Hm.
Hm.
http://www.nature.com/news/researcher-under-fire-for-new-yorker-epigenetics-article-1.19874
http://www.nature.com/news/researcher-under-fire-for-new-yorker-epigenetics-article-1.19874
http://www.nature.com/news/researcher-under-fire-for-new-yorker-epigenetics-article-1.19874
http://www.nature.com/news/researcher-under-fire-for-new-yorker-epigenetics-article-1.19874
In fairness, I speculate that part of the origin of Mukherjee's misstep was unconsciously assuming that of course everyone knows transcription factors are the first and most important aspect of gene regulation. Sort of the same way political articles assume that the reader knows elections are won by winning more votes, or crime articles assume the reader knows being arrested is bad. You don't rehash the patently obvious in every news article on a subject.
ReplyDeleteOf course, transcription factors aren't at all obvious to the general public, and if the only thing you knew about gene regulation was that single article, sure, that's kind of a warped view of the world. Mukherjee acknowledges he should have put it in context; but I can easily see how such a thing could happen, to even the best of expert writers.
Yeah, I haven't had time to troll through all of everybody's articles and background. But jiminy cricket, you'd have thought he said vaccines cause autism.
ReplyDelete* clears throat *
* drops mike *