Scelidosaurus harrisonii: A Reprise

The Bristol Museum Scelidosaurus Harissoni specimen, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

After posting my Scelidosaurus Harrisonii post and submitting it to the Science 3.0 blogging contest last month, a friend of mine asked me an interesting, indeed fascinating question about it, which I asked him to cross-post to the blog comments section:

Hi Ben, is there a possability that the Stellare specimen/s are derived? Just thinking about the “disarticulated, poorly preserved and pretty beat up dinosaur” comment.

But what does he mean when he asked if the Stellare specimen is derived?

Well now; there’s a story…

Palaeontology by its very nature is a race against time, a race against the slow, steady destruction of fossil remains by a heady mixture of time, ice, wind, rain and biological influences. Commonly any fossils you find will have already been eroded or weathered from their dark, rocky tombs. This is why for example the Fossil Collecting Code of my adoptive home (Lyme Regis, on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset) is so very lax and geared towards and in favour of the fossil collectors.

The thing is though, luckily for the fossils – and to the chagrin of many geologists and palaeontologists – they aren’t necessarily destroyed by the elements once they have been relieved of their incarceration. Geological processes roll on, regardless of human desires for an easily understood tree of life.

Some fossils are lucky… very lucky. They not only get eroded out of the rocks in which they are fossilised, they survive the elements for long enough that they are re-deposited in sediments (a process called re-working). As a result you have a fossil that can be found (many millions of years later) in rocks which in turn are from many millions of years after the original death of the animal.

…So how do we know that the new scelidosaur remains are not reworked, and are indeed a true indication of an extended range for the creature?

Firstly and perhaps most obviously. The specimen in question, while somewhat more disarticulated than the existing specimens, is still being eroded out of the cliffs in a very specific location, and the remains appear to be fairly complete. If the animal had been re-worked, there are two predictions for what we would find. The first expectation would be that the remains would be wantonly scattered by the erosive processes that would transport them after they are denuded (eroded or weathered) from their original location. The second being that the fossil would be very incomplete, perhaps only represented by a few small bones or even fragments. This is especially true for vertebrate fossils consisting of many parts.

Mass movement classifications - image courtesy of the USGS (click for big)

There are two erosive processes (that come to mind as I’m writing) which might allow for a whole vertebrate fossil to remain intact and still be re-worked. The first of these being glacial erosion, transport and deposition of the fossil within a Glacial Erratic – a rock carried by a glacier from one place to another, occasionally including rocks up to the size of a house. The second possible process being Mass Transport – landslips, slides and debris flows. There is however no evidence of either process having occurred to the stellare specimen.

Secondly, we might expect  that re-worked fossils to be affected by taphonomic – after death – processes such as encrustation by marine creatures. Especially if the bones had remained on the seafloor for a long time between erosion and burial. Modern worms encrust anything that is lies on the sea-floor for any length of time, including fossils from the Oxford Clay which are being eroded out offshore of Portland in Dorset so it is fair to assume this would also happen in the past. However anyone who knows the rocks around Lyme will know that the sea-floor is widely accepted to have been anoxic throughout the deposition of the Blue Lias, perhaps including some of the lowermost water column. This would mean that the organisms that would encrust the fossils would not have survived, so this perhaps is a moot point.

The final point to note regarding the possibility of the Stellare Scelidosaur being re-worked is that we see no other re-worked fossils within the stellare bed, or anywhere within the Blue Lias to my knowledge. Why is this a problem? simply because many of the bones of the Scelidosaur are more fragile than many bones from other fossilised creatures, including invertebrates, so we would expect to see at least some other fossil remains being re-worked. One single dinosaur (a rare fossil in and of itself) re-worked within an entire marine deposit is hugely improbable.

In closing it would seem that on balance, it is extremely unlikely (if not impossible) for the Stellare Scelidosaur to be a re-worked specimen.

I hope this answers your question Simon!

Ben Brooks

16/08/2011

Short-link for this post: http://wp.me/pFUij-bz

Thanks to Mr Chris Andrew of Lyme Regis Museum and “The Fossil Workshop” for advice in compiling this post.

Scelidosaurus harrisonii: a tale of mass death and discovery

Artist's illustration of three Microraptors resting in a tree.

Dinosaurs are awesome, the very nature of the name Dinosauria is pretty badass, even for the realms of Linnaean classification, after all the name means “terrible lizards”. Though now we have finds of such unnerving cuteness as Microraptor gui (right), the name may be a little silly. That however is another blog-post altogether, so I’ll leave it for another day.

My love of ancient life and palaeonotology was sparked off by dinosaurs, and like a true geek I still have all the old VHS tapes (yes… I remember VHS) that set me off on my way to where I am today, including one entitled “Dinosaurs: Fun Fact and Fantasy” which I was amazed to find the whole programme floating about on YouTube, so here you go… a little dinosaur quiz for you with the show’s puppet-crocodilian host; Dill…

Anywho, childhood memories aside, I now live in Lyme Regis. This small Dorset town is famous for many things, John Fowles’ ‘French Lieutenant’s Woman’, and thanks to the film adaptation also the town’s iconic Cobb Harbour being just two of them.

The town is far more famous however for its fossil material, indeed I’ve mentioned it before on this blog. Mary Anning and her contemporaries supplied many of the first scientifically recorded and described examples of marine reptiles like Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs. The town even boasts a Dinosaur, Scelidosaurus harrisonii, which was first discovered by a local quarryman – James Harrison of Charmouth – in the cliffs of Black Ven in 1858 and was named and described by Professor Richard Owen of the British Museum (Natural History Dept.) in 1863.

What’s really interesting about the animal is that since that time only nine specimens had ever been discovered eroding out of the cliffs near Lyme Regis, and they tell us an awful lot about the area.

Stratigraphic Log of the Black Ven Marls, Courtesy of Dr Ian West, Uni of Southampton (Emeritus) (click to enlarge)

These nine fossil animals are all found within one particular horizon within the Black Ven marls, this being a layer of “topstones” or hard limestone blocks within the marl sequence, though as they’re found already eroded from the cliff (usually on the beach in their own blocks) no one’s particularly sure which of the two topstone bands the dinosaurs come from. Equally the Scelidosaurs are all found within a very short stretch of the beach, always at Black Ven, never anywhere else, even though the same rocks crop out in Yorkshire, some 280 miles away in Northern England.

This does tell us some interesting things though, firstly it tells us exactly when these dinosaurs lived (something I’ll come back to later), but secondly it tells us that land was very close by at this time in the distant past. Why does it tell us this? Well these dinosaurs are land animals, they did not venture into the sea, and certainly would not have done so as a group, so they had to have died before they came to be out at sea. The suggestion being that a herd of S. Harrisonii were crossing a river on land and were swept away. Possibly by a flash flood, or possibly in the same manner as many wildebeest die when their huge herds cross African rivers, by being crushed, jostled under the waterline, and drowning.

OK, so we know that the dinosaurs came from a nearby land-mass, and we know (from the fact that they are all from the same horizon, and closely spaced) that they were probably from the same herd, but how close is that land-mass? Well again we can assume it was very close, maybe as little as a couple of miles. Why? If we assume the postulated herd-drowning hypothesis is correct, then the unfortunate creatures are swept out to sea. If they had “bloated and floated” as the local fossil collectors call it, then the tides and currents would have swept them far and wide. Instead these animals sank to the sea floor rapidly and were not scattered so we know that the land-mass from which they came is very close to the spot where they are found today.

Fossil Scorpion fly wing found in Lyme Bay with modern equivalent. courtesy of Lyme Regis Museum, (c) Chris Andrew

What other evidence is there to support this? Well for a start in the rocks of black ven and in the ‘stonebarrow topstones’ we also find a lot of fossil insects, by no means as many as we do ammonites, but enough to demonstrate the proximity of land. Insects aren’t something you find in the middle of the ocean, even today, even blown out to sea by storms they don’t get far from land, so finding dead and fossilised beetles and dragonflies in the stonebarrow topstones helps add weight to our land proximity hypothesis.

Supporting the herd hypothesis is not so hard either, of the nine specimens found, many of them are near complete specimens, and of the nine, one has small horns above the eyes, while the other eight do not. There are two possible explanations for this. Firstly the one with the horns could be better preserved than the eight without, but a second possibility is that the one with the horns is exhibiting sexual dimorphism, and that the horns are some form of display or ‘rutting’ characteristic, suggesting this individual is a male of the species. Perhaps even an alpha male leading his herd to an unfortunate doom? What a nice image, if slightly sad and morbid…

Now I’ve got to admit to something here… I’ve not been wholly truthful with you. There are actually 10 specimens of Scelidosaurus harrisonii from the area around Lyme Regis… Why didn’t I mention the tenth specimen? Well basically because this individual isn’t found with the other nine. In fact this individual may be far more important that just finding another member of the herd; the reason being that this one isn’t found in either of the topstone bands, oh no. This one is found in the Stellare Bed (bed number 88f according to Lang), about one metre above the topstone beds, and therefore many many years after our unfortunate herd found its way into the ocean.

This is important because up until this tenth specimen started eroding out last year, S. harrisonii was known only from the first nine specimens at an age of 195 million years, so this one disarticulated, poorly preserved and pretty beat up dinosaur extends the range of the scelidosaur lineage.

Why do I mention it here… because while I only found this out a few days ago, I also found out that my first dinosaur bone (a partial scelidosaur vertebra I found last year) came from this animal… which considering I was pretty psyched to have found a dinosaur bone in the first place, then even more psyched to know it was from a S. Harrisonii… you can probably guess as to how freakin’ amazing I found this new information!

My Scelidosaurus Vertebra photographed for posterity before donation to Paddy Howe of Lyme Regis Museum

Sadly (from a personal perspective) I donated the bone to Lyme Regis Musuem’s geologist Paddy Howe because it was “scientifically important”… now I understand why!

Ben Brooks

31/07/2011

Addendum: There are rumours that one of the original nine scelidosaurs may also have come from a layer other than the Stonebarrow Topstones… this I shall investigate…

There are also rumours that scelidosaurus scutes have been found in Arizona (hardened plates that lie beneath the skin)… though this is still disputed.

REFERENCES/RESOURCES/ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Website of Dr Ian M. West: http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/Lyme-Regis-to-Charmouth.htm

Wikipedia | Scelidosaurus, Microraptor

Bed numbers originally found in: Lang, W.D. and Spath, L.F. 1926. The Black Marl of Black Ven and Stonebarrow, in the Lias of the Dorset Coast. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, 82, 144-187, pls. 8-11

Thanks to Mssrs. Paddy Howe and Chris Andrew for some facts and photographs respectively

Southampton Social Media Surgery (02/07/2011)

Have you heard of a “Social Media Surgery”?

No..? Well… nor had I until a friend and colleague of mine from Southampton University Students’ Union mentioned that she was planning one a few weeks ago…

Talking to @grdbarker about running 1st social media surgery in S'ton. Keen to attract surgeons. Any offers? #sotonsms socialmediasurgery.com—
Jaki Booth (@parboo) June 14, 2011

…Now she’s got it all organised, and it’s going to be happenning between 2pm and 4pm on Saturday the 2nd of July in the Shooting Star public house on Bevois Valley Road.

Now that I know all about it, I think these Social Media Surgeries are a fantastic idea, after all how many of us have helped a friend get their head around Facebook, or in more recent years Twitter? Now there’s a way to do that for the greater good, by helping local individuals, charities, organisations and volunteer groups get online.

The amount of net awesomeness that a charity or volunteer group can engage in once they are on the social media bandwagon is huge! Just imagine the conversations that can be had, the collaboration between groups, the extra awareness of fundraising or other activities… the list isn’t endless, but it’s pretty long.

Anywho, Southampton SMS is looking for “surgeons” to help people get online, and also of course they’re looking for anyone who wants to get online or any groups that are interested in getting online, so spread the word, and link people to the website. You’ll also find help organising your own if you are not from the southampton area.

If you want to follow what’s happenning with the planning of the event, it’s Twitter hashtag is #SotonSMS. And if you’re thinking about coming along to see what this “Social Media” malarky is all about, or you’re coming along to help out, I look forward to meeting you on the day!

Ben D Brooks

24/06/2011

An honour and a pleasure… but credit belongs elsewhere.

On wednesday I was accorded a great honour by Southampton University Students’ Union by being awarded an Excellence in Volunteering Award in the category of “commitment to volunteering” for the work I have done over the past four years as a student representative.

Walking down that aisle on wednesday amongst 200 fellow volunteers, many of whom I knew personally, and many more who I do not, was one of the most emotional experiences I have ever had and nearly brought me to tears. It was made all the more poignant by the fact that this is my last year at Southampton University and that the nominations for the awards came from individuals within the student body, though I still don’t know who nominated me… and I’m not sure I want to.

Some 31 EVAs and Highly Commended awards were presented at wednesday’s event, along with 15 Honourary Life Memberships, and this year there were over 150 groups and individuals nominated in the seven categories.

Anyone who knows me well or happens to follow me on Twitter will know that I did not really think I would be awarded in this way, especially given that I was awarded last year for innovation in student representation. Furthermore I did not consider myself deserving of a nomination this year, let alone the honour of an award. This is because the work I have put in to representing students over my four years at Southampton has only been what I would have expected of anyone who takes on the task. Indeed I have not been as effective over the last year as I should like to have been because of other academic (and indeed non-academic) committments.

So many of the awarded students and groups on wednesday made the point that volunteering at the University of Southampton and SUSU is easy to do, in no small measure because of how much fun it is to work alongside the other students. I would add to this that the support and encouragement of the sabbatical officers, administrative and academic staff is both an invaluable and irreplaceable resource that the students of Southampton University should be so very grateful for. I think every volunteer at southampton would agree.

As I said last year and in my impromptu (and mildly embarrassing) acceptance speech on wednesday night: The real people who should be receiving recognition – at least in academic representation – are the Course Representatives, the people “on the ground” who have to deal with students’ concerns, the intricacies of admin and the whims of academic staff head on every day. It was wonderful to see a course rep receive a highly commended award this year. because these students take time out of their studies to volunteer, perhaps only for one year, more often for three or four, for little or no thanks from among the students that they represent and regularly at the expense of their free time and energy.

To all the volunteers and groups who were not nominated for EVA’s, and indeed to all those who were, the students at Southampton owe you all an immense debt of gratitude. It is a shame that in many cases the students are unaware of what you do, and in some cases it is even more of a shame that it has to remain so (for example all those who work the NightLine service). I hope you all know how much your work is – and how much you are – appreciated.

Ben Brooks
06/05/2011 – just noticed it’s exactly a year since my last EVA post… to the day…

Observations on Teaching Observation

I’m about three months from finishing my degree at the University of Southampton (my my how four years has just flown by) and I now have to start thinking about what on earth I’m going to do after graduating with my degree in hand. One of the many options I’ve been exploring is going into teaching, specifically I am considering teaching in Further Education Colleges (AS & A Levels in the UK or upper High School in the US?).

Interestingly; in the UK so far as I can ascertain there is no requirement to have QTS (qualified teacher status) before starting work in a FE College though you have to get it within 2 years of starting. However; through discussions about the options it is fairly obvious that having a PGCE in secondary education would be far more beneficial than the PGCE in Post-Compulsory Education, especially with as restricted a job market as we are experiencing at the moment.

>30m Diameter blowout in the Psammosere Succession in Studland Bay, where the school took it's year 10 pupils on a field trip.

In response to this and the requirements of some universities offering secondary PGCE courses, I have just undertaken a week of teaching observation in my old school. This was thoroughly enjoyable and despite it being the last week of the school’s term I managed to sit in on classes from every year group from year 7 through to upper 6th form, helped out on a field course in swanage and also got to observe a practical lab, revision lessons and even a lesson given by a very capable PGCE student. Anywho, now that it’s come to the end of the week and I thought I might as well share my thoughts and observations, and would appreciate any thoughts people have on the matter…

Variation in teaching styles
One of the first and by far the most startling features that I noticed this week was the widely variable teaching styles employed by the teachers in the school, and not just between different year groups (who all have different abilities anyway). For example I sat in on two year 11 (2nd year of GCSE) science lessons by two different members of the department, the first of which I can only equate to the sort of to-and-fro discussion crossed with lecturing I would expect in a University environment, and the second being a more traditional “teacher at front” class environment. I have to say I was far more comfortable in the less formal teaching environments than I was in the rote learning classes.

The most interesting thing about these differences is that I never really noticed it when I was at the school, The teachers were the same people (for the most part) as when I left, and I always liked some teachers more than I did others, but I never really twigged as to why.

BTEC Logo, click to go to edexcel exam board...

“Tactical” education
Something that has definitely changed since I left the school four years ago is the very clear tactical nature of some of the subject matter in later years. What I mean is that the students who tend to “flake” in the exams but who show a real potential in the classroom are removed from the “traditional” GCSE curricula and moved onto more “modern” coursework only courses such as the BTEC first and national diplomas. I have to admit to being in two minds over this. On the one hand I believe in education for education’s sake, and I don’t see how the way you learn something should have any bearing on anything… so long as you learn and get the education every individual deserves. On the other hand I would worry about how taking less common curricular programmes such as the BTEC, NVQ’s and others that fit in to the English Baccalaureate may affect a student’s success in the job market… not that it should.

“Loss of Traditional Subjects”
Another major and interesting change since I left the school in question is that some subjects in lower years have been combined (most notably Geography and History, now “People and Places”) to make room in the school timetable for Literacy classes, over and above English lessons.
Ostensibly this is a good thing because many students struggle with the transition from one teacher in primary to a plethora of teachers in secondary school, but I worry about two things; firstly how can a geography teacher make a good, competant effort of teaching history (and vice versa), and why do literacy lessons need to be added to the curriculum? Surely any decline in literacy rates is an indication that the english curriculum isn’t working and should be changed, not an excuse to add more lessons (and so more teachers) to the curriculum… you don’t see the same thing with numeracy and mathematics.

Classroom Content… and why I couldn’t teach lower school (Years 7-11)
My final observation goes back to the classroom and away from curriculum issues and changing the system. The biggest problem I had sitting in on many of the lessons was that because I got to see all year groups, the differring content was clearly visible, and I can safely say that I would hate year 7-9 teaching, because the subject matter just isn’t there… that’s no fault of the teachers or the children, and I remember when I was in those years and the teaching was no different. I just don’t think I could handle “dumbing down” my subject knowledge to the level required to teach science or geography at year 7 level. I could do it, but I think I would hate it.

…So After an enjoyable week of observing teaching, teaching methods and teacher-student interactions… I have had fun, reinforced my decision to do FE teaching rather than general secondary, and learnt a fair bit about how curricula are decided upon by staff and departments in schools. Still not sure about doing the PGCE secondary or PGCE PCE, but I think that might be decided for me by my applications down the road.

On popularity politics and the Students’ Union

Speaking at hustings on Friday afternoon.

I entered into the recent SUSU Sabbatical elections with a clear vision of how I would like to run my election campaign. It was really simple and very different from how I know the other candidates would be running their campaigns, I would run a low-key campaign driven by my policies and experience, without gimmick or palming people off with soundbites.

As the last couple of weeks have progressed it has become steadily clear to me that I could not win the election with the resources at my disposal, so I have today withdrawn my nomination to the position of VP Academic Affairs.

Firstly and fore mostly I have to extend my deep and sincere thanks to the small group of supporters I have who showed both enthusiasm for my candidacy and who kindly gave up their free time to help me. To you I have to apologise in no uncertain terms for wasting your time and support, I realise my decision will be frustrating to you as there will now be no end-game to your work and I hope you will understand the decision I took when I have set out my reasons for withdrawal.

My supporters have been a great help over the last week, providing logistical and emotional support which I greatly value. However as I and they are final year undergraduate masters student’s they all have Masters projects which require their attention more than the SUSU elections, and with almost the entire campaign team currently undertaking a short-course module with lectures running from 9-5 every day they have been unable to campaign on my behalf. Further more I would not ask any person to jeopardise their education on behalf of helping me apply for a job - that is after all what the SUSU elections are about.

This unfortunate and unavoidable state of affairs means that I have been attempting to campaign on my lonesome, which has proven to be both an isolating and nerve-wracking experience. As I said earlier I am a policy and ideas driven candidate who has to rely on both these and my experience to make my case. I do not find popularity driven politics to result in the best results with respect to the winning candidates. That is of course my opinion and it is probably informed by no small measure by being a shy and reserved individual.

I do not wish to make any political statements in this post, but the other major reason for my withdrawal needs some political explanation. This reason for withdrawing my candidacy is that I feel that the current front-runner in this election race as far as I see it is Sasha Watson. Whilst I think he has some fantastic plans and ideas, I would be happier knowing that someone with a wider experience of the representation system at SUSU is taking it forward to next year. For this reason I am withdrawing to allow those who would have voted for me to reconsider Jonathon Davies for their votes, he is in my estimation the best qualified of all the candidates that are running for VP Academic Affairs this year now that I have withdrawn my nomination.

I would like to extend my deepest gratitude also to the various SUSU media departments for keeping their elections coverage balanced and fair, and for providing all the candidates with ample opportunities to put across our manifesto ideas to the student population. If I had my time at Southampton again, I would certainly have wanted to get more involved with the SUSU media department.

To the other three candidates running in the race I have now left, I would like to thank them all for being amicable opponents and I am glad to have been able to get to know them better over the last week or so and hope that we can remain friends no matter what the end result of this race. I would also like to thank them for keeping to the spirit of the elections and running honest, fair campaigns.

At the end of the day I’ll be happy to discuss the things in my manifesto with whoever wins, as every candidate brought great, new ideas to the table, and they should all be considered for taking forward to next year. This election is about getting the best for the students at southampton university, and it would be both ungracious and small minded of me not to be prepared to discuss my ideas with the winning candidate.

To those students who were considering voting for me now that elections are open, I’m sorry for forcing you to think again, and whilst it is not my place to inform your decision, I would say that the best thing you can do for the students’ union is to read through the manifestos of the remaining candidates with care before making your decision.

One final note, voting closes at 4pm on thursday 3rd March, Make certain to vote before then.

Benjamin David Brooks

28/02/2011 @ 16:30

Science for Journalists 101: Cardinal Sins

Science is one of those topics which is (interestingly) one of the most popular and interesting topics to the general public, this has been reflected by the introduction of “science”, “environment” “tech” and “health” sections in most national news outlets; from The Guardian to the BBC, and from the much maligned Fox News Network to the New York Times.

However as eloquently explained by Bora Zivkovic (community manager at SciAm blogs) in his christmas extravaganza blog post, even after the return of a conversational vibe with the internet, everything is to play for with respect to science journalism. We’re emerging from a dark age into a new enlightenment; one that will require a re-defining of the role of journalist.

What can be said about modern science journalism is that some do it very well, and others very, very badly (hence the bad reputation of Fox News on climate science, and the BBC’s false objectivity). Here are two articles, one from my local student newspaper’s science section and one from the BBC to illustrate the point:

http://www.wessexscene.co.uk/science/2010/11/30/climate-change-sceptics-healthy-cynics-or-shameless-liars/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7153584.stm

I’m not going to say which is good and which is bad, but hopefully by the end of this article you will have some idea of what I think, the question is whether you agree*.

So what should the budding science journalist be avoiding like the plague? There are a great deal of things that you could and should be careful with, but sometimes flirting with them can produce a better article than if you don’t… so what are the cardinal sins?

Misrepresenting the Literature
This is cardinal sin number one; the scientific consensus represents humanity’s best guess at the answer to a set of problems and it is as close to the “truth” as we can get given the data available.  The literature might well say lots of different things, but you can be almost certain that there will be one “general direction” in which the current of scientific thought is flowing. If the paper you are reporting disagrees then say so; but in science reporting context is King… without it you are no better than the man who stands around with the “The End is Nigh” sign… a dark age apothecary or dare I say it; The Daily Mail.

A classic example of this misrepresentation is the infamous case of MMR and Autism, where even today anti-vaccine groups are touting the findings of two pieces of research, both by one man, who was paid by biased legal interests to fix his results. For over 20 years the current of scienctific literature has flowed against his findings, saying there is no link between MMR and Autism, but repeatedly it gets reported as undisputed fact.

Another is the Climate Change denier’s claim that “in the 70′s science said we were entering an ice-age”. In fact, global warming has been on the table since the 50′s. It’s always been there, with a small number of papers in the 70′s indeed arguing for an ice-age with different data, but this blip disappeared with more data, and now science has crystalised around global warming and anthropogenic climate change.

Graphic from 2008 scientific review of past literature regarding the "1970's ice age prediction" (Peterson, 2008)

It is quite rare that something comes along and causes a paradigm shift, causing science to literally be turned on its head. It is even rarer that this happens with one piece of research or a single piece of thought. Remember this, not everything will change the world tonight, most things will do it slowly, over time, and with help from the rest!

Quote/Data mining
Thid is another BIG one, and it is fairly similar to misrepresenting the literature, don’t say the data shows something when it doesn’t, that is a bare-faced lie. Equally don’t say “temperatures cooled between 1995 and 1996 so global warming is false” if in the ten years preceding 1995 and post-dating 1996 show increases in average temperatures, that is worse than lying outright, because you are taking someone elses hard work and misrepresenting it. Where an outright lie is often easily checked and spotted, data mining gives someone a tangible focus and can give the lie a credibility it doesn’t deserve.

Similarly do not use a quote from someone that has been cut to agree with your agenda.

i.e.: if scientist A says:

“some say there’s probably no life in the universe, but we think they’re wrong and we think we know where to look”

DO NOT write :

“”No life in the universe” -said scientist A”

False Objectivity
The scientific method calls for objectivity (or a lack of bias), as a scientist you have to try and avoid influencing the result of your experiments, when you publish a scientific paper you are forced by many publishers to declare any biases. After all if a paper about how good or bad smoking is for you is funded by a tobacco company, it may be less reliable than one that is funded by the public purse (taxation).

This can go too far though when it comes to journalism, where every view is given equal weight because the news outlet doesn’t want to offend anyone or get sued, this is often the case with BBC reporting in science. If you are afraid of getting sued because you present the scientific truth, perhaps you should consider reporting something other than science. Science doesn’t care about bias and false objectivity, it states the facts and presents the current consensus, however uncomfortable it may be for some people to hear.

Politics, Opinion and False Motive
Science doesn’t care how uncomfortable the facts are, but equally it remains unbiased when it tells them. If you are against homeopathy; science is on your side, but that doesn’t necessarily make practitioners of homeopathy liars or theives. Similarly if you are against climate change; science is against you, but that doesn’t make science a “left-wing-conspiracy” and doesn’t make the scientists liars and conspirators. Political opinion should remain squarely in the politics section, that’s why your news outlet has one, assigning false motives is something for the lawyers and reporting crimes, not science.

This emphatically does NOT mean you cannot have or express an opinion. You just have to be very, very careful about how you go about it, phrases like “I think” or “in the reporters opinion” exist for exactly that purpose, but beware the reader may disagree, possibly vehemently.

Statistics
Statistics are hard, in my opinion they’re probably the hardest thing anyone has to get their head around when it comes to doing or reporting science. Benjamin Disraeli once said “there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” He was right. If used correctly and chosen well a statistic can be the easiest way to convey something complex or nuanced. If chosen badly or misunderstood, muddying the waters and misrepresentation is inevitable.

Do you really know what “statistically significant” or what a “high p-value” is and what it means? If not then look it up, check what you’re going to say and if still in doubt, ask someone who knows how they work. Remember that there is never such a thing as a stupid question!

And Finally…

Hopefully this has all made sense to you, and as always I welcome any coments, criticisms and suggestions for rewording and things I need to add. I look forward to reading a lot of awesome quality science journalism in the future, not that I wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t published this!

Ben Brooks

Short-Link for this post: http://wp.me/pFUij-9d

*N.B: I think the dud article is the BBC one, further explanation at the blog “looking out to sea”.

REFERENCES

Peterson, T.C., Connolley, W.M., and Fleck, J., 2008,“The myth of the 1970′s global cooling scientific consensus”, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, DOI:10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1
Zivkovic, B., 2010, “Observations: The line between science and journalism is getting blurry….again“, Scientific American, [ONLINE] Available: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=the-line-between-science-and-journa-2010-12-20