The general rant so far...

So what is this about.

There is a lot that passes through the media every week, and its hard to get it all right.
I still remember some time during severe bushfires in the 90's sitting back at my folk's place, hearing from the TV that our entire town had been evacuated. To which we inquired, it has? No-one told us.
Of course it hadn't been evacuated, not even close, the wires had crossed somewhere in the studio. We were still being told we'd been evacuated hours later.

How much harder do you think it is reporting on something that few reporters even understand (like most science discoveries)? Especially when the goal is not, generally, accuracy, but rather a good story. The potential for cross-wires becomes even greater.

Well, I am a scientist. I am also Australia. Those two things seem to be mutually exclusive a lot of times, particularly when you want a job. My wife and I made the decision to live and work in Australia (Globetrotting is not something you should have to force on a young family). We did some time in the states, which was definitely a Machiavellian career move and nothing more, before coming back to work in Sydney at the start of this year.

There were (and are) quite a few permanent Professor positions that I could have applied for, particularly in the US and Europe. Unfortunately, these are imcompatible with raising little Aussies.
Since there are absolutely NO permanent positions for me in Australia, and probably won't be until very senior people in my field start dropping off, I had to apply for money. After a few near-misses, luckily, something came through. I had applied for money from my fantastic host institution (no names here ;) ). Instead of sending my proposal to people in Australia without the expertise to assess it (like the ARC), they sent it overseas to the world experts, who rated it (and me, I guess) highly, and thus I got funded. Security for three years anyway, which should let us pay a bit of the mortgage off.

So being on the receiving end, I have some perspectives on how science could be done in Australia. The ways things are headed do not look well. To give an example, Sydney University nursing, one of the best nursing schools, is now gone. Students who want to study nursing are told to go somewhere else. What about science? How many students know what science field they want to specialize in at the start of their studies? And if they decide they want to specialize in chemistry, but the chemistry department has been annexed, what then? Do they change institutions, or careers? What about those chemistry lecturers? Are they offered positions at other chemistry departments? No, they generally move overseas where the opportunities are, contributing to the general brain drain of Australian science.
So in part this blog/rant is about Australian Science policy.

In part this is also serving the role of science filter. A lot of crap floats to the top in the actual reporting, and for a large part the paper's we find interesting are never heard of. There definitely seems to be a correlation between wild, arm-waving fringe-science and getting coverage. There is definitely a need for "filtering" of some reports, with the dregs off to the bin where they belong.
I certainly can't comment with confidence about some circles of science, but I can (and will) within my own sphere. And maybe throw some gems into the mix when I find 'em.

So, never believe something just cause a scientists says so. In particular be sceptical of anything with statistics (trust me, I work with these).
And be sceptical of this too, if you want. It hasn't been peer-reviewed. Though you can post comments if you don't agree - I guess that's a rudimentary peer review.


In part its also because I come across interesting things that bear no relevance to my research, but which I feel the urge to make an informed comment on. You'll probably find a lot of that, too.