Why you should not trust popular news media on scientific issues

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110805/NEWS01/108050316/Juno-craft-target-launch-atop-Atlas-V-from-Cape-Canaveral-today

…

"I think it just goes to show you that they needlessly put people and the planet in grave danger during past plutonium launches," Gagnon said in an email.

"It surely shows that our claims they could use solar in deep space were not wrong as NASA claimed during the Galileo, Ulysses and Cassini launches."

Solar power spacecraft in the past always have been deemed unsuitable for outer planet exploration.

Jupiter is five times farther from the sun than Earth, so the gas giant receives 25 percent less sunlight.

…

(Not even close… well… to be fair, they got the 5×5=25 part right.)

For those who don’t remember their high school physics, by the “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law#Light_and_other_electromagnetic_radiation">Inverse Square Law” Jupiter (5 times as far away from the Sun as Earth) would receive 1/5²th (1/25th) as intense sunlight (or, 96 “percent less sunlight.”)

I saw this same blunder in our local Gannett paper, suggesting that this was Gannett’s error.

How many times was this reviewed without someone saying, “Hmmm… something doesn’t seem right…”

[LuvNewcastle]

1. It looks like the major networks have non one

who can use a calculator properly. I don't have cable, so unless I'm watching Nova, I don't really trust any figures I hear on television.

[ejpoeta]

2. well, like people who run a cash register, they aren't paid to be able to do math...

they are paid to read the script (push the correct buttons). frankly, it doesn't really matter if the information is correct as we have seen in the past, be it science, or politics or anything else.... they have a meme to sell and facts are of no importance in that meme.

[hunter]

3. They are just as bad with political issues, economic issues...

:(

[GeorgeGist]

4. Thanks for picking ...

the nit out of an otherwise interesting article, :nit wit:

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. And may I say thanks for your contribution?

It certainly adds something to the discussion.