GOOD AFTERNOON!  An empty bus pulls up to a stop and 10 people get on. At the next stop 5 people get off and twice as many people get on as at the first stop. At the third stop 25 get off. How many people are on the bus at this point?

SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES AND PROCESS B) SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE AND COMMUNICATION Investigative Biology

SQA

SUCCESS CRITERIA You will be able to discuss and write about reliable scientific method and reporting. Recognise and use key scientific terms such as peer review and mental inertia. Critically evaluate a piece of scientific writing and contrast with the media representation. Convert the main points of a scientific paper into a new format. You will be able to discuss and write about reliable scientific method and reporting. Recognise and use key scientific terms such as peer review and mental inertia. Critically evaluate a piece of scientific writing and contrast with the media representation. Convert the main points of a scientific paper into a new format.

SCIENCE REQUIRES COMMUNICATION  Science involves the sharing of knowledge.  Only by sharing information can data and ideas be evaluated by others.  Without evaluation, new ideas will not become accepted into the ‘body of knowledge’.

MRSA AND THE MEDIA

CASE 1: THE MEDIA’S MMR HOAX  Read the article entitled The media’s MMR hoax written by Ben Goldacre.  Discuss how this article illustrates the points raised in this presentation in terms of:  scientific reputation  the difference between pre-publication communication and peer- reviewed publication  the requirement for scientific literacy within the media.  Even worse, it was later discovered that the original research data was fraudulent. fraudulent

SCIENCE AND THE MEDIA  There is increasing interest in science and a corresponding increase in scientific coverage in the wider media.  The misrepresentation of science in the media is common so we must try to increase the population’s scientific evaluation skills.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLICATION  Scientists should be skeptical – do not accept statements without first evaluating the evidence.  To persuade others that your conclusions are sound you have to give them the opportunity to evaluate your:  methods  data  analysis  Conclusions.  This also allows replication, where others try to repeat your study in exactly the same way to see if they get the same results (and draw the same conclusions).

PRE-PUBLICATION SHARING OF FINDINGS  Before publishing scientific findings, researchers usually seek evaluation of their work.  Seminar – a presentation followed by questions and discussion, usually within a team or with researchers in the same field.  Conference talk – a presentation to a wider audience.  Poster – an illustrated summary of research.

PUBLICATION  The end product of science tends to be the publication of scientific journal articles.  The articles tend to be either: 1. original findings – also called primary research or 2. review articles – summaries of current knowledge. or 3. journalistic magazines

EXAMPLES OF JOURNALS AND MAGAZINES  Primary journals publishing original findings  Nature  PLOS One (online and free access)  Review journals  Trends in Ecology and Evolution  Biological Science Review  Journalistic magazines  New Scientist  Focus Magazine  During your AH Biology course you should make sure you use all these three types of sources.

PEER REVIEW  Most scientific publications use peer review.  Peer review is a process where:  specialists with expertise in the relevant field assess the scientific quality of a submitted manuscript.  specialists make recommendations regarding the suitability of the article for publication.

PROS AND CONS OF PEER REVIEW  Peer review is a quality control process allowing readers of peer-reviewed journals to make assumptions about the quality of the science.  However, the peer-review process is slow to accept radical new ideas since the peer reviewers tend to be those who are already established in that field.  This is known as mental inertia and it can take many years for new ideas to become established as fact.

MENTAL INERTIA EXAMPLE  Mental inertia is also at work when the scientific paradigm prevents a scientist from conducting studies that would fall outside of a given paradigm’s boundaries or would contradict previous findings. A good example of such a paradigm was the notion that the death of a normal mammalian cell occurs because something (e.g. radiation, toxic injury, viral infection or lack of nutrients) is actively killing it. For generations, no one considered the question: ‘Can a normal cell commit suicide?’. Today, the concept of programmed cell death and intracellular signalling leading to cell suicide is one of the cornerstones of biology

ACCESSING PEER-REVIEWED INFORMATION  It costs money to subscribe to most peer-reviewed journals and some are very expensive.  Often, it is only the abstracts or summaries that are freely available.  Recently free access online journals, such as PLOS One, have become popular.PLOS One  Many argue that since much scientific research has been funded publicly, its findings should be available publicly.

CASE 2: HIV DENIAL IN THE INTERNET ERA  Read the peer-reviewed article from the journal PLOS Medicine. Smith TC, Novella SP (2007) HIV Denial in the Internet Era. PLoS Med 4(8): e256. doi: /journal.pmed  Discuss how the strategies used by those who deny the existence of HIV (or its role in the development of AIDS) may appeal to the general public.  Suggest what you think the most appropriate response from the scientific community should be to the denial of HIV, evolution or climate change.

SUCCESS CRITERIA You will be able to discuss and write about reliable scientific method and reporting. Recognise and use key scientific terms such as peer review and mental inertia. Critically evaluate a piece of scientific writing and contrast with the media representation. Convert the main points of a scientific paper into a new format. You will be able to discuss and write about reliable scientific method and reporting. Recognise and use key scientific terms such as peer review and mental inertia. Critically evaluate a piece of scientific writing and contrast with the media representation. Convert the main points of a scientific paper into a new format.