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Analog SFF, September 2006
by Dell Magazine Authors
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Science Fiction
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Dell Magazines
www.analogsf.com
Copyright ©2006 by Dell Magazines
NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION AND FACT
Vol. CXXVI No. 9, September 2006
Cover design by Victoria Green
Cover Art by Bob Eggleton
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SERIAL
A NEW ORDER OF THINGS, Conclusion by Edward M. Lerner
NOVELLA
A POUND OF FLESH by Richard A. Lovett
NOVELETTE
A MILLION YEARS AND COUNTING by Rajnar Vajra
SHORT STORY
KYRIE ELEISON by John G. Hemry
SCIENCE FACT
THE RIGHT STUFF: MATERIALS FOR AEROSPACE AND BEYOND by Kyle Kirkland
PROBABILITY ONE
PROBABLY MURDER by Michael F. Flynn
READER'S DEPARTMENTS
THE EDITOR'S PAGE
IN TIMES TO COME
THE ALTERNATE VIEW by Jeffery D. Kooistra
THE REFERENCE LIBRARY by Tom Easton
BRASS TACKS
UPCOMING EVENTS by Anthony Lewis
Stanley Schmidt Editor
Trevor Quachri Associate Editor
Cover design by Victoria Green
Cover Art by Jean Pierre Normand
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EDITORIAL: SCIENCE, JOURNALISM, AND RESPONSIBILITY
by Stanley Schmidt
“ALL CLONED STEM CELL LINES ARE FAKE, INVESTIGATIVE PANEL SAYS."
When I saw that Associated Press headline, shortly before the end of 2005, my first reaction was, “I don't believe it.” My second was, “How could they possibly know? Even if the ones they know about are fake, there may be some that they don't know about."
What the article under the headline actually said was both more believable and less provocative—but not every reader of a newspaper actually reads every article. Most of them skim headlines first to decide which pieces interest them enough to invest time in reading the actual text. In this particular case, the subject of the article was a panel at Seoul National University, in South Korea, investigating claims by stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk that he had produced 11 cloned stem cell lines tailored to individual patients. The panel concluded that he had not.
Reporting research results that were not actually obtained is, of course, a serious breach of scientific ethics and does science itself a disservice on several levels. But there's a big difference between one individual's committing such an offense, and discrediting an entire field of research.
Which, I suspect, is how many readers interpreted that headline: that all cloned stem cell lines—not just one set of them, in one misbehaving lab—are fake.
That is, after all, what it says. And many of those who read it that way never bothered to read the article itself to see what it was really talking about.
That isn't good, either. Scientific policy is shaped to a considerable extent by public opinion, and even more by the opinions of legislators and politicians. So those who understand the importance of scientific research and want to see it flourish can't afford to have those opinions shaped by inaccurate and misleading headlines. The Seoul incident is a particularly pertinent example because stem cell research, despite its huge potential benefits, is highly controversial, especially in this country. A headline that suggests that the whole field is inherently fraudulent or otherwise tainted can hardly help its chances of gaining acceptance and support.
You may object that this headline was not intended to suggest that, and I am not accusing anybody of trying to create that impression—but the effect, not the intent, is what ultimately matters. You may further object that only a careless reader would draw that conclusion from the headline, but surely I don't need to point out that the world is full of careless readers. Since they have the same voting rights as careful ones, responsible journalists need to do whatever they can to minimize the likelihood that they'll be misconstrued by anybody.
I'm all too aware that they can't completely prevent that from happening. Anybody in a position like mine sees abundant evidence that somebody will misconstrue virtually anything you say, no matter how carefully you say it. I'm particularly sensitive to the challenge headline writers face. A tag line limited to a dozen or fewer words can't realistically hope to fully and accurately convey the meaning and connotations of an article containing hundreds or thousands of words. But it is possible to choose those few words to convey as much of the essence and as little that invites misinterpretation as possible. This headline, for example, could have given a much clearer suggestion of the article's gist by simply changing two words, without changing the word count at all:
“RESEARCHER'S CLONED STEM CELL LINES ALL FAKE, INVESTIGATIVE PANEL SAYS."
Why wasn't that done? Obviously I'm in no position to know, but I can make some educated guesses. Last I heard, it was common practice for newspapers to employ one set of people to write stories, and a separate set to write headlines for stories written by the first set. Presumably this practice got established for reasons, which may have been valid then and may still be valid now; but it might be worthwhile to reconsider from time to time the question of whether that's really the best way to do it. It's true that condensing the essence of a story into a very few words is a special skill not necessarily possessed by all reporters. But it's also true that the reporter who wrote the whole story is more familiar with its content than any headline writer who has to digest and distill many stories quickly is likely to be. That familiarity may give him or her a better feel for what parts of the story are most important. Should reporters write their own headlines, or at least have veto power over those written by someone else? I've sometimes thought so, especially in extreme cases where I've read headlines that actually contradicted the stories over which they appeared. Newspaper people are, of course, routinely under extreme time pressure—but I can't help suspecting that there may be a better way to divide the labor.
I am not even remotely suggesting, of course, that journalists are solely responsible for giving the public a realistically favorable view of science. Scientists themselves have the first responsibility: to deserve a good public image by carrying out their work conscientiously and with integrity. Most of them realize that and do so all or most of the time, but some have lapses, most often small, sometimes large. Sometimes they remind one another of this. The June 9 issue of Nature (half a year before the headline with which I began) carried an article titled “Scientists Behaving Badly,” about the prevalence of questionable research behavior ranging from falsifying data (very serious and fortunately rare) to sloppy record-keeping (commoner but far from prevalent, less egregious but not insignificant). The article examined some of the factors that lead scientists into temptation, and what might be done to alleviate them. The most important preventive, of course, is that scientists themselves must remain conscious of their responsibilities and police themselves, and the Nature article is one example of an “inside” way of doing so.
The public needs to understand that scientists are human beings, not infallible, and not inter
changeable. Some are much more or less capable, conscientious, or unscrupulous than others; but the extremes are unusual. If the public is to understand how and by whom science is done, it must not be led to believe that one individual who commits serious offenses is typical of all scientists, or any particular field of research. Creating such an impression, intentionally or otherwise, can easily cripple or even nip in the bud an infant field with big potential.
A fairly recent example in which that may have happened is “cold fusion,” or “chemically assisted nuclear reactions.” (See “Cold Fusion Conundrum,” January 1995.) There may or may not be something that we need there, and we may never know because the “scientific mainstream” quite early decided there wasn't and systematically squelched further serious consideration of the possibility—at least partly in reaction to a university administration's premature eagerness for publicity and media willingness to hype a “maybe” before anybody knew much about the reality.
Journalists aren't all alike, of course, and many do strive for accuracy and balance. But neither are scientists all alike. Some lie, cheat, or go off half-cocked, but most don't; and the public—and its elected representatives—need to know that. But who's going to tell them? Most scientists seldom talk directly to the public; they depend on journalists to give laymen—on whose support they depend—a clear and accurate idea of who they are, what they do, where problems lie and where they don't, and why their work is important (but without building up false hopes or fears). Journalists—whether writing body copy or headlines—need to report all this as carefully and accurately as they can. And scientists need to help them by taking time to make sure they have it straight in the first place.
Copyright © 2006 Stanley Schmidt
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A POUND OF FLESH
by Richard A. Lovett
Is honesty always the best policy?
The day got off to a bad start when I put my wife's MemriDrops in my eyes. At least, technically she's still my wife. I guess I should call her my soon-to-be-ex-, but that sounds as bad as it feels.
Mornings have never been my thing, and with Marion's departure I find it hard enough to get to sleep at night, let alone climb out of bed in the morning. You know how it feels when you try to sleep in, only to discover that once you've prodded yourself out of bed, you can't really get moving? That's how it is with divorce. The more time I pretend to sleep, the less I'm required to be awake—which is a good thing, especially because, all too often, there doesn't seem to be much of anything worth doing when I'm awake. Which is a separate problem, but I'll get to that in a moment.
Even though they must have been nearing expiration, the ‘Drops firmed up into contact lenses just fine. But I was slow to realize they were the wrong lenses. Halfway downstairs, I started getting that stepping-off-a-curb feeling that comes when your eyes insist your legs are three inches too short.
In the kitchen, the AutoPot was perking, so I thought I'd wake myself a bit before dealing with the eyes. Bad idea. My arms didn't feel any closer to the right length than my legs, and I wound up spilling the pot's contents all over the counter in an overshoot/undershoot effort to hit the mug. It might have been comical if all that hot coffee hadn't trickled down and caught me where it really hurts.
There's one good thing about pain: it wakes you up even better than caffeine. I yelled, cursed, and with remarkable accuracy for a man whose depth perception wasn't working, turned and threw the mug through the vidscreen, where a perky newscaster with a voice too similar to Marion's was reciting today's pinpoint forecast. “On the West Side, the waterfront will see brief showers at 9:15, 11:20, and 12:45—” she managed to say before my lucky shot found its mark, terminating not only her broadcast, but my favorite mug and a bunch of electronics I could ill afford to replace.
“Damn you, Marion!” I roared into the silence. “Why didn't you take those stupid ‘Drops when you took everything else?"
Another problem with divorce is you think everything's a conspiracy. Professionally, I've dealt with enough divorces to know all about that, but for the moment I was sure Marion had left the ‘Drops as a booby trap and was now sniggering at me for breaking the vid.
Meanwhile, my own ‘Drops were in the medicine cabinet and my vision wasn't going to improve on its own. I stumbled upstairs and rummaged for a bottle of Erasure. Even the big print on the label was hard to read, but I was awake enough now to find the right bottle by shape, without compounding my problems by squirting something nasty into my eyes, like rubbing alcohol or sunscreen.
When I could see again, I located my own ‘Drops—and chose the Baby Blues, whose bottle, I realized, was the same color as Marion's.
And suddenly I knew why she'd left it. A few years ago she'd gone on a togetherness binge and matched several of my eyeshades, with the idea it made us look more like a couple. I'd thought it silly, but that's the way I've always been about most of that “togetherness” stuff. She was a romantic; I'm strictly utilitarian. I've got a variety of eyeshades, but all for practical purposes. Today, I wanted the Baby Blues because the rent was due and I needed that frank, innocent gaze when I begged for Extension.
Sadly, the rent wasn't my only problem. If someday soon I didn't come up with enough to pay my lawyer's retainer, Marion would clean me out and the rent nano wouldn't be the only one to come home to roost in ways that might almost make me wish I'd just poured bleach in my eyes and gotten it over with.
Still, the rent was today's concern. A few minutes later my landlord proved it by intercepting me on my doorstep.
“Sorry, Trevor,” I said, practicing my innocent gaze. I'd planned on calling him for an appointment later in the day, but I already know my spiel. “I'm expecting a nice fee, but it's been delayed. Can you give me a week's Extension?” Actually, I'd not seen a paying client in a fortnight, but a week was the most I could ask for with a straight face. In the back of my mind, I was trying to remember the terms of my lease. Landlord/tenant law requires the enforcement nano to be non-lethal and non-maiming, but that leaves a lot of room for unpleasantness. When I'd accepted it, I'd been more than marginally solvent. Marion was a computer tech whose career seemed immune to the forces that had ruined my own, and I hadn't paid much attention to the fine print. If I were lucky, I'd simply agreed to turn blue or have “deadbeat” appear on my forehead in neon tones. But I might have accepted a month of diarrhea, an ugly skin disease, narcolepsy, Tourette's syndrome, or any of a host of other legally permissible ailments that merely make you wish you could die. Too bad Trevor hadn't insisted that Marion accept the nano, too, because now she was the one with the money while I was the one stuck with the nano. It wasn't fair—but who's ever seen a divorce that was?
Trevor had chosen a stern, dark look: his bill-collector persona. Actually, he's a pussycat who's given me a lot of slack, but he has his own nanos to tend to, and property taxes were due sometime soon. Getting the government to give you Exten
sion is damn near impossible.
“Blast it, Alex,” he said. “You know I like you, but I need the rent. Preferably on time."
I shrugged. “Tell that to my client. I gave him Extension, but that means I need it from you.” A total fabrication, but I was getting desperate. What had been in that rent nano?
Trevor was still trying for stern, but I could see the softness around the edges. “Come on,” I wheedled. “Just a week."
“Twenty-four hours."
“Five days?"
“Three."
“Four?"
Sometimes, I push too hard. It was one of the things Marion complained about. “Three,” Trevor said. “And count yourself lucky.” He tapped a trio of triangular pills from a packet labeled RENT EXTENSIONS and slid them into a pill-sized envelope. It amazes me that he dispenses Extension this way, rather than just reprogramming the nanos with a code-locked scanner. Maybe he doesn't trust scanners, even though they're pretty much the same devices the bank uses when you log a payment. Or maybe he's just old-fashioned. After all, he's willing to visit tenants in person, rather than hiding behind a rental agency that would never give even a day's Extension.
Briefly I wondered how many pills were in his packet and what would happen if someone got really desperate. Then I decided it didn't matter because the number was finite and eventually the clock would run out. Still, I wouldn't flash something like that around when rents were due. Maybe it's just my profession that makes me cynical, but Trevor is too trusting.
I started to thank him, but he interrupted. “I mean it,” he said. His normally open face clenched and I realized that even pussycats have limits. “Don't even think about trying to tell me you lost one. Three days, or you can just rot."
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