Bad "Science"

Two years ago I was surfing the web looking for interesting science articles.  It's a nice break from reading technical papers on subjects you like to be able to find a shorter, more laid-back article to get lost in for a few moments.  I came across one that peaked my interest for 2 reasons, 1) it was not only an article about trilobites (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilobite) but canabalistic agnostid trilobites (http://www.trilobites.info/ordagnostida.htm) and 2) it was about a talk to be given at the Geological Society of America Annual meeting that fall in Denver, a meeting I planned to attend.  The article was on DiscoveryNews and although I fancied myself a bit of a skeptic, I was taken in and grew more and more excited about seeing this talk and the evidence for cannibalism in the fossil record.  I mean, fossils themselves are rare enough and amazing, but preserving this type of behavior in enough detail to recognize it as cannibalism?  It must be good!

I went to GSA with only one talk that I HAD to see and...I was duped.  The talk was by a man named Mark McMenamin (https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/geology/mcmenamin) and I was just green enough as a student of paleontology to not know of his reputation.  A reputation for giving talks about complete and utter nonsense and trying to pass it off as science.  He has given talks on mind-control in the fossil record, evidence for aliens throughout geologic time, and a talk on the supposed existence of a giant Kraken that made murals of itself out of the bones of its dead prey.  He seems to be accepted into GSA most every year because people fill the rooms to hear his talks because...well...although they may not be science, even we humble geologists like a good laugh every now and then.  What harm could it do?

Unfortunately, it makes a mockery of us all when national and international news organizations pick it up and report it as fact.  Bad science like the above example, undermines the fields of paleontology and geology.  It peeks the interest of some and maybe gets them to read into these fields more than they would have otherwise, but they don't go for the credible science, they go for the junk.  They turn off the critical thinking side of their brain and start to just accept whatever is written down because...hey, it is supposed to be science.  And then you end up with schools teaching that the Loch Ness monster is real and that it is a Plesiosaur.  You get people devoting hours to paranormal investigations and shows about bigfoot and aliens throughout history.  All under the guise of being science.

It feeds our curiosity.  We want to know more and we want to ask questions and we know that science can lead us to good answers with credible evidence to support those answers.  But most don't actually look at the raw information or critically review anything being reported.  So people assume that because someone invented a machine that can measure whether or not a tomato feels pain when sliced (L. Ron Hubbard's e-meter), that it must be legit.  That the heat cameras used in those paranormal shows must be showing signs of ghosts.  That the obscure hieroglyphs on Egyptian walls must mean aliens and advanced technology.  These things are believed because they are developed to tell people what they want to hear (or what the writer wants them to hear).  Somewhere along the way, people were told a story that made them think that the truth is mundane.  That truth is boring.  That real scientists just sit in labs with petri dishes.  Something is wrong if you think that obscure stories based on anecdotal evidence about giant krakens and aliens is more interesting than the fusion occurring in every star.  The fossils we actually have of organisms that are so bizarre, we did not even know which phylum to put them in at first (http://astrobio.net/albums/origins/agb.jpg).  The evidence of giant bolide impacts bringing about the end of a 200 million year reign of the dinosaurs.  An event called 'Snowball Earth' around 700 million years ago when our entire planet was one big ball of ice!