13 Aug 2003 The Scientific Method

An email to our foundation that caught my eye:

Obviously you know that your site offers the opposite extreme as greenpeace, rendering it as an equally uncredible source of news about the environment.

Frank Cruz

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Penn State

Hmmm…. Should we lie about the facts and our conclusions so we can artificially agree with Greenpeace about half the time, thereby — apparently — rendering ourselves credible? I don’t think so…

Does Penn State not teach the scientific method?

This e-mail reminds me of all those — pardon my frankness — idiotic journalists who claim they can’t possibly be biased in their reporting because they get complaint letters from both sides of the political spectrum. What worries me about those people is that, as journalists, they have influence over society, yet they seem to believe accuracy can be determined by counting complaints. One wonders — biased or not — how they can possibly be competent.