Article: Where a heretic prescribes, Nature derides

IMAGINE trying to perform a biological dissection of a rat with a garden spade. The mental picture you have formed (my apologies if you're reading this over breakfast) provides a pretty good model for what happens to a complex scientific controversy when subjected to the blunt instrument of television. The best you're likely to end up with is a series of bloody chunks, trailing unanswered questions like . . . well, I won't pursue the analogy, as I'm starting to feel a bit queasy myself.

This isn't to say that the exercise is entirely pointless, just that it's worth keeping in mind that television is an unscientific medium. It can be a brilliant explicator of secure truths, but it doesn't ...

Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles:

 
 
Newsweek Harper's Magazine The Washington Post Chicago Tribune Crain's Chicago Business PRNewswire Pediatric News The Nation Advertising Age The Economist (US) A FREE trial gives you access to over 80 million articles! Access over 6,500 publications with a FREE trial!