Thread by @AdamRutherford

An interesting tale of science communication, journalism and the culture wars has just dropped - ​🧵
​@JenniferRaff @ewanbirney @aylwyn_scally @minouye271 + I recently published a paper about the lexicon of genetics, and how it needs to be addressed
bit.ly/3ddQu96

We argue that certain terms are confusing, scientifically invalid, and some are wedded to the racist history of our field.
Last night, the Telegraph published a hit piece on it
bit.ly/3xWvPOI

...which misrepresents the arguments, misquotes the paper, and spells two of our names wrong. Nice work.
I wonder if this might be some latent revenge, as I have a previous run in with the author over some of the most comically wrong reporting of a science story ever

That was for the Daily Mail, which followed up with their own story on our new paper last night by copying the Telegraph's, but actually doing it quite well.
bit.ly/3xSkdw0

Anyway. This is fairly terrible reporting and violates basic standards in journalism, such as contacting authors, or getting quotes from them, or comments from relevant people - ironic given that our paper is about science communication.

Well, I suppose it is written to demonise academics, and the comments below (never read the comments) both reflect this, though we might consider this exposure as good, as it further broadcasts the conversation we wish to promote.

As I said before, we’re not prescribing or policing language, but want to prompt a dialogue with colleagues in similar and adjacent fields about our terminology, datasets and tools, and move towards a lexicon that both serves the science and frees us from a racist past.

So, please get involved. It's important.

And ignore this flamebait gibberoni when journalists at major papers are not even capable of getting 3/5 names spelt correctly).

<minority report> That picture of me in the Mail was taken in 2009. I look so young and full of light, instead of the hollowed out shell of a man today.

And in a new twist, a new report of our paper has managed to spell our names wrong in new and exciting ways. 🤷🏽‍♂️🤣