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As-Life Paper.Cite As Unpublished.Billings.2012.Doc 1 As-life paper.cite as unpublished.Billings.2012.doc Today’s date: July 9, 2012 Completion date: July 30, 2011 Cite as unpublished research Linda Billings, Ph.D. Research Professor School of Media and Public Affairs George Washington University Washington, DC, USA [email protected] ph. 703-528-2334 http://lindabillings.org http://doctorlinda.wordpress.com Weird life, or not? The role of social and mass media in the discourse of science in the case of disputed claims about the microbe GFAJ-1 Abstract The discourse of science is an evolving ecosystem of sorts, an actor-network1 in which knowledge and power, credibility and legitimacy, and cultural authority are constructed and distributed, reconstructed and redistributed, among individuals, groups, institutions, and others. In this evolving ecosystem, what credentials are required to be a scientist, a journalist, or a science critic? Who has the authority to speak for, to, or about science? Open, public, participatory practices of the expanding online universe called Web 2.0 are changing the discourse of science, including the holy ground of peer review. In this new round-the-world, round-the-clock, electronic environment, anyone with access to the Internet and an ability to read and write in English (still the “universal” language of science) may now participate in the ongoing dialogue about science2 – 1 B. Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, Oxford: OXford University Press, 2005; B. Latour, Science in Action, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. 2 D. Kennedy and G. Overholser (Eds.), Science and the Media, Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2010; M. Shanahan, Changing the meaning of peer-to-peer? EXploring online comment spaces as sites of negotiated expertise, Journal of Science Communication 9(1), 2010. 2 something not possible just a decade ago. This development is democratizing3 the discourse, broadening participation far beyond the elite group of nations leading in research expenditures and the elite network of Ph.D. scientists, government officials, and mainstream-media journalists who, until recently, dominated this arena. But is democratization good for science? For journalism? More importantly, is it good for citizens? This analysis will explore these questions by eXamining the role of the media – focusing on social media, in particular blogs – in the discourse about controversial claims in the multidisciplinary field of astrobiology.4 Introduction A recent journal publication in the field of astrobiology prompted eXtensive online discussion and debate: Felisa Wolfe-Simon, Jodi Switzer Blum, Thomas R. Kulp, Gwyneth W. Gordon, Shelley E. Hoeft, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, John F. Stolz, Samuel M. Webb, Peter K. Weber, Paul C. W. Davies, Ariel D. Anbar, and Ronald S. Oremland, “A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus,” Science 3 June 2011: 1163-1166. Published online 2 December 2010.5 In the case of the “arsenic-life paper” – claiming the discovery of a microbe in nature that can substitute arsenic for phosphorus in its major macromolecules, including DNA – the Internet buzzed with questions about its content for days before its publication. Speculation ranged from guesswork based on knowledge of the authors’ research expertise and past publications to assertions that the researchers had found evidence of extraterrestrial life on Earth or on another planetary body. The ease, openness, and immediacy of electronic communication coupled with the “pack journalism” effect6 enabled a virtual flood of commentary. 3 By “democratizing,” the author means making more democratic, in the sense that democracy is a cultural environment characterized by equality of rights and privileges. 4 Astrobiology is typically defined as the study of the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. See, for eXample: http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about-astrobiology/ 5 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1163.full 6 See journalist Tim Porter’s commentary on pack journalism: http://www.timporter.com/firstdraft/archives/000433.html 3 After the paper was published, the blogosphere generated eXtensive criticism of it from scientists, journalists, and others. In response, the authors and the primary sponsor of their research (the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA) declared the blogosphere an inappropriate forum for scientific peer review and declined to engage in the online dialogue. Not only was their declaration to no avail, as the online onslaught continued, but also it provoked further criticism for questioning the legitimacy of bloggers as science commentators and the propriety of the open online environment as a forum for post-publication review and critique. The case of the arsenic-life paper is worth eXamining as part of the ongoing study of the social construction of authority, credibility and legitimacy. The arsenic-life paper was published in Science, a top scientific journal in print since 1880. Its lead author, who served as spokesperson for the paper, was a recent Ph.D. whose work had been supported by a NASA postdoctoral fellowship. She was young (under 35), female, and claimed some Latino heritage. In this credibility contest, a lead author’s credentials, a journal’s reputation, and NASA’s public stance on the claims and the claimants in the case played a role. So did a multitude of online voices in science, journalism, and the blogosphere.7 The blogosphere has been characterized as “a new kind of deliberative space that is both enlarging and constraining public discourse in unprecedented ways” and a place marked by “the lack of norms and the prevalence of incivility.”8 This analysis will consider these aspects of the blogosphere. Context In this analysis, the discourse on science, and science itself, is approached as “a 7 For this analysis, the author considered online content only. Some of this content replicated or was otherwise linked to print media content – for instance, in daily newspapers. 8 Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, Program on Science, Technology, & Society, “Unruly Democracy: Science Blogs and the Public Sphere,” Cambridge, MA, April 30-May 1, 2011, http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/workshops/unrulydemocracy.html: “There are no well defined rules of entry, access, or conduct,” the organizers observed, and “the consequences…have been specially severe for scientific communication, which depends on high standards of truth-telling and civility for its progress. In turn, the erosion of scientific standards destabilizes the foundations of democratic deliberation. Can norms of discourse that would advance science and democracy be developed in the blogosphere? Can blogs induce deliberation or must they encourage fragmentation, eXtremism, and rage to the detriment of public reason? Is science helped or hurt by the new media? What particular distorting factors enter the picture as blogging becomes a business?” 4 historically situated and social activity…to be understood in relation to the contexts in which it occurs.”9 Meaning and power derive, as Bourdieu observed, from communicators and their social milieu, through discourse.10 Scientific authority, constructed as part of the broader enterprise of constructing “science,” is largely built through discourse. This authority is valuable social capital, conveying credibility and legitimacy.11 Standards for scientific credentials, as they represent authority, credibility and legitimacy, do not appear to be changing rapidly. A Ph.D. in an appropriate discipline from an accredited institution is still a basic requirement, and the more prestigious the degree-granting institution, the more valuable the credential. These and other “formal warrants of credibility – institutional affiliation or standing, the observance of eXplicitly framed methodological procedures, the display of eXpert consensus” – all come into play in constructing and maintaining authority.12 In the present, as in the past, not only all scientists but also “all claims have to win credibility,” as historian of science Steven Shapin has shown, “and credibility is the outcome of contingent social and cultural practices.”13 Science claims serve particular interests,14 and in controversies over science claims, “claims of eXpertise, integrity, and disinterestedness battle against accusations of incompetence, 9 S. Shapin, The scientific revolution, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996, p. 9. 10 P. Bourdieu, Language and symbolic power (J.B. Thompson, Ed.; G. Raymond and M. Adamson, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. 11 R. G. Walters, Scientific authority in twentieth century America, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997; L. Billings, Sex! Aliens! Harvard? Rhetorical Boundary-Work in the Media (A Case Study of the Role of Journalists in the Social Construction of Scientific Authority), [Bloomington, Ind.] Indiana University, 2005, https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/7093. 12 Walters, 1997, p. 30. 13 S. Shapin, Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, p. 18. 14 W.E. Evans & S. Hornig-Priest, Science content and social context, Public Understanding of Science 4: 327-340, 1995. 5 dishonesty, and bias, in a war of dramatic narratives”15 waged by these interests. The history
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