Playground Level of Scientific Balance

In "Unpopular Science," an article written by Christopher Mooney published on TheNation.com, Mooney questions the idea of balance when it comes to science writing. Some people involved in this type of writing believe that articles and publications should present balanced views of their stories, giving equal attention to both sides of every scientific assertion. In his article, Mooney wrote:

“Then there's the problem of "balance"--the idea that reporters must give roughly equal space to two different "sides" of a controversy. When applied to science, especially in politicized areas, this media norm becomes extremely problematic. Should journalists really grant equal time to the small band of scientists who deny the causal relationship between HIV and AIDS when the vast majority of researchers accept the connection between the two? Should they split column space between the few remaining global warming "skeptics" and scientific experts who affirm the phenomenon's human causation? Again, experienced science journalists will know best how to cover such stories and will be aware of the scientific community's very justifiable abhorrence of unthinking "balance". 

Personally, I agree with Mooney's stance on balance in scientific writing to the extent that the two sides of an argument should not be equally represented, because if scientific findings are significant, the skeptical side is usually that which is least represented in scientific findings. I do, however, believe that the other side of the story should be represented somehow in the article or publication in question, rather than ignored. Scientific findings require an intensive amount of evidence and research before they can be considered "facts" and until they can be, science writers should present their readers with the ability to be somewhat skeptical and think for themselves.

I view the issue of balance less like a traditional balance scale such as this one: 

Instead I think of it more in terms of the seesaws my friends and I used to play on as children. When we were of the age to go to the playground and entertain ourselves, all of the children were relatively the same weight, so the seesaw could provide us with seemingly endless entertainment. Once we tired of going up and down, up and down, up and down, we always tried to position ourselves in the air so that neither of us had to be touching the ground. We tried to make the seesaw balance.

The thing about the seesaw was that no matter how close two friends were in weight, the kids never ended up balancing right in the middle. Something about the seesaw itself must have made it such that even if both children could sit in the air at the same time with feet dangling, the two sides of the seesaw were rarely an equal height off the ground. Something about one side of the apparatus caused it to "balance" out at unbalanced height levels. 

Something about good science writing should make the reader feel as if they are receiving "balance" by allowing for both sides of the story to hang in the air of the article, although one side should carry more weight than the other in order to be an effectively compelling piece of writing. The balance lies in sharing enough of the opposite side of the story so that it can hang in the air a bit while the main reason for writing the scientific piece sits higher in the air, thus most visible and important to the targeted audience.