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Show I NEWSPAPER SCIENCE "Newspaper science" is nerally scorned by scientists, for they are accustomed to read technical books and journals, where things arc told with great care and precision. But most ordinary people -re not readers of technical books; and if it were not for the newspapers news-papers and the movies, they would get nothing in the way ot science at all. But when a reader takes more than a passing interest in what a paper says, he should think of it as a mere beginning, or try to read a little between the lines. Sometimes the stories are entirely false A paper is not a book and no editor has time to. verify every storv that comes .in to it. Sometimes the writers miss the point, for "it is difficult indeed to put in a few simple words what the scientist himself needed a chapter or a book to explain. Sometimes they hit the mark with amazing skill. Often they dwell on the more spectacular side of things, because that is what the reader seems to want But they rarely give more than a snap-shot picture o'x the tacts. And so the reader, who is really interested, should go beyond the newspapers, get in touch with the scientists themselves, or some one who tells of their work more slowly and at greater length. Every high school teacher can give the names of men who really count in his own particular specialty, and he . knows what journals can be depended on for articles and discussions and reviews of the, best books, and, of course, it is the business of the public libraries, to give just such information. If one already has a book, it is worth while to notice when it was written (for scientific publications soon get out of date) and who the author is. A man in a responsible position can't afford to make reckless reck-less statements about his speciality. ' |