Why we know so little of Indian scientific breakthroughs
Scientists also want to make headlines with their work. Studies that make causal relationships are the ones that make catchy headlines — "coffee can make you live longer", "green tea can prevent cancer", etc. Such research work is lapped up by the media globally. These studies are either hyped by journals which publish them or promoted by scientists and institutions which have done the research. A recent study linking climate change and suicides in India loosely fits this trend.
It was published in one of the most respected, peer-reviewed journals, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and done by a researcher from an equally prominent institution — University of California, Berkley. The title of the paper itself was enough to grab the media’s attention — “crop-damaging temperatures increase suicide rates in India”.
The paper claimed that decline in agricultural yields at high temperatures mirrored the rise in suicide rates and that the temperature sensitivities of crop yields and suicides were linked across regions in India. Now, it seems the study is full of holes, as pointed out by three leading climate and agriculture experts from India.
Scientific research is often difficult to explain to the general public. Findings of rigorous research are usually nuanced and don’t lend themselves to generalisations. They also come with several caveats — referred to scientists as "limitations". Reputed journals subject research papers to peer review before publishing them. Yet, they may be faulty at times. This seems to be the case with the climate change and suicide study.
Logically, the paper should have been peer reviewed by a relevant expert from India since it talked about suicides occurring in the farm sector in India due to rising temperature — a manifestation of climate change. The names of reviewers are kept anonymous, so we would not know if this paper was reviewed by an Indian climate change or agricultural expert.
However, the review of this paper post-publication by the three Indian experts is quite scathing — “we consider these claims (linking temperature rise and suicides) to be baseless. These claims are a consequence of the uncritical use of data, bad assumptions, flawed analysis and unacceptable neglect of the existing literature on global warming and Indian agriculture as well as farmer suicides.”
The episode points to serious lacunae in the way science news is covered in India and the way Indian scientific community communicates its own work. Uncritical acceptance of science news disseminated by international news agencies leads to problematic, one-sided coverage of important issues.
Since the study talked about climate change and suicides in India, the news reports based on it should have included comments from relevant experts from India. This brings us to the role of our academic and scientific institutions.
Many of them are working on impacts of climate change on agriculture in different states and for different crops as well as climate-induced distress among farmers. But this work does not make headlines. Why? It’s because our scientists don’t believe in communicating, unlike their Western counterparts. So, if we want to see genuine and relevant science make headlines, then Indian research institutions and scientists will have to start communicating.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)