One of the decisions they’ve taken in the much discussed Guardian redesign is that they’re getting rid of the science suplement. The editor assures us that this will actually mean MORE science coverage a whole page apparently, illustrating some basic numeracy problems at the paper as well as their usuall sub-editing issues, given that the suplement used to have 8 (sometimes more) pages (6 issues a week, 1 page per day =6 pages, 6<8). Ben Goldacre’s occasionally misguided* rant which appeared prominently in the last science supplement made me think that we might get some high quality science reporting on this promised page, unfortunately we get the same old crap and not even a page of it, unless you count the mammoth AOL ad that dominates the page as science (because it has something to do with computers and that’s science).
*Do we really need quite so many ‘humanities graduates’ digs?
And then Neil said:
That was the thing that pissed me off about that Goldacre article- the idea that “humanities graduates” have no understanding of science is ridiculous, to be honest.
And then tom said:It’s a stupid as it takes away from the rest of the article as well as being unnecessary, on the other hand I would expect science stories to be written by people with an understanding of the science involved which often seems not to be the case. The description of how the media fucks up science coverage is generally accurate in spite of the straw man humanities graduate nonsense.
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