Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks

You’ve probably seen “scientific” stories in the newspaper about things like the “happiest day of the year.” The media is full of fluffy stories like these which are passed off as the real deal, while stories about genuine scientific inquiry hardly ever make it into the news at all. Why is this?

The media’s problem is that the vast majority of today’s scientific advances simply happen too gradually to be newsworthy. There was a time, however, when this wasn’t the case: between 1935 and 1975, groundbreaking science was being churned out constantly.

One example of this was the tools used to fight polio. Scientists discovered that polio paralyzes our muscles, thus making it impossible to breathe. To combat this, mechanical ventilation and intensive care were created, both of which saved countless lives.

However, the golden age of scientific discovery is past, and scientific advances are now piecemeal. For example, refinements in esoteric surgical methods and a better understanding of drugs contribute to a longer lifespan, but these kinds of minor changes are slow, and not really all that exciting – certainly not interesting enough for newspaper editors, who prefer to report bold, shocking headlines.

Consequently, many newspaper “science” stories are trivial, wacky and simply published to grab your attention.

For example, you might remember one whimsical essay by a political theorist on the way humans will evolve in 1,000 years’ time, which was circulated in many newspapers. These stories claimed that by the year 3000 everyone would be coffee-colored and we would have split into two separate species – one tall, intelligent and healthy, the other short, stupid and unhealthy.

These bold claims fly in the face of evolutionary theory, but did that stop the papers from publishing them? No. In fact, it was later discovered that the story was paid for by Bravo, a men’s TV channel, to celebrate its 21st year of operation. Although the story created the air of a scientific investigation, in reality it was merely a publicity stunt.