So in my recent Nature paper, which I authored with seven others, I focused narrowly on the influence of climate change on extreme wildfire behavior. Make no mistake: that influence is very real. But there are also other factors that can be just as or more important, such as poor forest management and the increasing number of people who start wildfires either accidentally or purposely. (A startling fact: over 80 percent of wildfires in the US are ignited by humans.)
In my paper, we didn’t bother to study the influence of these other obviously relevant factors. Did I know that including them would make for a more realistic and useful analysis? I did. But I also knew that it would detract from the clean narrative centered on the negative impact of climate change and thus decrease the odds that the paper would pass muster with Nature’s editors and reviewers.
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What really should matter isn’t citations for the journals, clicks for the media, or career status for the academics—but research that helps society.
I Left Out the Full Truth to Get My Climate Change Paper Published | The Free Press (thefp.com)
He explains use of unusual metrics to create bigger numbers. Bigger numbers mean more publicity and more grants.
Papers are then interpreted by journalists with a BA in English Literature, little to no training in science, and the last math class they took was Algebra 2 in high school.
This results in the public thinking they know something from the news – and much of what they think they know is probably wrong. See also Factfulness by Hans Rosling for more on that.
Since Covid, I learned it is best to ignore media and go straight to the underlying paper and read what the researchers really said, versus the spin of creative writers and editors – which comes after the researcher or university PR office spin in the press release.
Some have fought back against his criticisms – which are somewhat addressed in this Twitter thread.
