When reporting on science, the fair and balanced thing to do is to give both sides of the argument an equal opportunity to put forward their point of view, right?
Not always. Take, for example, the 97% of scientists who agree that climate change is both real, and caused by humans (Bray, 2010). Given this overwhelming scientific consensus it would be a strange kind of "balance" to give the views of the 3% who disagree equal weight. Unfortunately this does happen far more often than it should.
There is a tendency to apply this brand of balance to other issues of broad scientific agreement, such as immunisation. Petousis-Harris, Goodyear-Smith, Kameshwar & Turner (2010) suggests that this tactic is used by journalists to excuse them from the more difficult task of evaluating whether the viewpoints presented are based on fact or fallacy. The unfortunate side effect, however, is that dubious viewpoints presented as "balancing" arguments are thus granted undue credibility.
So remember, next time you're reading about science in the media, firstly to apply your critical faculties to all viewpoints, but to be especially wary of the fringe viewpoints provided for the sake of "balance". Equal airtime does not mean equal credibility!
References
Bray, D. (2010). The scientific consensus of climate change revisited. Environmental Science & Policy, 13(5), 340–350.
Petousis-Harris, H. A., Goodyear-Smith, F. A., Kameshwar, K & Turner, N. (2010). Fact or fallacy: Immunisation arguments in the New Zealand print media. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 34(5), 521–526.
Very well put. I guess there is a difference between 'fair' and 'balanced'. It's important to be fair in scientific writing i.e. providing all important points or facts that each side could use to fairly argue their position. However, as you said, many arguments will not be equal; the arguing statements from one side are likely to outweigh those from the other. 97% vs. 3% (for example) is far from balanced, but this is not to say that the argument from any side was presented unfairly.
ReplyDeleteYou raise good points,a fair balance versus a proportionately one sided balance. If 50/50 was the balance point for the "pros" and "cons" of a debate,it would place further difficulty in one's mind about which side to take.I feel if in this case one is 97% versus 3%,it is relatively easy to follow the "crowd" and move with the larger proportion and it's depth of argument.
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