Do Scientists Exaggerate?

Research scientists like to promote themselves as objective, disinterested tellers of the truth, but a letter in the UK independent newspaper on 8th July 2009 suggests a different picture altogether.

Bob Ward, Policy and Communications Director, Grantham Research Institute On climate Change And the Environment at The London school Of Economics, refers in his letter to some research that found that “just 42% of press releases issued by US academic medical centres provided relevant caveats about the research they described, and 29% exaggerated the importance of their findings.”

In a way this is not surprising, many scientists and doctors are ambitious and want to succeed and be recognised. What they are displaying are common human failings, but we need to remember that these press releases form the basis of what most journalists write, and what journalists write influences our views on how powerful and successful science and medicine are.