Cheerleading with an agenda: how the press covers science | Hacker News Reader

Cheerleading with an agenda: how the press covers science

3ammagazine.com

39 pointsvvdcect10 comments

This reflects my experience in academia so much better than my rants over beers and BBQ ever have.

I had no idea, but should have suspected, that Bernays was behind it all.

Thanks for this post. The description of the attempt to treat scientific knowledge as a commodity reminds me of a quote I like by Dr. Ray Peat:

"Knowledge isn't a commodity, especially not a fungible commodity, as the medical business sees it. Consciousness and culture are part of the life process. It is exactly the commoditization of medical knowledge that makes it dangerous, and generally stupid. Doctors buy their knowledge and then resell it over and over; it's valuable as a commodity, so its value has to be protected by the equivalent of a copyright, the system of laws establishing the profession. Without its special status, its worthlessness would be quickly demonsrated..." -- Ray Peat, PhD.

I'm inclined to agree with the article, but it's a bit of a ramble. I wish it explored what motivates of journalists to become cheerleeders. I can take guesses, but those guesses are just speculation:

guess 1: Publishers want to cultivate relations with big institutions that are the sources of their stories.

guess 2: Individual journalists enjoy the prestige of being associated with big-name institutes.

Are either of the above correct? Are there other possibilities.

#1 reminds me a bit of what my uncle has said of his radio advertising work. Where he works far harder than needed for the first couple of runs, so that in the future similar work with the client is just a simple phone call(in either direction depending).

A two salaried people working at different companies love setting up such working relationships. Especially when a lot of public facing jobs can earn large bonuses, or at least be at home with work almost writing itself.

Weird article. Author seems less concerned that academics and journalists may have an agenda and more that it's the wrong agenda.

In 1894, science fiction writer, journalist and eugenics proponent H.G. Wells, ...

Mention of eugenics contributed nothing to the article, other than to create an emotional atmosphere.

"Cheerleading with an agenda" pretty meta if i may say so.

I think the point was that the eugenics movement was one of the early examples of overenthusiastic technocratic cheerleading. Eugenics was all the rage among intellectuals and science enthusiasts at the time.

The subsequent dig was weird too:

>If the public didn’t care about science, then there would not only be “the danger of supplies being cut off,” but also the danger of the public endorsing inquiries “of doubtful value” (ironic, given Wells’ enthusiasm for eugenics).

Eugenics is a legitimate scientific inquiry. The real irony is that this author's distaste for eugenics is likely an example of "supplies being cut off" from the field due to emotional, not scientific, reasons.

Science can be wrong, and should be able to reverse its stance with nothing lost but funds and time. Eugenics is a field of finality, beeing wrong there is final. Thus eugenics is not a science. You can not undo, the damage you do.

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