Why We Need Science Writers

 

Science and technology are essential to almost every aspect of modern society, yet technology, and the scientific principles on which it operates, might as well be magic to a large portion of the population. Science articles can be just an essential contributor to understand of the modern world as understanding developing stories in Washington or the Middle East; yet, science reporting frequently is effected by journalists with minimal background in the fields on which they are reporting, and with no editorial review by experts, much less an accomplished science journalist or editor.

Given how essential good science reporting is, combined with how ignorant most of the population is with regard to scientific facts (including otherwise educated people, like journalists), it is a travesty that major news sources leave science reporting in the hands of journalists that are neither competent to report on the subject nor to explain complicated scientific discoveries, in context with the current body of scientific knowledge, to the general public.

Take this recent example from Fox News's website.

Red giant stars are thought to have short, complicated and violent lifespans. Lasting at most a few million years, they quickly burn out their hydrogen fuel and then switch to helium, carbon and other elements in a series of partial collapses, refuelings and restarts.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525695,00.html [accessed: 07JULY2009]

Red giants are a phase of stellar evolution after the star has moved off the main sequence (id est, exhausted the hydrogen in its core). This article almost implies that Betelgeuse was always a red giant and that it was a red giant before it "burn[t] out [its] hydrogen fuel." Furthermore, the elements that a giant will "burn" depends on its mass. While larger stars may burn "carbon and other elements," less massive stars like the sun will not. While this may seem a minor point of contention with the Fox article, anyone familiar with the evolution of stars would have rewritten this in a more accurate and less confusing manner and given a proper explanation of what a red giant is. Perhaps something such as:

Betelgeuse long ago left the main sequence, or normal hydrogen burning phase of its (existence), and began the giant phase of its existence, which, in the case of a less massive star such as the sun will result in a white dwarf, and in the case of a more massive star such as Betelgeuse, will result in a core-collapse supernova, which is a spectacular explosion which occurs at the end of the fusion life of a large star, leaving either a neutron star or a black hole.