How 'mommy instinct' outdid science

Associate Professor Philip Chubb, the deputy head of Monash University's journalism program, agrees the media has a poor track record in representing scientific debate.

In the case of climate change, he said - which might apply also to the presentation of research into vaccines or tobacco - there was ''a tendency to balance, in the name of journalistic ethics, the views of scientists with those of climate change deniers''.

''If you had a scientific community which was divided on the issue,'' said Chubb, ''it would be perfectly reasonable for journalists to report on that division. When there is no division, and the only people opposed … don't have any scientific credibility in this area and mostly don't have any scientific credibility at all, and are motivated by extreme ideology, then the idea of using them for balance is [wrong].''

The media's use of defiant and charismatic individuals such as Wakefield and McCarthy, to give an otherwise opaque subject light, movement and a flavour of human power struggle, was another ''failure of journalistic imagination'', Chubb said. ''The media does it because of a compulsion to entertain and always find the less serious side of an issue … If the media does see itself as resting on a conflict model, there is enough disagreement [among scientists] to keep any journalist going.''

The promotion of dissenting voices from far beyond the boundaries of legitimate scientific debate could cause real harm, Chubb said, by muddying important policy questions: ''