NYTimes, etc: Big day for Darwinius masillae, and also for Publicityhoundus missinglinkextravaganserooza.
Last week The Tracker bloggified out loud in surprise at a Wall Street Journal article (earlier post here) suggesting that intense new debate between evolutionists and creationists may break out today. The news, being announced about now in New York, is that a delightfully well-preserved fossil of a primitive primate, dug from 47-million-year-old deposits in Germany, may be the oldest yet member of the lineage that eventually produced monkey, ape, and human. How in the world, it was asked here, could a new link in the great chain of life bring a fresh element for discussion into that unbridgeable chasm between evolutionary biology and those who turn to literal scripture for their conviction that all species – or at least us – were separately and perhaps simultaneously minted by divine decision?
Still no answer to that. But the creakings of a great publicity machine behind today’s unveiling are well limned on p. 1 of today’s NYTimes by reporter Tim Arango under the hed, “Seeking a Missing Link, and a Mass Audience.” That is a tasty hed, with double and deep meanings that may only exist in my head. “Missing Link” evokes an idea that should have died in the Victorian Age that spawned it, but thus also evokes the great arguments of that time. And a mass audence? As in Mass, a religious rite? Hmm. Maybe I’m overinterpreting here….
The story lays out in great detail the schemings and plannings by managers at The History Channel and other agents to convince the public on the eve of their show about this fossil that not only is a wondrous scientific specimen now up for display (true), but that This Changes Everything (huh? Didn’t biologists already assume that our lineage has to go back through something or other at every point since the first, pre-Cambrian cell sparked to life? Has that changed?). The History Channel, one notes, is now also promoting its special on Nostradamus and its program on The UFO Hunters.
Congrats to the Times. One might also profitably take a look at the Framing Science website where Matthew Nisbet lays out his interpretation of this highly orchestrated roll out of science news, one that seems even to dwarf the tightly-controlled patterns pursued by the National Geographic Society.
As for debates, one is certainly underway already. At the Wall St. Journal the usual sorts of partisans in the (non science) debate about evolution are going at it. Thank you Lee Hotz for nudging the Tracker to recognize that some sort of debate has been re-ignited. It is also worth noting that at the Journal, people have to use their real names to comment (or, one suspects, present a pretty convincing alias). Remarks still tend toward vitriol and scorn.
Tomorrow I’ll post on what fresh gusset of news arose from today’s formal announcement.
Grist for the Mill: The History Channel promo ; PLoS One Article
-CP
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May 19th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Jorn Horum, a scientist who seems to be going along with this hyperbolic press agentry, justifies it because pop groups and professional athletes make similarly fatuous claims. He says this is all being done to reach a wider audience than usually attends science news. How will we know whether it works?
“This changes everything” was a slogan used in any number of advertising campaigns. I recall Chrysler using it to excess some years ago.
Oh, and as for the “mass” connotation, the Catholics have been cool, at least officially, with evolution for a long time.
May 20th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
[...] Knight Science Tracker: NYTimes, etc: Big day for Darwinius masillae, and also for Publicityhoundus missinglinkextravaganserooza [...]
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:48 pm
[...] A number of bloggers, media analysts and traditional journalists analyzed the media coverage of the fossil, including: Matt Nisbett of Framing Science who wrote a series of posts about the media strategy; NY Times, Knight Science Journalism Tracker, KSJ Tracker again, Knight Science Journalism Tracker again, Science Insider, Neurodojo, it is NOT junk, Cubbi, The Daily Nightly, That Shallow Fellow, The Observatory, Columbia Journalism Review, Why Evolution is True, Ecographica, The Opinionator (a NYTimes blog), 60-Second Science Blog, Kevin Drum, Thoughts from Kansas, Dispatches from the Culture Wars, The Scientist, Sandwalk, On Research…, The Loom and Laelaps. [...]
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:03 am
[...] “Huh?”, says the Knight Science Journalism Tracker, which boggles with fine restraint over the media’s attitude to truthiness in science. A missing link? But on the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth, the line is too good to resist. Scientists might curl their lips, but an audience of millions might tune in. [...]