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Re: (meteorobs) In Defense of the Marsden's XF11 Press Release



Hello,

I would like to support this 'defence' of Dr. Marsden. If you read his 
original announcement, you will note that he has been cautious in his 
wordings with a lot of 'ifs' and a clear pointer to the uncertainties 
involved.

As McNaught already mentioned, it is not easy to do the 'right' thing in 
these occasions as a scientist. Not mentioning things invokes 'cover up' 
accusations, but if you do mention things, you are the one with egg on 
your face according to the verdict of both press and sometimes collegues.
Here, the trouble is off course that a 'normal' scientific discussion can 
become disproportionate when the press becomes involved (and then, that 
is in defence of some of Marsden's 'criticasters'). To a non-scientist 
(e.g. newspaper audience), a scientific exchange of arguments or a 
critical evaluation looks like a quarrel.

I think scientist and press science editors have different obligations in 
this. A scientist should warn for potential disaster if there is a real 
scientificly based reason for it. In that sense, Marsden's press release 
was not wrong I guess. Science editors with the press have some 
responsibility of providing balanced news to their public. In that sense, 
many press messages were dead wrong because they removed the caution from 
Marsden's original press release.

Anyway, Marsden's press release cannot be equated with for example the 
Russian newsmessage that was repoted a.o. on this newsgroup about an 
impact of 'Icarus' in 2006 that popped up more or 
less simultaniously by some odd coincidence it seems. In the case of 
1997FX11 there were some true reasons for concern. Note that in science 
things are not always that straight forward, and of course, with the 
benefit of hindsight it is easy to put a verdict over the head of someone.


-Marco Langbroek


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