Oh, no! Time magazine hates us!


I guess the science bloggers won’t be getting Time’s Blog of the Year Award then (which is nice, considering that other Minnesota blog that won, once upon a time.)

I’m fibbing, anyway. Michael Lemonick doesn’t really hate us, I think he was just trying to get a rise out of us. Success!

Comments

  1. Bill Dauphin says

    Did you read the first comment on Lemonick’s article? It seems that you godless scientists mock children! Whatever will you monsters get up to next?

  2. Deepsix says

    Yep. The first comment there is pretty strange. Apparently she hates all scientists because of a mis-diagnosed medical condition. Maybe she should hate all doctors instead. Stoopid doctors.

  3. Tom says

    In response to Bill #1. I read the comment and I did think it a bit heavy-handed. However, I am in total sympathy; I also suffer from fluorescent lighting, with red eyes watering after only a few minutes exposure. It does seem to affect some people badly.

  4. Sastra, OM says

    Yes, I’m not sure what to make of that first comment either. I was expecting some sort of snipe at narrow-minded, materialist scientists for rejecting alternative medicine, or God, or some other pseudoscience, but from what I can tell it just sounds like there was a medical condition which was, eventually, successfully diagnosed — by doctors.

    “I am grateful to every scientific journalist who has the guts to write about controversial areas of science.”

    Oh? From what I can tell the problem is actually the other way — science journalists have a sad tendency to look for controversial claims, report “exciting” new discoveries before they’ve been properly vetted, and give balanced treatment to issues where the science is really only coming down one way. “Frantic mother ignored by arrogant doctors” is normally a bread-and-butter headline for the media.

  5. andyo says

    I have heard the name “Rhonda Stone” (first commenter over there) somewhere else, was it not around here? I don’t hang around many other blogs or forums.

  6. me says

    She’s mad at us because we are know-it-alls, yet we clearly don’t know it all.

    She sort of doesn’t. quite . understand the whole research scientist gig thing

  7. caynazzo says

    Lemonick, through implication, paints a pretty grim picture for science journalists, as if they’re the middleman slowly being cut put of the transaction.

  8. says

    Regarding Rhonda Stone’s comment on the Lemonick post, the later comment by Kaghedi is right on target.

    A small sample:

    The fact is, scientists rely too much on doctors, who, in 80% of the cases, wouldn’t recognize science if it sat on them, to give them some idea as to *what* to research, and then about 20% of the doctors ignore the science anyway, because they are creationists, or some other stripe of denialist, who won’t accept the evidence anyway.

    That commenter also discusses the importance of education in the scientific method and scientific inquiry for future health care professionals (not to mention ordinary citizens) which I can’t support strongly enough. It’s something I am continually working into the curriculum for the students in my anatomy and physiology classes.

  9. says

    Regarding Rhonda Stone’s comment on the Lemonick post, the later comment by Kaghedi is right on target.

    A small sample:

    The fact is, scientists rely too much on doctors, who, in 80% of the cases, wouldn’t recognize science if it sat on them, to give them some idea as to *what* to research, and then about 20% of the doctors ignore the science anyway, because they are creationists, or some other stripe of denialist, who won’t accept the evidence anyway.

    That commenter also discusses the importance of education in the scientific method and scientific inquiry for future health care professionals (not to mention ordinary citizens) which I can’t support strongly enough. It’s something I am continually working into the curriculum for the students in my anatomy and physiology classes.

  10. says

    Looks as if Phil is attacking you once again. Those damn squirrelly Astronomers

    BLOG WAR!!!!

    Posted by Phil Plait
    December 14, 2007

    Egads! You mention Pharyngula, but not the far better in every conceivable way Bad Astronomy?

    Sigh.

  11. andyo says

    I see now that “Rhonda Stone” is a user at a photography forum I read, may not be related at all.

    Regarding this Rhonda Stone, she should know better, since she seems to have written a damn book about it. She has had her ass handed by others in the comments though.

    But what worries me is that her attitude towards “Western medicine” and by wrongful extension, “science” or (GASP!) “Western science”, pervades the general public’s consciousness.

    I recently mentioned to a friend an article about homeopathy and acupuncture by Ben Goldacre (www.badscience.net), and she told me she recently had acupuncture, and the acupuncturist gave her some herbs. She had a skin rash that many dermatologists just looked at quickly and dismissed, prescribing something but never curing it. So, she went for the “alternative”.

    These “alternative” people, be it alt-med people, or what I like to call “alt-knowledge” people like astrologers and the religious, the only thing they’re good at is making the public believe that there are actually two equally valid choices, and if “science” fails they should automatically flock to the other. It makes me so mad, because so many people I care about fall on this.

    My friend and I got into a little discussion, I hope she’s not too upset with me, but since she’s a nutritionist, and she told me that she has had alt-med classes, she probably feels that I have attacked her whole enterprise, which is not true. I recognize there is a legitimate field of knowledge in nutrition science, just that it’s so easy to make it bullshit by the self-interested scam artists.

  12. Bill Dauphin says

    Tom (@4):

    It was more Ms. Stone’s tone and approach, rather than the substance of her complaint, that I was reacting to. I stipulate that the condition she’s describing is real, and that the narrative she provides is accurate. I know a bit about doctors jumping to unwarranted conclusions, my mother’s Sjogren’s Syndrome having been misdiagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis for almost 20 years before somebody got it right… but like andyo (@12), it troubles me when people channel their disappointment over stuff like this into “alt-knowledge” conspiracy theories and rejection of “Western” science.

    My mother wrote a book, too, but instead of deciding all doctors were jerks, she got involved in educating both patients and doctors in hopes of achieving better outcomes. It’s all matter of perspective.

    BTW, that first comment was the only one posted when I checked out the article; I’m afraid I haven’t followed the rest of the thread over there.

  13. Pablo says

    In terms of Rhonda Stone’s problem, I wonder how much of the problem diagnosing it came from the fact that she went to the wrong people? If you ask a plumber to check out an electrical problem, they will look at it and say, the plumbing is fine.

    Similarly, if you tell an optometrist that your child is getting headaches and can’t see, they are going to check if the vision needs to be corrected. If she has 20/20 vision, the optometrist is going to say there’s nothing wrong with her vision.

    True, it is somewhat the case of when you have a hammer, you are only looking for nails, but it doesn’t make sense to criticize someone who only has a hammer for not using a cordless drill.

    Clearly the disorder described is not common enough that it will be something that the normal optometrist has in their toolbox. However, that is why we have specialists.

    Now, what are the odds that Rhonda Stone is also one who complains that there are too many specialists? Not accusing, just wondering…

  14. Gary F says

    Could the “health condition that has been mocked relentlessly by the scientific community” be Morgellon’s? I don’t know much about it, but I’ve wondered if the fibers indicative of that disease could simply be fibers from bandages or clothing.

    http://www.morgellons.org/

  15. inkadu says

    Form&Function

    It’s [scientific method] something I am continually working into the curriculum for the students in my anatomy and physiology classes.

    I’m taking a biology lab class frequented by nurses. Part of an experiment was finding an average time it took for something or other to happen over several trials. After running the experiment with my partner, I took out my calculator and scribbled down the average in my lab book.

    My lab partner looked at me, looked at my note book. “How did you get that?” she asked.

    “Get what? The average?” I asked

    “Yes, the average,” she said, “how did you get the average?”

    “The average of the five time trials we just did you mean?”

    “Yes. How did you get that?”

    Best of luck to you, F&F.

  16. says

    Gary F #15: I was hoping at the beginning of the comment that she was going to be talking about morgellons, but alas, no.

    And yes, you’re right about the fibers. “Morgellons” sufferers seem to be people who suffer from some kind of combination of eczema, depression, fibromyalgia, and delusional woo woo, and who live in a world that includes, y’know, dust and fabric.

  17. Gary says

    PZ, I really like your blog, but I have to agree that Bad Astronomy is much better in every conceivable way, and in fact, in several inconceivable ways.

  18. HCN says

    I noticed that Ms. Stone’s comments and thought “I thought everyone knew that some people are bothered by fluorescent lights!. Oh, well… perhaps she needs to send her kids to schools like the ones I went to, ones with big windows (helps being an Army brat where most of the duty stations are in warmer climes).

    When I worked in a big office with fluorescent lights, I just made sure I had a nice desk lamp to reduce the flicker.

    By the way, I like Orac’s Respectful Insolence better than either Pharyngula or Bad Astronomy. :-p

  19. Rhonda Stone says

    Rhonda Stone here : ) For clarification purposes, my comments did not condemn all doctors. Heavens, I have good friends who are MDs. My comments were made in reaction to the original poster/author’s idea that mere “journalists” or “science journalists” should not be writing about topics for which they lack expertise.

    Thank heaven for science journalists! Without them, many topics ignored by the medical community (e.g., problems with fluorescent lighting) would not see the light of day. That is not a condemnation of the medical community. It reflects the fact that the medical community’s attention is focused narrowly on “accepted” medical conditions that, frankly, have become accepted because drug companies have performed extensive testing and developed treatments (usually, medications) that they market to doctors. There is no pill to treat problems with lighting conditions and, subsequently, the issues surrounding it are little known (migraine headache, visual processing problems, nausea, foggy thinking, epileptic seizures, etc.) How many children work in schools seven hours a day under fluorescent lights and we are ignoring this problem? MILLIONS. How many children are diagnosed with ADD/ADHD or other mental health disorders because we don’t know they have a problem with the lights charging overhead? UNKNOWN.

    What does that have to do with science journalists? Maybe nothing; maybe a lot. Silence them and who will report on anything except what is approved by drug companies?

    Best wishes to you all,
    Rhonda Stone