Simon Mayo wears spectacularly bad taste in shoes, and is not nearly as cool as I thought he’d be. However, that was really the only major disappointment for me last night at the Ben Goldacre vs. Paul Drayson debate at the Royal Institution, which was excellently chaired by the entertaining (if style-less) Mayo.

The title “Science reporting – is it good for you?” may have been slightly misleading. Any debate on the state of science reporting can only be a good thing, but it did feel almost as if the two panellists were arguing slightly different points but agreeing on the main issues – more fisticuffs would have been nice.

Drayson was first to take to the floor, and although he conceded that there is a lot of bad science reporting out there, he said that the stuff done by dedicated science journalists is “admiral and improving”. On the whole, I thought he talked a lot of sense, and came across as quite sincere (for a politician), at least until he cited the LHC as an example of good science reporting. Yes, the Sun’s headline of “End of the world due in nine days” was truly balanced, Paul.

By focusing on the ‘Bad Science’, Drayson argued that we risk undermining the relationship between scientists and the media. Obviously I’m in the ‘more good science should be reported’ camp, but I don’t agree with Drayson (or Ben for that matter), in that sensationalising science stories is one way to do this. They proposed that sensationalism and accuracy are not mutually exclusive, but didn’t manage to convince me on this point.

Slightly disappointed that Ben didn’t turn up in his cape, or bring Anthony Head with him for that matter. (Thanks to Ben for photo)

Ben started off his turn by agreeing with Drayson (which I’m not entirely sure is how debates are meant to work), but insisted that Drayson is ignoring the problems within science journalism, and that this is not going to make them go away. Now I like Ben, and I like his ideas, but I started to get the feeling that Drayson’s argument had more substance. Ben could spout examples of bad science reporting until the LHC works again, but anyone who’s been to one of his earlier talks may have been experiencing déjà vu at this point. To be fair to the guy though, Drayson had his minions research things between the earlier debate on the Today show and the evening session, whereas Ben was no doubt busy fighting crime, saving lives or cycling round London wearing his cape.

One point Ben made though, which has been underrepresented in the debate so far, is the need for people to be able to criticize bad coverage within their own institution. I was especially pleased when he got his waggy finger out, hoping that this would implore scientists to “raise hell when you’re misrepresented”. Drayson later argued that not enough scientists communicate their own work through blogs etc. and at this point I was sorely tempted to stand up and have a bit of a rant about some of the extremely high-quality science blogs on this very site. But credit where it’s due: if you do feel that you’ve been misrepresented then you now have the go ahead to email Drayson and tell him all about it! As Mayo rightly asked, what can he do about it? Well I’m not sure, but it’s got to be worth busting an email off to MPST.drayson@bis.gsi.gov.uk just to find out.

Things really started to get interesting when the time came for questions from the audience. It emerged that we were not only in the presence of a reporter from the Daily Mail (one of the ‘good guys’, according to Ben), but also the illustrious Jack of Kent (expert lawyer-blogger type), Natasha Loder, chair of the Association of British Science Writers, and possibly the entire staff of the Science Media Centre. To attempt to cover all their points in a few hundred words simply wouldn’t do it justice, so I suggest you listen to the debate on the THE website, even if just for the last half hour.

All together an entertaining evening and as one tweeter excellently put it, “more enlightening than outraging”. It was really good to see two high-profile figures debating a topic such as this, in front of a varied and interested audience. Both panellists seemed to be in agreement that more public engagement of this kind is needed, whether through the mainstream media, the blogosphere or public events. Let’s hope words lead to action.