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3/22/17
Analytical Essay Option 1
Analytical Essay: Misleading Science. A Public Policy Solution?
Introduction
During the unit on scientific research, we learned a great deal, about how scientific things
are translated into our public discourse. Through observations in scientific magazines and critical
reading during this unit it has become clear to me that scientific research has tried to meet public
interest and news halfway and the same respect has not been observed which has led to unclear
and unstainable reporting of science. Our critical readings authors do not offer a solution to the
problem rather they talk around the issues, which I will, discussed throughout this essay while
also introducing my own solution to this problem since our authors did not. I propose
considering public policy that would make it illegal to alter or mislead citizens when translating
for us to discover and advance our society. However, for a long time now scientific research has
conform to the norms of our conventional public discourse rather than being allowed to be
discussed in its own vacuum with its own set of rules that are norm for this discipline. Von Burg
says, that this is due to the inability and, in case of some politicians, unwillingness for non-
scientific to engage science experts reveals not only a lack of understanding about science, but a
disenfranchisement with the scientific process and its practitioners (Burg). Jeanne Fahnestock
tries to illustrate this point in her book called Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of
Scientific Facts and within this journal article Fahnestock presents readers with several examples
of Scientific research being translated incorrectly once it enters the news outlets. One of
T. hypogea [the bee species under consideration], and pollen transporting structures have
species that cannot carry pollen. (Vulture Bees, 1982, p.6) (Fahnestock)
In the example above Science82 is a scientific magazine that tried to translate this bee research
so that it can be more understanble to the lament readers. In this translation, Science 82 implies
that Bees have teeth, which never is stated in the original research. In addition, the Science82
translation implies that this is the only species of Bee that cannot collect pollen, which is a pretty
big deal in the scientific community because this would assume that the scientist has identified
all species of bees in the world/universe and tested them for their ability to carry pollen. Another
example of Fahnestocks observation can see a little further down in her article when she is
comparing original content and accommodated versions. In the accommodated version the
words appear and suggests have vanished (Fahnestock). By eliminating words like appears and
suggest implies complete certainty and we all know that science does not operate in complete
certainty. As a reader and a constant consumer of knowledge it has become apparent to me that
scientific research has toxically been accommodated and has become intentionally misleading.
Other articles like Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts help make
this problem clear it does little to help provide solution to how we can help solve or alleviate this
problem also Fahnestock ignores looking at innovative solutions like public policy or ethical
discourse our authors do not present information on how to reform or alter the behavior that has
led to misleading accommodations of scientific research. For example Jimmie Killingsworth and
Jacqueline Palmer presents a plethora of examples that give readers an insight into the dynamics
of scientific research and public discourse in Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America but
fail to offer any solution about how to solve the issue. Even the Fahnestock piece offers very
little in terms of solutions to combat the misleading of scientific research in public discourse.
This presents a real ethical question for me because I think it is a little wrong to present an issue
and not talk about solving it. This situation reminds me of a situation that I saw on a commercial
where someone was robbing the bank and the security guard is watching it happened and says I
am only a safety monitor can only report if a robbery is happening I cant do anything to stop this
robbery from happening. Fahnestock, Killingsworth and Palmer are scholars they are tasked with
coming up with solutions to problems like the one presented above. There solutions do not have
to be correct or popular in the scientific or public discourse communities but I think it raise some
ethical questions that they neglected to discussion solutions at all. What is even more surprising
to me is that their work contains enough information to come up with possible solutions to these
issues. I could create my solution using their work. For Example, Killingworth and Palmers work
helped me understand how we can go about solving these issues, which they did not explore. I
would propose that a public policy solution to tacking this issues. More specifically, I would
recommend the Federal Government agency the National Science Foundation to lobby congress
to implement a ban on the intentional misleading of scientific research on the media and other
spheres where scientific research is shared and discussed. I know this seems drastic and
unforgeable because it may be hard to determine intensions, but Killingsworth and Palmer article
opens the door on how we can establish a definition of intentional misleading of scientific
information. Killingworth and Palmer talk at length about something they call human interest.
Human interest is the leading factor in determining what scientific activates will be covered as
big stories (Killingsworth and Palmer). They make the argument that, The emphasis on human
interest carries the journalist out of the field of natural science and into the action-oriented fields
of social movements and politics (Killingsworth and Palmer). They go on to say, the striving
for the dramatic and even the sensational slant on the facts implicit in the demand for news
causes the genre to shade into the field of poetic or mythic utterance (Killingsworth and
Palmer). Killingworth and Palmer provide a good picture of how human interest can influence
scientific research. I also believe that this could be the key in enforcing my public policy
proposal to eliminate the intentional misleading of scientific data. Determining human interest is
something that can be traced through meetings and depositions of individuals thought process of
individuals and seeing if human interest was a reason for presenting misleading scientific
research. This policy proposal would severely limit public discourse surrounding scientific
research, which is probably why the authors mentioned earlier did not propose such action. But I
would counter that point by saying does science need public discourse. All of the authors
mention feel somewhat hesitant of public discourse around science but none recommend
eliminating public discourse around science. Scientific research is about observations, numbers
and facts they do not need to be discoursed through media they only require discussion within
the community. The publics opinion of research is obsolete at best because science does not
exist in the terms of opinion rather it exists in the terms of facts. I find it puzzling that our critical
authors do not touch on solutions of such a huge problem that impact the scientific community.
In closing scientific research is at a crossroad. We have the resources provided by
our critical authors to come up with a solution to this horrible situation. However, we will not see
changes to this problem until authors like Killingsworth, Palmer, and other start to not only