doing a terrible job of actually making his patients better … watch out.
Sports is an obvious meritocracy – with numbers, and everything. People and teams win or lose. The fans get this, and they know their stuff. At least that’s my theory as to why the reporting is better.
Imagine if the general public were “fans” of science – that they understood that some ideas are right and some ideas are wrong, or at least some ideas are better than others. Imagine if they understood as well as they understand the implications of a ho-huddle offense within the 2 minute warning, the nature of blinding and randomization. Imagine if they understood that science is a meritocracy also, and kept science reporting as honest as they do sports reporting.
There are two kind of problems with reporting – there are generic issues of quality that apply to all types of reporting, and then there are problems with approaching one type of story as if it were another, or lacking the specific expertise required by a subject area.
If I tried to blog about fine art, I would only embarrass myself. You cannot approach a political news item like an art news item like a science news item. Good specialist journalists understand the differences. Generalists don’t.
Hence, the two types of problems above are both exacerbated by the dwindling staffs on papers and magazines.
I do not suggest that blogs are a panacea. I see them more as an opportunity. We will see where they lead.
themightyleart – Why do you assume I don’t understand Steve’s point? Perhaps you don’t understand mine? Or art criticism or art if you think it’s merely about subjective opinion or “thumbs up/down” movie reviews. Whether something is effective art or science isn’t merely down to subjective personal opinion and likes and dislikes, though I can see how you’d get that impression since – like science – that’s now how it’s treated (and always has been in some populist publications). You’ve actually illustrated my point quite well by showing that you don’t understand how criticism works in art when being practiced with integrity by professionals. Just like science, it becomes empty promotion of products. Somebody just having a personal opinion about art isn’t art criticism, just like someone’s personal fantasies and delusions aren’t science.
I appreciate your lecture and personal opinion about journalism and art – fields in which I work professionally – but you’re displaying the same kinds of populist misunderstandings about art as many people do about science. It’s sloppy thinking and a shruggle attitude to things that aren’t subjectively important to you (to use the fantastic new term introduced here, which will no doubt have legs since it’s so damn cute…speaking of fluffy kittens…
) Personally I don’t just care about critical thinking in science and good science journalism (as both a reader and writer) but about critical thinking and good journalism in general. The NYT quite noticeably jumped the shark long ago.
On reflection I guess there is a third kind of problem – selling out, or knowingly publishing rubbish to sell papers or ideology. This would cover sensationalism, political bias, and yellow journalism, etc. While this results in poor quality, it is a separate issue from just incompetent journalism.
This conversation reminds me a bit of that old story about censorship and only caring about your own….
First they came and took the art critics, then the classical music critics, then the film critics, then the investigative news reporters, then the columnist who pissed off advertisers….when they came for the science journalists there was no one left to speak up since all the critical voices were already gone….
Personally I care about integrity in general – not just regarding my pet interests.
People buy newspapers for sports scores and info (and often bet so are very invested in that info on a couple of levels). Since sports sections bring in readers and money, their budgets haven’t been cut in the same way “under performing” sections like art and science have been. They also have a very avid fan base (there’s loads of personal opinion and bias in sports writing – in fact it tends to glorify opinion and personality, give them a special place of honour – so it’s hardly “objective” just because the games have scores!).
You’ll notice technology sections (which are often paired with science) are not being cut and are even getting bigger. Why? Because they promote (usually uncritically) products that bring in big bucks. This probably has as much to do with the slide into fluff of science reporting as getting rid of dedicated science journalists. It’s a useful exercise to look at who advertises in a publication and who/what gets covered and how.
Dr Novella – Would you feel qualified to blog about art if it wasn’t fine art?
Dr Novella – I’m not trying to be an ass or tear you down personally (even though I’m on your ass about the art thing, it’s for a reason not just to swing my dick). It’s easy to be really simplistic about right and wrong regarding complex issues and to pass judgment and lay blame – people do this all the time about medicine and science without understanding the complexity of an issue. If we want the level of discourse to rise, we have to raise ourselves up first rather than just doing to others what we object having done to us. Or so it seems to me at least (I don’t mean the politeness level but the actual content of our discourse and our ability to challenge our own sloppy communication habits not just those of others while being sloppy ourselves).
>>I’m not suggesting that it is not a good idea for a reporter to understand. I’m suggesting that it is not part of the job description. The best reporters learn their subjects overtime, but the actual job usually entails finding a quotable source and getting the quote right. I know this from experience. My point being that they often fail at even that low standard of accuracy.
What about always checking your sources, verifying your information with known authorities, researching both sides of a story?
On a side note: If dowsing really worked, you’d think they’d offer a money back guarantee- including compensation for the time & money lost drilling a new dry well if it doesn’t work..
If dowsing really worked the oil industry would be paying gajillions to dowsers that could actually find oil.
TML, it is not quite so cut and dry in science as only the presenting of facts. There is analysis of those facts too. Hypotheses of how those facts fit together. A hypothesis about data is not data.
Physics is quite explicitly divided into two complimentary disciplines, theorists and experimentalists. Experimentalists generate data, and theorists try to make sense of it and make predictions about new data which the experimentalists then try to falsify.
Science most certainly does have entertainment value. I get lots of entertainment out of reading journal articles. A well written paper with clever insight that unifies and connects disparate data activates my sense of aesthetics.
A lot of how I do science and inventing is with my aesthetic sense. An aesthetic sense about science and technology is very useful for hypothesis generation, one then needs to attack those hypotheses with the algorithm of the scientific method, to observe data and use logic. I see this as analogous to the theorist/experimentalist dichotomy in physics. Biological sciences are a lot more complicated that physics, there are many more degrees of freedom; too complicated to fit into an algorithm (which I am using more in the Turing sense as a finite state algorithm).
I understand how to use my aesthetic sense in science (which I consider to be a non-algorithmic way of thinking about reality), essentially equivalent to intuition. It takes considerable training to develop a useful intuition in science. When one encounters a fact that is “counter intuitive”, one has to change one’s intuition until the intuition corresponds to what is factually correct. Many people cannot or do not do this. That is why to some people special relativity remains “counter intuitive”.
How aesthetics relates to art is not something I understand very well.
Daedalus…I dig your intuitiveness.If you slip that aesthetic over a notch you might find some heavy artwork that you dig. But Daedalus built the labyrinth and saw his son plunge into the icy depths.
It seems that Fifi would give equal credence to a humanity thought, and a scientific truth.
Karl-
Apparently dowsing will work about 95% of the time.
Doctors don’t offer money back guarantees- even those that are applying the best scientific medicine. Doesn’t mean you wouldn’t want the proceedure.
I would agree that the best reporters eventually learn a good deal about the subject they cover. Sometimes they will end up writing books. But in general what you read in a newspaper is better described by rdriley above.
Anytime you quote someone you are printing a fact.
Doesn’t matter who you quote, does it?
Fifi, you have the temperment of an artist. And I mean that with love overflowing.
Of course dowsing will work 95% of the time (even better if you are willing to drill deep enough). In the Oil and Gas industry “dry holes” are actually wet – the water saturation is close to 100% in all the permeable formations ecountered in the well. I suspect that once a dowser selects a location, the customer keeps drilling until they hit water because they “know” it has to be there. And they will find water if they go deep enough – it might be salty or full of iron or only flow at a low rate, but it will still count as a hit.
Fifi – I agree with you on the money factor regarding technology and sports. I put those under the “selling out” category.
I am not sure what your point is, exactly. Meaning – what is it you think my position is? It seems to me you are reading far too much into what I did not discuss in this blog post.
Of course I advocate critical thinking in all arenas, and high journalism standards in general. I choose to promote these things largely as they relate to science because that is where my expertise is.
I would not blog about art or “fine art” precisely because people like you would take me to task for using terms like “fine art”. I do not have the background, nor have I thought about such issues deeply enough to even know why you are picking on my use of that term.
I agree with what I think you are saying in general – we cannot compartmentalize intellectual disciplines too much, to the point where we do not recognize generic intellectual virtues that apply to all disciplines. I see this within science, where some promote the myth of “hard” science vs “soft” science. Likewise, I think there is a tendency for those in the humanities to underestimate the creative aspects of science, and those in the sciences to underestimate the critical thinking aspects of the humanities.
There are generic intellectual virtues (diligence, honesty, logic) that apply to all areas. But then there are skills and knowledge bases that are specific to specific areas.
Getting back to the statement that seemed to set you off:
“McKinley should stick to writing stories about kittens, art shows, or something else within his sphere of competence (assuming he has one).”
Actually it is quite clear from that statement that I am talking about McKinley’s “sphere of competence” – not the inherent value of art reporting.
I maintain there is a fundamental and to some extent immutable difference between how humans think about other people and communication and how humans think about reality. All communication between individuals requires that both of them share “the same” theory of mind, that is that they both translate “the same” language pattern into “the same” idea as represented by the corresponding neural state in each of their different brains. If an individual doesn’t have the neural structures to map an idea, the individual doesn’t have the capacity to think about that idea. Neural structures do have some plasticity, and individuals can learn new ideas by remodeling those structures. That has to be (to some extent) an active process. Until the neural structures are modified to be able to represent the idea, the individual lacking those structures cannot think about that idea.
For communication, provided that two individuals share the same mapping of language into a mental concept, that mapping is completely arbitrary. There is no abstract “correct” mapping, a mapping is correct if the two individuals who are trying to communicate share it. The only “meaning” a sound pattern has as language is in how that sound maps onto neural structures of individuals using that sound as language. Ideally, that mapping should remain unchanged over time. Unless a change is shared between the two individuals, it is useless for communicating.
If the two mappings of ideas to neural structures are not identical, there is increased opportunity for errors, type 1 errors (false positive) and type 2 errors (false negatives). I think this is why some groups attempt to suppress new ideas.
I think that is where art comes in, by expressing an idea in a different way, using a different media parts of the idea can get past some of the pattern recognition hardware that collapses sensory data into meaning and forces it to fit into an already known pattern, right or wrong. This is what optical illusions do, force the visual pattern recognition pathways to interpret the image as something it is not. I think that is what good art does; it tries to bootstrap pattern recognition from one milieu into another; right enough in one area to get past the “this is wrong” mindset, but sufficiently different to not activate the “this is idea XYZ” mindset in another. Of course to extend pattern recognition from one area into another, you have to have it in the first area to begin with.
I think this is why most learning goes through a progression; the basics are needed first to connect the new learning to already known concepts. The more you know, the more you have the capacity to recognize something as new and as something that can be known and perhaps used to understand something else.
I completely agree with Dr Novella that there is more similarity between artists and scientists than both usually realize. I see creativity in this context as being able to make that first leap of cognition, to have an idea that has not been represented before as a neural pattern. In the case of scientists that new pattern is (one hopes) a better mental representation of reality, in the case of artists the new pattern relates to ways of communicating the artists’ internal mental state. In the case of scientists the new idea has to actually better represent reality, in the case of artists, the new ideas have to form a bridge from something known to something new. Ideally the bridge the artist makes opens up new ways of thinking. Ideally the new conceptualization of the scientist does as well.
The difference is in what that thinking is about. For the scientist, it is about reality. For the artist it is about internal human mental states. Internal human mental states are subjective and pertain only to humans and sometimes only to individual humans. Reality is independent of human mental states and is not the least bit subjective. Thinking that reality is subjective occurs when people erroneously try to think about reality with the subjective and arbitrary “theory of mind” they use for communicating with other humans. Sometimes it works (more or less) often it doesn’t.
Once the scientist has the internal mental state that does better correspond to reality, then the scientist has the artists’ problem of how to generate a message that conveys that internal mental state to another individual. This can be the most difficult part of being a scientist because it depends on other humans understanding what is trying to be conveyed. If the human being communicated to doesn’t have the background to understand what is being communicated, it may not be possible for them to understand the idea. It activates their “this is wrong” pattern recognition pathways and the idea is rejected.
Steven Novella on 11 Oct 2008 at 7:54 am wrote “I see this within science, where some promote the myth of “hard” science vs “soft” science.”
“Myth” is correct. As a practitioner of a “hard” science (chemistry) I can run rigorously controlled experiments. I stand in awe of biologists (“soft” scientists, whose experiments are fraught with imponderables) who reduce field observations to useful ideas.
One could say the spectrum runs from the more to the less rigorous. Or, from the less to the more complex science.
Dr Novella – I owe you an apology since I obviously go distracted and carried away riding a particular hobbyhorse of mine (primed by a lifetime of being interested and immersion in art and science, and frustration regarding misperceptions about both disciplines that are often perpetuated by people who see the two as being opposed and routinely dismiss one or the other on grounds based in ignorance). So, I apologize for going at this topic like a starving dog with a bone. We all have our own areas of specialization regarding hobbyhorse riding – I do appreciate that one of yours is bad science reporting and, though I may not agree with you on all matters, I do respect your experience, opinion and insights regarding science.
That said, I hope you understand why I found the equation of writing about art “shows” (the appropriate terminology is “exhibition”, just so you know for future reference, “show” would be a colloquial way of saying it
) to writing about fluffy kittens (if unintended) to be problematic. And just talking about the symptom while ignoring the cause seems to be missing the point to me (and therefore unlikely to result in anything constructive regarding getting better science reporting into the NYT or other mainstream newspapers or publications – as well as making your critique easy to dismiss as lacking in understanding of how newspapers work….think for a minute how frustrating it is when people do the same about science!).
The NYT fired many of their dedicated critics (meaning people who are specialists in their field) and there has been huge internal political strife going on vis a vis journalistic integrity and fact checking there for years now. McKinley’s actual area of expertize (form what I can gather) seems to be theatre not visual art (or science, or even fluffy kittens), and he seems to function as a general journalist for the NYT and is, ironically, a supporter of bloggers as journalists (though he may just have a penchant for the sensational and have been trying to put himself in the midst of any action that’s to be had when he made those posts).
Oh, technically, it’s not the journalist that publishes a story, it’s the newspaper which is owned by the publisher. The newspaper is responsible for the last level of fact checking (fact checkers also got cut at many publications) and what actually appears in their pages. Stories are assigned by editors (sometimes based on a pitch by the writer, sometimes assigned by the editor) to the writer they think the most appropriate (the editor may even have changed McKinley’s original story to conform more to what they wanted). It’s quite possible that McKinley didn’t choose to write about dowsing but was assigned the story (as a fluffy human interest piece) since he seems to be a journeyman journalist who does a bit of everything at the NYT (something harder to avoid these days for people who make their living solely as journalists, though many of his articles seem to be about actual news). None of this is a defense of McKinley – he’s still got to stand by his work, words and actions, and his taking $50 000 to a Queer Eye for Straight Guys makeover is ethically questionable and reveals a lack of integrity – it’s merely pointing out that lancing a tiny boil doesn’t cure a cancer (no matter how viscerally exciting and enjoyable it may be in the moment to pop that irritating boil). Besides, you haven’t called out and named the responsible science editor (so it’s not like they’ll care about your critique that much) and McKinley seems more interested in celebrity than integrity so making his article a big deal potentially actually gives him more attention, an army of woo supporters to rally to his defense and influence editorial even more over the NYT, and ultimately feeds his self importance by making his fluff story into a big deal.
Somehow I doubt there’s going to be a run on dowsing sticks at the local dowsing emporium by skeptics turned into believers because of a fluff piece in the NYTs (particularly one that also included a scientist saying it was bull) – I’m not being a shruggle here, just being realistic about the impact of critiquing an individual journalist for a systemic problem. Sure it should have been in the lifestyle or even real estate section – the homes of much bad science and pseudoscience, not to mention craven pandering to advertisers – not the science section. But, then, all areas of newspapers are being cut if they’re not profitable (TV newsrooms function somewhat differently but they’re under their own pressures). Trusting a newspaper or TV news to tell you unbiased truth is just naive and ignores how newspapers have always functioned and the innate bias that comes with the views and economic and political desires of the publisher (not to mention newspapers collaboration with government and industry regarding spreading propaganda or shaping public opinion). It’s one reason why having an alternative to commercial publishing can be important (such as the CBC, BBC or PBS, not that they’re free of bias or influence either, they just have different political concerns and requirements, and also offer shelter for serious journalists and news reporting at a time when it’s not generally profitable since they’re not tied to financed in the same way as privately owned media).
Also, am I the only one who finds it entertaining that the dowser’s name is Phil Stine?
Daedalus – Aesthetics in art generally have to do with formal structural and material concerns, not intuition or meaning. While some art (particularly some modern and contemporary art) is about representing subjective and/or personal experiences/realities and provoking visceral responses in the audience, other art is actually specifically dedicated to representing reality (think about medical illustrations, for one example readers here many be familiar with) or can be a quite didactic expression of an intellectual concept. The public image of artists (and that promoted in movies) is no more accurate than the public image of scientists – and because both involve lifestyles and activities that are outside of the sphere of many people’s experience and own employment, and require dedication to pursue and can appear elitist, both can be alienating to people.
Both great artists and great scientists generally combine both creative thinking with dedicated research – though there are people who are really just technicians in both fields. Just as it would be silly to claim inspiration was purely the domain of artists and that science isn’t creative, it would be silly to claim that science is the only viable way to observe and understand the world. I view science and art as highly complimentary areas of investigation of the world and the experience of being alive.
fifi, I don’t think I disagree with anything you have said. There may be the appearance of disagreement because we are not understanding each other adequately. I think my aesthetic sense of science is more related to structure and form rather than intuition or meaning. I may be using the terms in an idiosyncratic way.
I am reminded of a quote from Picasso: “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child”.
I think that relates to adults having their pattern recognition neural structures being to some extent “fixed” in a way that a child’s are not.
He had some other quotes that I think express some of the same things.
“If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes.”
“The chief enemy of creativity is “good” sense.”
The problem with having the hyperactive pattern detection neural structures that humans have is that they cause type 1 errors (false positive) and type 2 errors (false negative). I think this is what Picasso was talking about, missing things because we can’t see that they are there because we expect to see something else. That can be very difficult to overcome.
Ditto to what Sonic reports re: media report accuracy. I work in downtown Raleigh NC and was recently picked out of the passing crowd by a local TV reporter for a ‘man in the street’ type interview about my feelings on the presidential candidates. (I’ll call them Candidate A and B to prevent irrelevant partisan comments).
What I said on camera was a list of the many problems and issues I had with Candidate A, the sum of which precluded my support. The reporter said, “So, you support Candidate B?” To which I replied,”Yes, but Candidate B has some problems too.”
What made it on the air: “Candidate B has many problems.”
daedelus – Thanks for explaining, clearly I misunderstood what you meant about aesthetics vis a vis science and I appreciate you taking the time to clarify.
However, with all due respect to both yourself and Dr Novella, I do think that perhaps there’s a lack of understanding regarding both the theory and practice of art (a rather broad term, a bit like talking about “science” – despite what Dr Novella says about a “myth” regarding hard and soft science, it’s scientists themselves who perpetrate this myth and see a distinction, with the negative tone depending on which side of the academic divide they sit….to the general public it’s all just “science”). Sure most of us privilege our own activities and interests as being the most important and meaningful – which they are to us of course. However that’s just another example of basic subjective bias based in personal meaning – generally we justify this by contextualizing our own particular source of meaning as THE source of meaning that needs to be given priority in shaping the world and society so it conforms to what we personally consider meaningful. To be philosophical about it, meaning is only important to humans and is based, no matter how we rationalize it to ourselves, in emotion and subjectivity. Personally I wouldn’t want to live in a world without either art or science – a rational person uses and understands both emotion/empathy and logic, in my opinion. While I respect history and think it’s useful to know the past (as best we can according to subjective accounts of history), and I understand people’s desire for a time or context that seemed simpler, more “sure” and more comfortable (be they scientists, doctors, people into CAM or whatever), I don’t think trying to roll back time actually provides an understanding of the present – including the current communications environment, the role of visual language and visual literacy, and how this influences and shapes contemporary communication. If you can’t speak someone’s language, it’s hard to communicate
Expecting everyone to become conversant in the language of science (or to care as much as scientists) and denigrating them if they don’t understand the language or associated concepts isn’t very constructive of anything but individual egos. For instance, I don’t look down on anyone here who doesn’t “get” what I’m saying – even if I find it frustrating that erroneous assumptions are being made about practice and theory. (I do, however, start to lose respect for people who don’t understand what I’m saying but tell me I’m “wrong” none-the-less, that’s pretty illogical and reactionary! Not that I exclude myself from being illogical and irrational at times, in an inappropriate context. There are times to let go of logic and rationality, in fact all creative people do it at times whether they’re practicing science or art 
)
Devils Advocate – TV is primarily a visual medium, sound bites generally serve to support an image or idea rather than to actually explore a topic in depth. It’s also, particularly in the US, a commercial medium where the primary content to be delivered is advertising. You merely fell prey to formulaic reporting (and now understand a bit better from experience how TV functions). I’m curious, were you surprised by what you saw of your interview and how it was contextualized? What did you expect and why?
I think, like with science, there’s a fundamental misunderstanding for many people about what journalism is and what journalists are taught and do as their job (or even what is considered ethical or unethical in journalism). This creates false expectations that aren’t aligned with the historical or contemporary reality of the practice. Of course, there are people who cling to the idea that such a thing as “objective reporting” exists – what does exist is the ability to tell as many sides of the story and present as many facts (and the disputes around them) as possible, this never fits into a soundbite however (and sometimes not even a book).
Fifi, I agree that things have meaning only in the context of humans, and that meaning is necessarily subjective to those individual humans. I think there is an objective reality, which subjective humans have difficulty understanding objectively. I think that is what Science is striving for, trying to understand that objective reality objectively. Scientists, being human, can only work through their own subjective perceptions of that objective reality.
I think that many scientists get too caught up in their subjective perceptions of their own understanding of science and put too much importance and too much belief in the certainty of their ideas (compared to other people’s ideas). That doesn’t come from being a scientist; it comes from being a human.
Scientists have myths too. These are the false paradigms that scientists are working under and which they are unable to analyze because they can’t see how they might be false. I think that is what Picasso was talking about. Illusions that are so compelling that people can’t appreciate that they are illusions. I think the “hard science” “soft science” dichotomy is one of them. Homeostasis (one of my pet peeves) is another.