Lets Talk Science!

This week my assignment for my Mass Media and Society class is to read an article from a mainstream newspaper and analyze the media’s coverage of either a science or health story. I chose to analyze an article in the New York Times written by Benedict Carey titled, “In a Novel Theory of Mental Disorders, Parents’ Genes in Competition.” This article is about a new theory of brain development which, some believe could help solve the mystery behind mental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.

In this article I feel that the Reporter did a great job of playing the “custodian of fact” role. Carey does a good job of presenting the facts as they are with a little bit of analysis. The story is not sensationalized as so many science stories are. He presented an article that mentioned both the pros and cons of the study which had been submitted. He discussed why the study could help the field of research and he also discussed the flaws in the theory that was published. He starts by talking about the significance of the theory that has been published, At a time when the search for the genetic glitches behind brain disorders has become mired in uncertain and complex findings, the new idea provide psychiatry with perhaps its grandest working theory since Freud…” After mentioning the positives of the theory he gives this quote, “‘The reality, and I think both of the authors would agree, is that many of the details of their theory are going to be wrong; and it is, at this point, just a theory,” said Dr. Matthew Belmonte, a neuroscientist at

Cornell University. ‘But the idea is plausible. And it gives researchers a great opportunity for hypothesis generation, which I think can shake up the field in good ways.’”

He also validates his article by using credible sources. A neuroscientist at Cornell University, the author of the newly published theory, and a doctor from a children’s hospital in Toronto are all very credible sources to gather information from.

Even though he does spend part of his article mentioning the aspects of the theory that may not be significant, Carey concludes his story with this statement, “But experts familiar with their theory say that the two scientists have, at minimum, infused the field with a shot of needed imagination and demonstrated the power of thinking outside the gene. For just as a gene can carry a mark from its parent of origin, so it can be imprinted by that parent’s own experience.

The study of such markers should have a “‘significant impact on our understanding of mental health conditions,” said Dr. Bhismadev Chakrabarti, of the Autism Research Center at the University of Cambridge, “as, in some ways, they represent the first environmental influence on the expression of the genes.’”

Benedict Carey does a great job of being a “custodian of fact” in his latest science article. He presents the facts with a little of his own opinion and analysis.