Sensations in Science!
I fucking hate I fucking love science.
I said it.
It isn’t because of the controversy involved with stealing the creative property of others or the lack of adequate citation on… everything. It is because half the stuff on there is just plain sensationalist bullshit.
In a world where scientific venture is vilified, it should be a moment of great arms-in-the-air, screaming-in-babbling-wordlessness, Kermit-flailing excitement to those that do love and aim to pursue careers in that field. I was. I subscribed to it immediately. I loved seeing cool pictures of space with quotes from scientists on it showing up on my feed every day.
Then I started seeing people sharing things from the page.
Then I started really looking at the things being shared.
Today I saw a headline pop up proclaiming “THINGS YOU SHOULD BE MORE AFRAID OF THAN EBOLA”.
And I read it.
It is important to note that, first off, it listed ebola. As something that we should be more concerned about than ebola. They listed it under one of the many causes of severe diarrhea illnesses, but it was still there. I’ll let that sink in for a moment.
Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Get how ridiculous that is? Good. Let us continue.
Science has been getting a lot more press in recent years. I often cite the rise of procedural crime dramas as a major contributor to this (because the numbers raked in by the combined efforts of all the C.S.I., Law and Order, and N.C.I.S. shows out there leaves me slack jawed and confused… And yes. I watch them. All the time.). But I have been getting the feeling, more and more, that ‘science’ has become a celebrity.
Think about it: people post articles and pictures about this illustrious science. They make memes of it. And, perhaps most importantly, they think they know everything about its daily doings than they actually do.
A lot of the articles that get posted on IFLScience or processes showcased in film media are the equivalent of tabloid trash. It is all full of half truths and a lot of assumptions and conclusion-jumping on the part of the 2nd and 3rd party journalists. It would be great if people used it as a starting point (as I often had, thank you potential accusers of hypocrisy) to go and research things further. But… most people don’t. People like the IDEA of the science. They like reading about these big breakthroughs that make catchy headlines. They like seeing DNA get analyzed in a heartbeat and be 100% accurate all the time.
They don’t like questioning it. They don’t like dissecting it. They don’t want to admit the chance of fallacy, lest the possibility of being wrong get thrown back in their faces (usually from a creationist that they were trying to insult). It’s good they’re respecting scientific thought and endeavor, but that isn’t really in the spirit.
So let’s take a look a the thing that made me want to tear my hair out. You may find the article here if you’d like to follow along at home.
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/5-diseases-you-should-be-more-afraid-ebola
As a disclaimer: I am not an expert. But I –am- a student wanting to study infectious disease. My dream job would be to work for the CDC someday. Or at least a lab doing work with infectious disease (especially if that disease is Lyme). The numbers and info in here aren’t wrong, but they’re framed in a way that is super misleading.
Part one: Influenza. Influenza (or the flu as the rest of us know it as) sucks. It has been a major pain in mankind’s collective side for a long time. It has caused countless deaths and has been part of TWO recent pandemics. It has indeed caused many deaths, and continues to do so. However, the paper fails to point out the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by the illness pass away from dehydration caused by the vomiting and diarrhea associated with infection.
It also makes a bid to advocate flu vaccines. Now vaccines are really a matter of choice. I personally am not a big fan of the practice outside of health professions and administration to those that are immunocompromised due to another illness or age.
Part two: Diarrheal Disease.
IT. SAYS. EBOLA.
RIGHT THERE. EBOLA.
IN THE SECOND PARAGRAPH.
GOD.
This article is just giving science hipsters the chance to use ‘rotavirus’ in an offhanded comment to shut down someone trying to point out the lack of interest in the ebola outbreak.
Even though, one sentence later it also says ebola causes the same thing.
And worse, might I point out.
The biggest problem here is that it is not talking about a disease that is worse than ebola. It is talking about a symptom that accompanies most of the common diseases out there. Funny thing about statistics: If millions and billions of people contract these diseases that can be potentially deadly (if left untreated, usually), the mortality rate sure does skyrocket.
Part three: Tuberculosis.
Another fact-ish one. TB is a growing issue. Especially with the easy of airborne transmission patterns, its prevalence in hospitals, and its growing multi-drug resistant populations. Of all five of these, this is really the only one I give credence to.
Part four: Respiratory disease.
Or, really, coronavirus. Masking the title with something we all hear makes it sound bigger. We all know people that have contracted a respiratory disease so, clearly, it must be super wide spread. While MERS is a potential problem, it is not spreading as quickly as, say, TB. Or Ebola. So to try and sound the biohazard sirens seems a touch premature.
Part five: Antimicrobial Resistances.
This one made me grit my teeth almost as much as the Diarrheal disease section. I studied this. My research lab was dedicated to finding methods to overcome microbial resistance to a broad spectrum antibiotic that has been rendered nigh useless due to a now very common countermeasure gene.
So, yes, I think this is a problem.
Yes, I think this is a problem that needs a lot more press. Especially because nobody cares much about bacterial infection because it is not as lucrative as researching illnesses that have a longer life span (and thus are better for profit… but that’s conspiracy scientist talking).
No, I don’t think that this conversation should happen to shut down discussion of the Ebola issue. And no, article, you aren’t allowed to call this a single threat when it is a process. It is not an illness. It is not an infectious agent. It is an issue with our current medical practices that are driving the evolution of microbes faster than we are able to research new methods of treatment.
Name dropping MRSA does not give you credence, article.
Part six: Stuff that wasn’t mentioned.
Small pox. It is a potential issue about on par with the threat level of these. We no longer give vaccines for small pox. And there have been cases for the first time in many, many years.
Emerging diseases. If they are going to give vague generalities, why not this one? There are a lot of illnesses that nobody really cares about right now. Very little research is being done because the numbers are small. Ish. And that’s the problem. They are growing. Every year more and more of these. The article touched on some of these, like MERS and Avian flu, but left out some other big contenders like Polio, Malaria, and Meningitis.
Insect/Arachnid-vector illnesses. I love germs and I love bugs and as such I love these things. They’re also scary as all get out. The fact that some of them are able to be carried by more than just one type of host is a problem. Things like Malaria, Dengue fever, and Lyme to name a few.
Antimicrobial Resistance part 2. They could have addressed some of the common practices that are leading to this huge problem. Awareness. They have so much visibility that they could be using this to spread awareness.
But no, people are going to take all of this at face value. They’ll see the number 1.3 million and think that this is clearly the biggest threat of them all.
They don’t want to get to know science, they want to live vicariously in this perceived glamour. They want to rub elbows with other science advocates and sound smart by claiming expertise.
Expertise is not what science is about.
It is about the discovery. About the boundless, painful desire to know. It is learning. It is curiosity. It is wonder.
Science isn’t only found in flashy headlines claiming that a bacteria creates gold out of toxic substances (yes, an article I found on IFLS… and that toxic substance contained gold). It isn’t only in the creation of some new machine that will help mankind do a chore better. It is in the hands of a little kid wondering why leaves look like they have the same sort of veins they see in their arms or the eyes of a person looking through a telescope for the first time.
Or in the lab that won a Nobel Prize for discovering that beetles would have sex with beer bottles. Seriously. 2011 Nobel Prize in biology. Look it up.
Study science, kids. And you too can discover such useful information.
... No seriously, look it up. It was actually a rather interesting study.