Scientific discourse and the media
Keith S. Taber
"I picked up that phrase 'almost certainly due to lack of vaccine', I mean that sounds like a bit of guesswork."
Presenter on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme
Yesterday, I was drafting a post about how a scientist had referred to a scientific theory being 'absolutely certain'. I suggested that this seemed at odds with the nature of science as producing conjectural knowledge always open to revisiting – yet might be considered necessary when seeking to communicate in public media.
Today, I sadly heard an excellent example to support that thesis.
That example concerned Nick Robinson (BBC journalist, and former Political Editor) introducing an interview with Dr Raghib Ali on the radio news programme, 'Today'. Dr Ali is a Senior Clinical Research Associate at the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge.
Robinson: "Now one of the first things we learned when the pandemic began, was that a greater proportion of Black and South Asian people were dying from corona virus. That remains the case many months on, but a new government report out today argues that the mortality gap now is mainly due, is not due, I'm sorry, to any genetic or social factor, it is, and I quote almost certainly down to vaccine take-up, or more accurately a lack of vaccine take-up. We're joined now by the government's independent expert advisor on COVID-19 and ethnicity, Dr. Raghib Ali, who is a consultant in acute medicine at Oxford University Hospitals. Morning to you"
Dr Ali: "Good morning Nick."
Robinson:"I picked up that phrase 'almost certainly due to lack of vaccine', I mean that sounds like a bit of guesswork. Do we actually know that?"
Nick Robinson interviewing Dr Raghib Ali on Today, 3rd December 2021, c.08.46
This seems to show a worrying level of ignorance (or else an odd provocation) from a senior and experienced journalist expecting scientific studies to be able to offer certain knowledge about causes in complex multivariate social situations.
Yesterday, I was asking whether Dr Friederike Otto should have referred to scientists knowing something with 'absolute certainty' when speaking in the broadcast media. Today I heard an example of how the media can treat any scientific claim that is not framed as being absolutely certain.
Sadly, if the news media are only interested in absolute certainty, then they should stop talking to scientists about their work as absolute certainty has no place in scientific discourse. Nor should it, I might suggest, have a place in serious journalism.
