Scientists Debate Press' Reporting

The furious global race to be the first to confirm "cold fusion" has re-ignited a debate over the proper role of the press in scientific research.

"We don't like doing business by reading results in the press," says Ronald R. Parker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It's very easy to be misunderstood."

The prospect of cheap and limitless energy has reporters all over the world scouring the world's universities and laboratories--prompting The New Republic to coin the term, "Hype-energy physics."

When Stanford University researchers released their results on Tuesday, so many people called for information that Stanford's phone-message system went down for the first time ever.

Many scientists express grave concern over the hype they say the press has inserted into the fusion discoveries. Many note the wild tales of levitating trains that circulated in the popular press when high-temperature superconductors were discovered two years ago.

"Stick to what's been confirmed," says Parker.

"It's not just the press," Parker says. "Some of the scientists, as well, have been hyping the results." Some individuals charge that Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, who announced the intial discovery on March 23, released the information in a way designed to maximize publicity and to minimize the reliability of the content.

Most of the scientists interviewed cautioned not to conclude that every report of new findings means a huge change in civilization as we know it.

Scientists say senationalism has had the unfortunate result in the past of lifting the public's hopes, only to dash them when they are proven untrue.

Yet some scientists say there really isn't any problem with the press in scientific research.

"I think there are some areas of physics that the public is very concerned with," says Robert A. Huggins of Stanford University. "It's only fair to expect that the press is going to find about it."

"It's very different than an incremental science--this is a great leap," Huggins says, adding that one must have a historical perspective in the debate. When W.K. Roentgen discovered X-rays, Huggins says, all his research was published in the press before the papers were published in academic journals.