A recent hot topic that has caught people’s attention within the past few years has been global warming. As Chris Mooney talks about in his article “On issues like global warming and evolution, scientists need to speak up”, scientists seem to take a stance on the back burners instead of getting to the heart of the matter for these two heated debates.

One major blow that scientists recently received was back in November when e-mails and other documents were stolen from the Climatic Research Unit of Britain’s University of East Anglia. Mooney is not necessarily saying that the documents themselves were the issue that hindered scientists’ credibility, but the fact that these scientists were found to be restraining opposing views, hiding certain information, skewing data and more did. More specifically, Mooney is calling attention to the lack of ability that scientists lack when trying to share what information they have or protect their side of the discussion when opposing views arise. It is almost as though scientists fear “[facing] the media”.

Neal Lane, a former Clinton administration science adviser and Rice University physicist, claims that the role of a scientist is to conduct the research and to leave the explanation and analysis of those findings to the science journalists. The problem is, new researchers use language that is mainly understood by other research scientists and not necessarily by the media, or any other non-science-oriented reader for that matter, in order to convey these findings to the public. In fact, Mooney argues that “many of them don’t trust the public or the press”. For this, scientists feel as though they must beat down the competition’s opposing views in order to have any chance of getting their point of view out to the public. Unfortunately, by attacking one another, it ends up that neither side is able to report what valuable information they had found.

The same concept goes with the battle between creation and evolution. More time is spent on the battle itself rather than reaching out to the public and sharing what theories that these scientists have come up with. If the focus would change to include more media coverage, it would help people to make their own decisions based upon the information that will be available to them.

The media are a way for corporate companies, the government, and even scientists to establish their ideology on the matter of global warming, creation or evolution, or any other topic deemed important enough. The media are incredibly influential to the public, but if not given the right information to spread, different mediums can go looking for that information and spread the type that they find important with any twist that they want on it to spread whichever side of the story they think will bring in the most revenue.

It is not necessarily true that the media will tell us what to think, but more importantly they will tell us what to think about. For as long as the media deems appropriate, they will cover stories about how real and true the global warming theories have been or have not been. This leaves the job of the scientists to bring out all the information that they have, not to skew it or to hide opposing information. Science is suppose to be objective, the public needs to be able to trust them to remain objective and to give them the facts so that we have a chance to interpret accurate information for ourselves and not simply eat any story that the government or any other influential power can dish out.

The reason why the finding of the stolen documents from the Climatic Research Unit of Britain’s University of East Anglia was so detrimental to scientists was that it answered a lot of questions that people should be aware of when dealing with ideological ideas. For example, “Whose idea is not being represented? Who are the experts and what do they know? Are complex ideas being oversimplified into a 2-sided argument? What is being emphasized or de-emphasized?” The italicized words are crucial to this topic. All this hidden information has hindered the scientists’ credibility of being trustworthy and truthful because the public now becomes wary of all new information being released. New questions arise, “What else are they covering up? Why are they giving this information out now – what are they trying to save from this situation? How do I know I can trust them this time?”

One important question still remains: How can scientists have a more positive outlook on the media in order to share what information they have found? If the scientists can trust that the different mediums can get the story straight without twisting or bending the information, then the public has a better chance of getting that accurate information and deciding whose ideology they wish to believe. The struggle for hegemony must stop between the scientists themselves if there is to be any hope for an improvement in the distribution of their information.

~Kimberly

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