Horrible Science Reporting

You may have seen the story -- "Scientist Predicts Two Human Species in the Future" or some similar title. Here's the BBC version, for instance.  Oliver Curry, an evolutionary theorist at the London School of Economics, made some astonishing predictions about the future of human evolution. Press accounts lingered on details like the pertness of future women's breasts, the size of future male genitalia, and the existence of a goblin-like subhuman underclass.

Mary Ann Simpson at Physorg.com casts a hard and skeptical eye on the story and doesn't like what she sees at all. First of all, Dr. Curry isn't a biologist -- his degree is from the London School of Economics. Secondly, those "predictions" came from a speculative essay he wrote for an upcoming program on the Bravo channel. The news accounts derive from a Bravo press release.

In other words, the eminent scientist isn't, and his "predictions" aren't.

Comments

[MiddleProfessor]

Hi Diane:

We cannot discount someone's biological theory simply because of the field in which they got their degree. Most of evolutionary biology would have to be thrown out if we did. Certainly the most influential evolutionary biologist since Fisher/Wright/Haldane has been W.D. Hamilton, whose degree, as it turns out, is from the London School of Economics.

Cheers,

Jeff

[DianeAKelly]

Hey Jeff, take it up with Cambias, not me -- he wrote that post. I already told him I thought he was being too cranky about it, particularly since Dr. Curry also seemed pretty peeved about the way his original essay was portrayed by the media.

[Cambias]

Jeff:

True -- but at the same time we should keep people's professional qualifications in mind. If Dr. Curry were, say, an electronics engineer who nevertheless came up with a brilliant biological theory, then hooray and hosanna. But when someone ventures out of their field and says something startlingly stupid, like Dr. Curry's article, I say throw extra eggs.

In other words, I would never say that one should judge a theory on the qualifications of the theorist. But if you pontificate outside your area of expertise, there is always the risk of making a tremendous ass of yourself. (E.g. Goethe on optics, Lord Kelvin on evolution, Noam Chomsky on geopolitics, etc.)

[middleprofessor]

Diane - sorry!
Cambias - I've often had similar reactions. But ultimately I think it's a fallacy. Arguments should be evaluated on their merits, not on the background of the author. Many in philosophy and history and sociology of science would actually turn your point around and argue that brilliant ideas are often the result of outsiders coming in with different ways of thinking about the problem. - Jeff