Stephen--

I didn't see the NBC report you mention.  But the passages from the
report that you cite make it abundantly clear that NBC did NOT say there
is now a cure for Alzheimer's in humans.

Since YOU were bright enough to figure out that the recent developments
in Alzheimer's research do not mean there is now a cure for the disease,
why are you assuming that the public is too stupid to figure this out?
I'm becoming increasingly irritated by those people in science studies
who seem to assume that the public is too doltish to understand
statements made in plain English; or that scientific developments should
be kept under wraps for fear of the public "getting their hopes up."
If the report said that a breakthrough in scientific terms does not mean
a cure, I am fairly certain that anyone who understands English will GET
that the breakthrough does not mean a cure.  It isn't rocket science.
And even if they do "get their hopes up," is this worse than watching a
close family member decline with Alzheimer's, with no hope that the
disease will ever be cured?  (I speak from experience here).

It is not only arrogant but dangerous to assume that those of us in
science studies inevitably are smarter than "the public", and that
scientific developments should be kept from the public because they're
too moronic to understand what they mean.  If those of us in science
studies who are not trained as scientists can figure out what scientific
claims mean, why wouldn't other members of the public be able to?  Or
are we such geniuses that only we are able to conduct this kind of
"critical analysis"? (Especially when, in Stephen's example, all it
takes is listening to the direct words of the report--hardly a major
task of discourse analysis or critical deconstruction).

The onus is on journalists, scientists, and science studies scholars to
make their claims accessible to "lay people," not to keep them from "lay
people."

Emma Whelan
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Emma Whelan <[log in to unmask]>
Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University

A bus station is where a bus stops.
A train station is where a train stops.
On my desk I have a workstation.        - George Carlin
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