Daily Mail Science

I just received my weekly A Worm's Eye View, the editorial which comes with The Guardian's news round-up service. I may disagree with the author, Andrew Brown, on several issues (specifically he doesn't think Linux is any good, but at least he uses OO.o), but he is often right on the mark.

Guardian readers can have little idea how dreadful the general coverage of science stories is in the British press. All distinction vanishes between chemists, social scientists, particle physicists, snail taxonomists, people who chop the heads of little chickens with giant scissors - they're all "scientists".

All 'scientists' have one task. The Daily Mail subscribes to a radically simplified version of the atomic theory and everyone else tries to follow. According to this theory everything in the world is made from two kinds of basic substance: those that cure cancer, and those that cause it. The job of a scientist is to go through the world classifying everything into one category or the other. Every time something is identified as made of one sort of atom or the other, we have a story, preferably a scandal.

NP: Cafe Del Mar Volume 1

15:25 Monday, 28 Feb 2005 [#] [life] (7 comments)

Posted by Jeff Mizener at Mon Feb 28 19:49:35 2005:
This way of looking at the world is not limited to the editorial staff at the Daily Mail.  It is also quite prevalent on our side of the pond (USA) as well.  However, our press adds an additional category: That Which Makes You Fat.  I think there is some overlap between the categories.  And of course the vast majority of scientists, esp. those working for the pharmaceutical industry, are Evil.
YrObtSvt,
jeff (jm at home in texas dot net)
Posted by AdamW at Mon Feb 28 22:10:50 2005:
I think you forgot another category, too - things that cause autism. Otherwise, bang on. :)
Posted by jettie@ccvna.com at Wed Mar 30 16:30:59 2005:
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Posted by linnea@repo-gmbh.de at Sat Apr 2 16:08:12 2005:
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Posted by justa@edina.ac.uk at Sat Apr 2 16:09:52 2005:
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Posted by georgann@mitob.com.br at Fri Apr 15 03:05:18 2005:
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Posted by rigoberto@serkis.com at Fri Apr 15 03:05:56 2005:
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