Some quick, scattered thoughts will follow... I was just reading Daniel Macarthur's
typcially excellent post on a new "friend genes" study that's making the headlines. It's a superb analysis of the type that science blogs excel at providing.
But one thing irked me, and it's something that I've seen a lot in similar posts (so apologies to Daniel for singling this out; it's just a case study for a wider phenomenon). He writes, "Altshuler’s skeptical view of the paper was fairly widely shared by colleagues I discussed this with yesterday", and "The buzz amongst the genomics community on Twitter was generally similarly negative" and "Some researchers I spoke to also had specific concerns about the methods".
I saw similar things in the wake of last year's arsenic saga. They unsettled me then and I think I've just worked out why. The problem with these phrases is that they're not particularly transparent. When professional journalists interview people for comments on a paper, they're mean to state who said what. Quotes and viewpoints are attributed to specific people, or to the journalist themselves. That's important because as a reader, I can find out more about who's providing their opinion, and I know how
many people share that opinion.
But I can't tell that from phrases like "some researchers I spoke to" or "the genomics community". For all I know, every geneticist in the world slagged off the paper. Maybe a dozen of them did. Maybe just two didn't like it. The point is that I don't know how much weight to place upon the subsequent analysis.
Of course, it's completely understandable why this happens. Scientist bloggers are in a privileged position - they have scores of potential sources to consult, many of whom will work next door. Most of such conversations aren't recorded, and many people won't want to be quoted. So the blogger, reporting from memory, writes about what they remember while leaving out specific names.
Still, I do think that we should perhaps aim to live up to better standards. I'm not even necessarily talking about journalistic standards (not expecting all bloggers to be journalists here), but about issues of transparency. After all,
we ask people to link to primary sources, and to
back up statements in opinion pieces with links. If we're calling for that, surely we should also try to make our sources clearer?
Thoughts? This is a gut reaction so I'd be interested to know if people think I'm right or being too nitpicky.
