"Discover" a Gaff
On page 50 of Discover magazine's special issue "100 Top Science Stories of 2005" is a one-column article titled "At Last: We Find Out Why Stupid People Die Young". The staff at Discover should hang their heads in shame. Each and every one of them. Marina Krakovsky, whose name appears at the bottom of the article, should be publicly castigated. The editors and others who did nothing to correct her should come in for a share of the disapprobation.
In a magazine that is supposed to bring science to the public, not unjustifiable, subjective judgmentalism, there can be no excuse for this major error in discernment. Krakovsky begins by letting the reader know that researchers in Great Britain determined in 2001 that people with lower IQ's live shorter lives. She moves from there to the work of Ian Deary, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, and Geoff Der, a statistician at the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow. The two reported this year that reaction time proves a stronger predictor of life span than does IQ. Deary and Ger tested their subjects with button-pressing reaction-time tests and came to their conclusion, although they have no explanation to offer, at the moment. They theorize that either the subjects begin to slow over time because an undetected disease has begun to exert its insidious influence; or that there are fundamental lifelong differences in the speed at which people process information.
Neither of the proffered explanations justifies the use of the abusive adjective. More testing is still needed before the two scientists feel they can give definitive answers to the question of there being direct relationship between mental ability and survival. They are approaching the issue with the behaviour that befits their callings. They are avoiding words that reek of prejudice and poor decision-making. There really is no justification for Krakovsky's use of the offensive word. She certainly can not claim to have needed an attention-grabbing headline in order to sell her article. It's already in a respected magazine and we could assume that it stands as good a chance of being read as any of the other articles do. The audience this magazine is intended for are science-minded readers possessed of intellectual curiosity.
The title of this article is a major gaff. Krakovsky has explaining to do.
In a magazine that is supposed to bring science to the public, not unjustifiable, subjective judgmentalism, there can be no excuse for this major error in discernment. Krakovsky begins by letting the reader know that researchers in Great Britain determined in 2001 that people with lower IQ's live shorter lives. She moves from there to the work of Ian Deary, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, and Geoff Der, a statistician at the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow. The two reported this year that reaction time proves a stronger predictor of life span than does IQ. Deary and Ger tested their subjects with button-pressing reaction-time tests and came to their conclusion, although they have no explanation to offer, at the moment. They theorize that either the subjects begin to slow over time because an undetected disease has begun to exert its insidious influence; or that there are fundamental lifelong differences in the speed at which people process information.
Neither of the proffered explanations justifies the use of the abusive adjective. More testing is still needed before the two scientists feel they can give definitive answers to the question of there being direct relationship between mental ability and survival. They are approaching the issue with the behaviour that befits their callings. They are avoiding words that reek of prejudice and poor decision-making. There really is no justification for Krakovsky's use of the offensive word. She certainly can not claim to have needed an attention-grabbing headline in order to sell her article. It's already in a respected magazine and we could assume that it stands as good a chance of being read as any of the other articles do. The audience this magazine is intended for are science-minded readers possessed of intellectual curiosity.
The title of this article is a major gaff. Krakovsky has explaining to do.
2 Comments:
I would whole-heartedly agree with you. There would have been a dozen ways to headline that article better. Great post, pointing that out.
Now that I've read your post ... OK, I agree. Intelligence & mental abilities aside, I'd say that Discover was probably very stupid in using the title they did for their column.
Post a Comment
<< Home