Shoot the Flack
Tobis fires a few wild shots, Lambert does recon, while Real Climate tries to keep the posse in check. It’s quite a spectacle, this latest variation of Shoot the Messenger.
Here’s a fact: university press releases that tout scientific studies are routinely vetted by the principal researcher(s). Assuming And that’s the case here, as I confirmed this morning in a phone call with Richard Taffe, who wrote the Boston Universtiy release. So why are Tobis et al playing this disingenuous game of gotcha with the messenger? It strikes me as yet another example of misdirected anger.
Keith,
If you read his follow-up post you’ll see that you’re in vigorous agreement. His initial reaction likely stemmed from a mistaken belief that the PA wouldn’t have knowingly have vetted such a misleading press release…I’m with the Rabett on this one; I think the PA was simply looking to drum up some noise to get his 15 minutes…
Marlowe,
Who’s follow-up post? Also, can you point out what you see as the problem with the release, assuming you believe there is one. What did the PA do wrong if the scientists approved the release? That’s what’s I’m trying to get at here.
Disingenuous is a bit strong. I was wrong, to some extent and Taffe is off the hook.
The press release is an awful misrepresentation of the import of a more or less sound and ordinary publication. That the PI is backing up the release means that responsibility must be allocated entirely to her.
Had it just been a matter of idly signing off on it without paying attention, the press office would be suspect. I remain inclined to believe that this is what occurred, but Dr. Samanta seems disinclined to admit it, thereby protecting Mr. Taffe.
As a comment on my blog entry shows, their motivations are not to represent the researcher, but to get the university’s work into the press, no matter how represented. Given this, researchers in areas plagued by public controversy cannot take the press office lightly.
Regardless of whether the press release is factual, it is certainly not based upon the publication that it claims to report.
Thus the press office has usurped the function of peer review by innovating scientific assertions without subjecting them to review, assertions which the rest of the press will feel comfortable repeating. If the principal investigator collaborates in this process, (as clearly happened in the McLean/deFreitas paper last fall and seems to have happened here) it does not legitimize it.
You see the next to last paragraph
“Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally recognized private research university with more than 30,000 students participating in undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs. BU consists of 17 colleges and schools along with a number of multi-disciplinary centers and institutes which are central to the school’s research and teaching mission.”
They just took a hit.
Also, it looks like the quote from Marengo was made up by one of the authors, Ganguely. See Deltoid.
They just took another hit.
Nothing here, just move on.
It doesn’t bother you that the press reelease misrepresents the paper and Marengo?
To portray Taffe entirely as a victim, one has to assume either that he wasn’t bright enough to understand the fundamental problems with the release or that he had no power to resist a PI’s direction to include questionable material, or both. There’s no positive spin to be had here.
Did Taffe say WHICH of the author’s he worked with, and WHICH of them approved the press release (could be more than one). That is increasingly becoming the point.