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November 8, 2005
Headlines Remembered
I was looking around for election results and ran across a CNN report on the Kansas Board of Education's decision to modify their science curriculum to include the pseudoscience of Intelligent Design creationism. The entire piece is OK to fair (but far from great) in part because it sandwiches the advocates of nonsense between two sections of reason. But the link from CNN's front page to the piece is bad.
Intelligent design scores victory over evolution
Why pick on a link to an article? Well because it is on the CNN.com front page (at least for now) and it is very most people who go to that page will see. And it sounds far more like a biology claim than a political claim. If I were writing this link topic, I would say, "Kansas school politicians vote to change school standards." If I wanted to be provocative I would say, "Kansas school politicians vote to teach pseudoscience." The latter would be far more accurate than what they did us and would drive just as many links to the story.
Now for the actual headline and subhead of the story:
Kansas school board redefines science
New standards question accuracy of evolutionary theory
Remember, again, most people only remember their first impressions. And most will take from the headline that the definition of science is a matter of political decision rather than professional practice. This headline reinforces the attempts by the creationists to politicalize science. And no matter what the article says, most people will remember their general impression of the headline long after they forget the details of the story.
The subhead is simply false and again leaves the impression that the accuracy of evolution rests on something developed by politicians. It is the wrong-headed politicians that are questioning the accuracy of evolution not their misguided standards. Also, the word "theory" at the end of the subheading is superfluous. However, in this popular context it tends to give support to the "it's just a theory" claim. Some parts of biological evolution are facts and some parts of are theories but theories in a very strong sense, not the loose, popular sense that most will see in the subhead.
Is all this being picky. Yep! But if science is to win the PR war we need to educate journalist and headline writers on the implications of wording and phrases when they are read by a scientifically naive or illiterate public.
Posted by Duane Smith at November 8, 2005 8:19 PM | Read more on Evolution |
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