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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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