Science Crossfire

By Liam Scheff
Salvo Magazine – Summer 2006

Here are three ideas that you will never see debated by the major media:

• Was a bird-flu pandemic ever really likely?
• Is AIDS in fact a sexually transmitted disease?
• Does current evolutionary theory truly explain the diversity of life on earth?

Each of these widely-promoted beliefs is contradicted by more competing evidence than you can shake a stick at (from wide and varied sources), but you’ll never hear about it from the major outlets for science news – the New York Times, PBS, NPR, the BBC, or CNN – because the media simply doesn’t question the received scientific wisdom.

Because the major media doesn’t do science journalism the way it reports news.

When watch the news, we expect to hear crossfire and flak. We’re not flustered by divergent takes on policy. We feel that government business should be aired and battled over in the public sphere. We expect policy-makers and government officials to regularly submit to hard questions from the press, and to take the hot seat on the news shows.