Michael Marshall is a science journalist. He published a short essay in New Scientist where he laments the fact that popular science books may contain lots of errors. The title of the original article was Getting the facts right but the online version is Readers deserve beter from popular science books. The blurb is the same for both versions.
"There is a dirty secret in publishing: most popular science books aren't fact-checked. This needs to change, says Michael Marshall."
No, the problem is much simpler, and it is a dirty secret of non-fiction publishing: most books aren’t fact-checked. If an author makes a mistake or misinterprets a study, nobody stops them.
In journalism, fact-checking practices vary widely. New Scientist has two layers of editors, who each ensure readability and accuracy. Others are even stricter: fact-checkers at The New Yorker re-report entire stories. Non-fiction publishing is far more relaxed. Often, there is no fact-checking at all: editors offer guidance on readability, but take factual claims on trust. The UK publishers of my book The Genesis Quest did this (though my US publishers, a university press, recruited anonymous peer reviewers).
It is easy to see why this has happened. Nuance is difficult to sell. If your book has a counterintuitive thesis, or simply promotes a moral panic, it is easier to market. Non-fiction authors who are rigorous and careful can’t compete. That’s why shops are flooded with books about one neat trick for a better life or how everything you know is wrong. But without fact-checking, these books might as well be scrawled in crayon. Publishers must do better.
For the record, my book was sent out to reviewers and I got back some very helpful comments that caused me to make some serious changes. I also sent it to some of my colleagues and they corrected quite a few errors.
The last part of Marshall's essay is something that I've been worried about for many years, "Non-fiction authors who are rigorous and careful can’t compete."
Note: I inserted an image of Philip Ball's latest book because it's a recently published popular science book. I have no idea whether it was fact-checked or not. (But I have my suspicions.)
3 comments :
Quote: "No, the problem is much simpler, and it is a dirty secret of non-fiction publishing: most books aren’t fact-checked."
That is an extraordinary claim and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Has the author presented evidence for that claim? How many books did he really check?
About Philip Ball's latest book: Do you consider the information in the Acknowledgments section of the book as sufficient proof of fact-checking?
What about books by Nobel prize winners , for example Thomas R. Cech (2024) 'The Catalyst'? Does he need fact-checking too? There is an Acknowledgments section, and I consider the information in it as proof of thorough fact-checking.
@gert korthof asks, "About Philip Ball's latest book: Do you consider the information in the Acknowledgments section of the book as sufficient proof of fact-checking?"
Nope. Fact-checking requires an independent review by a knowledgeable scientist, preferably one who doesn't agree with the extraordinary claims being made by the author.
In Ball's case, we can see from the acknowledgment that he was heavily influenced by the ENCODE scientists in the Boston area. All that reveals is the source of his errors.
@gert korthof Note that Nessa Carey's book "Junk DNA" and John Parrington's book "The Deeper Genome" both have acknowledgments. Does that mean they got the facts right?
Georgi Marinov reviews two books on junk DNA
The fuzzy thinking of John Parrington: pervasive transcription
Nature reviews Nessa Carey's book on junk DNA
And Frank Ryan also acknowledges help in writing Another failure: "The Mysterious World of the Human Genome"
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