Via Chris Brook and Anthony Cox, I find that Melanie Philips took the same combination of ignorance of science and utter certainty that the scientists are wrong that she used to "prove" that global warming was a scam and conducted a grossly irresponsible scare campaign against vaccination. On this issue, for once, Tech Central Station is on the side of the angels, with several articles debunking the scare.\* My favourite one is by Iain Murray, who writes:
[A Cardiff University report] examined the public's understanding of the issues surrounding the MMR vaccine, which has been alleged to be linked with a rise in autism diagnoses among children. In the month after the story broke in January 2002 there were over 300 media reports on the issue, a classic example of a media feeding frenzy over a scientific issue. Over two-thirds of these stories mentioned the supposed link between the shot and the illness. As a result, 53 percent of the British public interviewed at the height of the coverage agreed with the suggestion that, as there was equal media coverage of the two sides of the debate, there must be equal evidence to support each case.
This is far from the truth. Study after study has been unable to find any significant or causal link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Scientists are therefore virtually unanimous that there is no cause to worry about the shot harming children in this way. The study found, however, that almost half of television reports and over two-thirds of "quality" newspaper stories failed to mention this important fact.
It is, of course, generally a good rule in journalism that when one view is stated, the opposite view should be given time or space to balance the coverage. Yet in this scientific case, as the study's authors say, "Attempts to balance claim about the risks of the MMR jab tended merely to indicate that there were two competing bodies of evidence." By attempting to meet one journalistic standard in giving a balanced picture, the journalists failed to meet other standards about giving the proper context to the claims.
Absolutely right. The same problem occurs in reporting of global warming where balanced reporting obscures the scientific consensus on global warming. Of course this is Iain Murray writing in Tech Central Station, so he then proceeds to tie himself in knots arguing that the consensus on global warming is different, eventually inventing a distinction between a "theoretical consensus" that reporters should ignore and a "scientific consensus" that reporters should inform their readers about:
So, in the case of MMR, journalists gave equal time when they should have pointed out the general scientific agreement. In the case of climate change, the journalists are pointing out scientific agreement when they should be giving equal time. It is the public who is suffering in both cases.
You can't make this stuff up.
\* OK, I know what you are thinking---Tech Central Station is funded by pharmaceutical companies.
Obviously it all boils down to simply and consistently applying the objective "Scientific Consensus I Like vs Scientific Consensus I Don't Like" rule.
Isn't that the rule that ideologues of both sides use?
Yes, Orac, but the mainstream right uses it also.
The difference between 'theoretical consensus' and 'scientific consensus' appears to be that, in the latter case, the scientists agree completely (ie that the vaccines are safe), whereas with climate change the scientists agree completely on some things (ie CO2 is affecting climate and will continue to do so), but not completely (ie model predictions differ).
So, if a man dies, and two medical examiners disagree about the cause of death, does that mean that the media should treat reports of his demise with due skepticism bc of the lack of a 'scientific consensus'? Sounds that way to me.
People ought to be pleased with all the recent evidence suggesting that even the lowliest Bushite babblers do get "nuance" - when there's something in it for them!
As well as the excellent example set by Iain Murray above, just how much more "nuance" could you bear from fools explaining the virtues of torture, for instance?