Saturday 7 January 2012

Sloppy journalism

One of the hazards of posting quick and easy geological stories to the shop Facebook page with some glib comment attached is that I don't always put in an adequate level of background research. I got caught out yesterday linking to a BBC article about a bit of a breakthrough in ichthyosaur history which had been given a slightly misleading spin by the journalist.

The article, while a little cursory, focuses on the 2005 find from Braunschweig in Germany, missing the point that the source material, a paper published on PLoS ONE, based its findings far more heavily on the study of fossils found near Scarborough in 1958 and since. On this occasion, at least, I'm able to redress my sloppiness to some extent and allow one of the authors of the original paper to guest on the blog and either tell us a little more about the subject or give me a dressing down. In my defence, I don't pretend to be a proper scientist. I don't even own a white lab coat.

[Edit] Jeff will tell the story behind the paper. Now, I've never written a scientific article, because I don't know enough about anything and I'm lazy. Jeff, however, is a proper scientist so the blog post will be longer than usual and contain some technical terms such as 'basiocciput'. I find it best just to nod at those parts and carry on. Anyway. I'll get the final draft in a couple of days and post it.

1 comment:

John Tossot said...

where is founded fossils picture?
fossils for kids